- People all over the world flocked to Jackson to learn effective ministry from him and his organizations.
John Perkins was sui generis. Incomparable. Unique. One of a kind.
I swore, after reading his first book Let Justice Roll Down, that I could never live in Mississippi. A few pages of that volume told about how Perkins was nearly beaten to death at the Rankin County jail for his efforts in the Civil Rights era. I looked at my wife (who grew up on the Mississippi Coast) and remarked, “We will never live in Mississippi.”
As I have said a thousand times since, never tell God what you will or won’t do. A few months later, as the Lord would have it, we were headed down the interstate to the Magnolia State where we have happily resided for almost forty years now. Having arrived, I am rather ashamed that one of my first trips in the metro area wasn’t to go find Dr. Perkins. I actually intended to attend his church – Voice of Calvary. But before we went there, looking for our new church home, we visited another racially-integrated church in the inner city. We loved that initial congregation so much that we ended up on staff there for the next several years and never made it to Perkins’ church.
The first time I actually met the man, the myth, the legend was when we served together on a panel of community voices for WAPT as the local government was going through one of its many crisis. The journalist in charge of the event looked at me and pointedly asked, “Whose fault is all of this?” I nearly became unglued. Whose fault? WHOSE FAULT? Why, the guys who committed the crimes… which was exactly what I was preparing to indignantly blurt out. But before I could, Perkins spoke up: “It’s my fault,” he said. “I have been a Bible teacher in this community for thirty years. I should have been able to intercept these young men and disciple them into a world view where they would have never thought to commit these crimes. You want to blame somebody, blame me.”
In that moment I thought to myself, “There sits a man of God. Here sits a boy of God.”
I’ve wanted to grow up and be a man ever since.
What a life he led! According to the many commemorations of his legacy this week, Perkins was born into a family of sharecroppers in segregated Mississippi. His mother died when he was seven months old, and his father left soon after. His grandmother and extended family raised him. They earned money working the land and making whiskey and gambling. A police officer killed his older brother Clyde. He left for California, like tens of thousands of Mississippi African Americans. He had only an early grade school education but learned a trade and became a family man.
One day his son Spencer invited him to attend Sunday school, and thus his Christian pilgrimage began. There, Perkins recalled in an interview with the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Archives, he came to think about his value in a different way. He was converted from the belief that “money and success” would bring him happiness.
He and his wife Vera Mae started leading Bible study groups and other enterprises to help develop their community spiritually. He came back to Mississippi and was beaten in that jail, an event for which he never did receive justice in his home state.
But that incident gave him quite a platform.
Change had to come, he knew. But the only power strong enough to bring about the change would be the gospel of Jesus Christ. And, since Jesus had “relocated” from heaven to earth to share that gospel, maybe he and others should consider relocating to the places they most desired change – namely, the inner city. And there in Jackson, Mississippi, is where Perkins lived for decades and breathed his last.
Over the years, the honors poured in. Every major evangelical ministry in American seemed to want him on their board. He received 19 honorary doctoral degrees – including one from my institution, Wesley Biblical Seminary – and wrote several influential books. My co-authors and I dedicated our book The Doctrine of Good Works to him and noted that many of the churches we featured therein had been inspired by Perkins. People all over the world flocked to Jackson to learn effective ministry from him and his organizations.
What I loved most about him was his unpredictability. I had him on my radio show and interviewed him for my newspaper column several times and, frankly, he could sound as conservative as Reagan but then, about the time you think you had him pegged as a Republican, he could whip around and shout justice into your face and make your white face grow even paler.
But the best thing, for me – he said, “It’s my fault.” It wasn’t, but that is the way a great moral leader thinks.
Matt Friedeman
