These days, preachers don’t get a pass. We have seen too many religious leaders turn out creepy, covering up their own crimes and others’. What lies behind preachers’ charm and their attractive speech? We wonder.

I’ve been thinking about my dad, a Presbyterian minister all his adult life. “Presbyterian” suggests smooth, deep-voiced pronouncements, but my dad was a different sort: excitable, emotional, intense. He loved preaching. He was a heart-and-soul evangelical in a day when that meant commitment to the Bible and to personal transformation, not political affiliation.

I never doubted for a moment that he was utterly genuine. I don’t believe, and never did, that he had a secret side. He died in 2006, seventeen years ago, after a long bout with Alzheimer’s.  Those years were not easy for him or for those who loved him. I’ve been remembering, however, two aspects that revealed my dad’s heart.

You’ve probably heard of people who turn mean in dementia, losing the filters that helped them keep their true feelings under cover. Some begin to swear a blue streak, others tell dirty jokes, some have anger outbursts. I know of several charming socialites whose helpers quit, one after another, because they were so mistreated. When inhibitions are lost and the true person comes out, it can be an awful thing.

My dad was an intellect, who read theology for fun. He had an incisive mind and a steel-trap memory. All that was lost, however, when he developed Alzheimer’s. He couldn’t follow an argument anymore. I don’t think he knew what an argument was. Serendipitously, his questing mind stumbled on a series of devotional books. They made deeply sincere appeals to the heart. My dad wouldn’t have found them to be of any interest before the disease. Not intellectually stimulating, he would have thought. Now he became obsessed with reading them. He found them enthralling and deeply moving. I looked through one once, curious to see what had captured his heart. The prose seemed exquisitely ordinary, making earnest calls to come closer to Jesus. My dad had underlined every single word in the entire book. When his intellect was gone, his heart belonged passionately to Jesus. With his filters gone, he loved more than ever. He believed what he had preached.

My dad liked to walk in the mall. He always enjoyed greeting little children, even though I think he made some of their mothers nervous with his friendliness. With Alzheimer’s he developed a regular habit—or ministry, as he considered it—of greeting the workers who manned the kiosks on the main floor, selling jewelry or food or trinkets. He came to know them all, making a daily circuit to greet them. It cheered him tremendously that they were friendly to him. Sometimes he would give away a Bible if someone wanted one. Mainly, though, he acted as a friendly passer-by. I walked with him a few times and he was eager to introduce me to his friends. At the time I was bemused. In retrospect I see it as a lovely revelation of his true character. He was just as proud to know these unknown, unseen, underpaid workers as he had been to know the well-dressed, well-fed members of his churches.

I deeply regret that my dad didn’t get to finish his life with his mental faculties intact. Alzheimer’s brought many severe challenges, such as paranoia (for a time he thought that TV villains were real and that murderers had invaded his home). I want to note, however, that without Alzheimer’s I might never have known that Jesus had touched him so deeply, core deep, in loving God and loving his neighbor. He really was what he professed to be.