In his collection of essays entitled Off Main Street, Michael Perry recounts how he lost his faith because of a legalistic preacher:

In our little corner of Wyoming, Brother Tim was seen as the heavyweight champ of preaching. Church members would grin and shake their heads in benevolent wonder when recounting his exploits; the deeper implication was that he was not to be messed with. Preaching or not, Brother Tim tended to Hold Forth. This day he was in strong, confident voice, sharing the stories of saints and sinners and their weakness in the face of salvation. There was a woman nearby who had been coming to church off and on for some time. She was a beautiful thing, and, as the story went, had worked as a model. We heard anecdotes of her struggle, of her inability to adhere to our dress code, for which women are forbidden to cut their hair or wear pants. After working with her for some time, with mixed success, Tim paid her a surprise visit. She answered the door in a pair of shorts. By his own account, Brother Tim spun on his heel, walked right back out the sidewalk to his  car, and drove away. The woman who first told me this story chuckled with admiration for Tim's resolve. But the chuckle was double-edged; it also conveyed condescending pity for this woman who didn't know enough to slip into a skirt and save her soul.

The idea of an unannounced inspection struck me as goofy as it was creepy. But that paled in comparison to the idea of this man filled with such vindictive hubris that he was willing to risk this woman's soul to Hell, to abandon her in her own home, willing to stand before the throne of God on the Big Day and say, Lord, she was clad in shorts, so I turned away. I got her behind me, back there with Satan.

I can still see him, down at the end of the long cookhouse table, right across from me, his big frame backlit in the window, telling this story with booming certitude, and I remember thinking, if the kingdom of heaven can swing on a pair of hot pants, if the cut of your shorts can shift the firmament, then we got trouble. And now, when I think back, I feel a little sorry for him, sad that he could tell these stories in front of a kid like me and not have any perception of my perception. Blown up in his own spiritual bulk, he unwittingly blocked the one true light, and a shadow fell on my heart. In time, I came to know others like Tim Copper. In their zeal to count heads, they lost track of souls. And when they saw some of us turn away, they assumed we simply strayed, were tempted away, or left in ignorance, when in truth, many of us left in full awareness, seeking a purer truth. He wasn't the only one. But I remember that Sunday. For the first time, I felt the foundation of my faith crack.

As I read this, I can't help but think of the contrast between the way this preacher treated the girl and the way Jesus treated the woman caught in adultery:

At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”