For an hour, Keith Hudson has been pacing around the sanctuary of the Kings Road Church on the outskirts of London. With his shaved head, wide-open eyes and thick black glasses, he’s a striking figure who frequently punctuates his sermon with a loud “Hallelujah!” As his wife Mary watches on, he has been telling the congregation his story — that Satan has lured his daughter away, that she has fallen. But that he must love her anyway. Must pray for her. Pretty typical stuff for a preacher — even an American one so far from home. But then he stops short, ready to unleash his big pitch. With tears in his eyes, hollering at the top of his voice, he delivers his keynote with as much bombast as he can muster: “I kissed God — and I liked it!” Hold on a minute. Isn’t that a pop song? Who’d this guy steal that line from? His own daughter, Katy Perry, is who. But unfortunately, thanks to her massively successful career and semi-Hindu husband, she is most certainly going to hell. For years, [Katy’s parents] crisscrossed the United States, preaching. Then they settled in Santa Barbara, Calif., and founded the Christian Oasis Center before moving on to their current headquarters, the Life Christian Church, just north of San Diego. Except for a circuit of evangelical churches, not many people cared about the Hudsons. Until four years ago that is, when their controversial daughter became an overnight sensation with that song, “I Kissed a Girl,” and Keith and Mary Hudson suddenly hit heavenly paydirt, touring on a circuit that took them to eight countries last year and even a date in the Poconos next month, when they appear at Life Church in Poconos Pines, Pa. With her penchant for skintight, bust-flaunting latex dresses, suggestive dance routines and risqué songs about lesbianism, Perry seems about as Christian as a tweet from Anthony Weiner. Yet week in and week out, her global notoriety is being exploited by the Hudsons — Perry is Mary’s maiden name — to spread their version of the Gospel and simultaneously expand the scope of their ministry. While publicly declaring concern over their wayward daughter — she is, they candidly admit, destined for hell. Consider their itinerary. This month they are touring Texas, California and Panama City, Panama. Last month it was Georgia, Florida and Medellin, Colombia. The month before that a visit to England. Their services repeatedly namecheck Perry and her husband, Russell Brand, the English comic with a lurid past of drug addiction and rampant promiscuity. In his London sermon, it’s an odd mix of boastful exhilaration (”Anyone here heard of Russell Brand? He’s my son in law. I love Russell. He’s a wonderful man.”) and overwrought condescension (”We pray for him — pray for the entertainers.”).
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