When we last left our hireling-without-raiment he was telling us that we should question everything, especially our theology and our ideas of church and ministry. Well, that was utter nonsense and we all knew it immediately. It was so obvious that even David recognized it as nonsense, and he very helpfully came over and amended his insight: what he should have said, he now guesses, is that "we need to question all of our theology and reject all that which endorses power, etc."

And this was most helpful.

Or rather not helpful at all, but perhaps well-meaning. As it must have occurred to you all, questioning everything is impossible: the logical place to start questioning everything is with questioning the questioner. But if you say you are going to question everything and then promise to reject only certain elements, you have already aroused the suspicion of sane and honest people. If before you begin the questioning you name the bits you will reject at the end of the questioning, you are not doing the work of a completely healthy mind.

And to question everything and then reject only those bits that "endorse power" is both intellectually impossible and morally wicked. Even mentally retarded people know that some power is necessary and good. The asylum orderly keeps the big retard from eating the little retard's lunch. Even kids on academic probation in their Sunday School know that God has all power and that he dispenses it according to his will and wisdom.

So for one to comb through all his theology and then "reject all that which endorses power, etc." is—how can I word this delicately?—hmmmm, no, I don't think there is a way to word this delicately, so I'll just say it's asinine.

Is it any wonder that this guy's church is cannibalizing itself?

So in a subsequent episode—and I think here I can use the word episode in its psychological sense—Dave offers this:

The Christian culture I found myself in couldn't give me peace about how other religions fit into the scheme of things, or how people of other faiths or non-faiths were also on a valid path.

My Christian culture, on the other hand, has a ready and perfectly reasonable answer, and it gives me a bowlful of peace garnished with large dollops of hope: "other religions fit into the scheme of things" by providing an occasion for God to dispense either mercy or justice according to his eternal decree. And people of "other faiths and non-faiths" most certainly are on a valid path. As post-modernity has taught us, all paths are equally valid!

We call this the path to Hell. It is not a desirable path, maybe, but it certainly has validity.

It might not be a path that gives Dave peace, but in my own Journey of Questioning I've questioned the need for (or benefit in) David Hayward's getting any peace. I doubt that Dave will ever question that, but who knows? Perhaps there lives in the tropical rain forests a little frog which secretes a goo soon to be harvested to create a wonder drug. Then Dave's prognosis might improve.

So after much prayer, meditation, and contemplation and after taking what he thought were all reasonable measures, Dave finally realized something he knew all along. Here is how he describes it:

The apparent divisions were all unfolding of a deeper and mysterious Oneness. I apprehended the truth that I had to die to all my brain's attempts to grasp for knowledge. I had to humble myself, die to self, and, in a sense, give up the search. It was necessary for me to, in way, stop struggling to stay on the tumultuous surface and sink, sink way down.

I'm tempted to say that Dave's dying to all his brain's attempts to grasp for knowledge was probably as close as he got to a bona fide epiphany. Tragic, is it not, that Dave humbled himself only in his imagination. Humbling himself before Jesus was asking too much.

Pharisaism flourishes in the heart of every degenerate.