Page 75 of The Confidant
When one of the Elders stood by my dad, I realized why Xander was here today instead of in New Haven. “Did you come home this weekend because you knew Elder Radley would be speaking?”
He nodded as he unbuttoned his suit coat. “Your dad mentioned it while we were chatting on the phone earlier this week, so I changed my plans to be in town for it. Elder Radley’s talks have always been my favorites.”
“I usually like his, too.”
The Elders—the men who were in the office just below the High Priest in our church’s hierarchy—frequently traveled to the different congregations in the church district they were in charge of, giving the members inspired messages for our day. So it was always a special treat to have one come.
“Any idea what he’ll be talking about today?” I whispered as Elder Radley pulled an iPad, which probably held the notes for his sermon, out from his suit coat.
“Not sure.” Xander shrugged, his shoulder rubbing against mine with the movement and wafting some of his expensive-smelling cologne my way. “But I’m sure it’s a good one. He was actually scheduled to talk somewhere else before the High Priest asked him to change plans and come here today.”
“Good thing I brought my notebook then,” I said.
I always jotted down notes here and there during the sermons so that I could reference them in my interview with my dad afterwards. I doubted my dad would grill me too much today—after all, he could see me on the front row and know whether I was paying attention or not. But if this was going to be a special sermon that the High Priest had felt inspired for Elder Radley to give, I might be transcribing the whole thing.
I loved that our church had continued revelation. It was always fun anticipating what new, groundbreaking news the High Priest and the Elders had to share with us since the revelation came to them directly from God.
Would he be announcing a new church building being built across the world? We were told we were living in the last days before Jehovah and Samuel Williams’s return to Earth, so it would make sense that the gospel would be spreading faster as more people felt God’s work being furthered.
Or maybe he was here to give us an update on the Code of Health—something I’d felt would be particularly timely since the Hight Priest was almost ninety, and I was sure he had some great insights into how we could live long and healthier lives like him.
But Elder Radley began explaining the importance of staying on the straight and narrow path instead and making sure we were careful of whom we associated with.
“We’re living in the last days where Satan and his Henchman are increasingly cunning,” Elder Radley said boldly into the microphone. “Even the most valiant are getting caught up in the twisted web of lies that they are weaving. We cannot be lazy learners. We cannot let our guards down for even a second. I know there are a few, once beloved members of your own congregation who have become victims of this. They were not vigilant in nourishing their testimonies in the gospel. They were not cautious with the material they allowed to enter their minds and it has damaged their ability to discern between truth and fiction.”
He paused for a moment, and I was pretty sure he glanced my way before looking out at the rest of the congregation again. “We can be polite to those who have gone astray, but it is imperative that we do not let them pull us down the path of darkness and misery with them. I exhort you all to be diligent in keeping the commandments and immersing yourself in the teachings of our beloved High Priest and the words of Jehovah, so you don’t find yourself caught up in the bondage of the adversary and headed down the same path that our once valiant friends have chosen.”
Is he talking about Hunter’s family?I wondered as a chill raced down my spine. Because from the way he’d looked at me, the pastor’s daughter who was known to have been close with the Blackwells, it definitely seemed like it.
Seemed like this whole sermon might actually be a form of damage control for the disruption their absence had brought to the members of my dad’s congregation.
And if it was about them, I couldn’t help but think that Elder Radley was being really dismissive and almost like he was trying to turn the whole congregation against them instead of encouraging us to help them back.
I mean, isn’t that what Jehovah said we should do? To reach out to the lost sheep?
Even though I might not be on the best of terms with Hunter at the moment and I had said some careless things about his level of belief in one of our last conversations, I knew that he had been a true believer before this year. And he’d most definitely been a better student of the gospel than me if he’d read Visitations with Jehovah a dozen times like he’d said he had.
I didn’t understand exactly what Hunter and his family had been through to push them out of the church, but they had not been lazy learners. If anything, it sounded like their doubts had made them study more than most of the members I knew.
As Elder Radley continued to talk, instead of being an uplifting sermon that made me want to be a better person, he went on a rampage of telling us how much better the members of The Fold were than the non-believers without the gospel.
He talked about how when we were baptized into The Fold, we were given the special gift of the spirit that helped us seek out and discern the truth—something those without the gospel weren’t worthy to have.
I’d probably heard dozens of sermons like this before, but now that I had a friend on the other side, I was hearing it with different ears.
I also didn’t love the way he spoke as if we were superior to the non-believers. The way he was actually demonizing them.
I mean, what if one of them happened to come in here today? Hearing them being talked about like this wouldn’t make them want to come back.
People came to church to hear uplifting messages. Not to hear fear-inducing talks like this.
By the time he was finished and the closing hymn started, I was ready to get out of the chapel. I needed some fresh air to clear the conflicting thoughts going through my head. So I pretended like I needed a bathroom break. I walked out the chapel doors and went outside to sit on one of the benches.
I didn’t know why I was so upset after hearing Elder Radley’s talk. He really hadn’t said anything I hadn’t heard before.
Was I just projecting my own thoughts onto his sermon? Was it possible he wasn’t even talking about Hunter’s family being the “valiant friends” who left the church?
But having Hunter’s family in my mind just made the words sting a little more, because it made their choice seem so final and scary.
