The memory still curls like smoke from a shimmering ember in a cobbled chamber.. The dim light of the Tabernacle flickered like a half-hearted promise as Brother Freeman faced Bishop Blackstone, a man whose words dripped with the weight of authority but lacked a glint of authenticity. Brother Freeman found himself in the crosshairs of the sacred and the profane. The room seemed to throb with a tense silence, broken only by the echo of his condemnation. There was no turning back; the gavel had struck, in their minds they were sealing Brother Freeman’s fate.
Bishop Blackstone stood before him, a man of “the cloth,” yet draped in charlantry, delivering news as flagrant as blind justice.. ‘Brother Freeman,’ he declared, his voice a low rumble, ‘Brother Freeman, ‘it has reached the ears of the esteemed Brother Mathers and Brother Young that you’ve strayed down the shadowy path of evolutionary developmental biology for your junior year.’ Ah, the murky waters of academia come crashing against the sacred shores of cult faith.
‘As a member of our humble fellowship, it pains me to think that one of the unfaithful might steer the faithful off the righteous course.” The weight of those hollow words wafted in the air like a sour stench. ‘It’s with great reluctance,’ he feigned, ‘that the Elders have summoned you before this Tribunal. You are excommunicated from the Kingdom of Heaven, severing ties with the divine fabric of our fellowship. Your faith, once a cherished pearl, is now forfeit.” They unanimously delivered their decree.
“’But fret not, for compassion lingers even here, among the fallen,’ Blackstone added, as if he were handing out lifeboats in a shallow pond, ‘Should you seek forgiveness, perhaps upon your departure from this world, the Right of Baptism for the Dead may be extended to you…. What sayeth you, Mr. Freeman?’ the Bishop queried, a hint of triumph flickering in his eyes. Freeman’s heart burned with the fire of a thousand suns! “Should I seek forgiveness?” he murmured beneath his breath…, “should I seek forgiveness from this tribunal?”
A pause, like the stillness before gunfire, and Freeman’s voice finally cut through. ‘You deny me entry into Heaven for my pursuit of a college diploma…” His words lingered, intoxicating, the sweet taste of forced defiance on his tongue, “You, by your own authority, Man’s authority, have cast me out of heaven even though the Blood of the Lamb is my salvation and all because of an interest in Physical Anthropology?” The room bore witness to a man’s defiance against the brittle chains of a faulty dogma. He leaned forward, his resolve solid as his faith in Christ, carved with grit, “Is this the faith you preach, that what lies between church and state is nothing but an illusion?”
Brother Freeman arose and turned his back on the Tribunal of the Church of Latter Day Saints, “Your unanimous decree is as absurd as your notions of Christianity. Thank God your religion is a farce, or I’d truly be in trouble. Enjoy your day, gentlemen; it looks like I’ll catch you in Hell.” As the door swung shut behind him, Freeman stepped into the refreshing morning breeze, excommunicated from the pearly gates of the Mormon faith, yet somehow in an ironic twist of fate he felt closer to the Holy Spirit than he had in years.