Pastor: “How dare you mock me, assuming a truth can breech the hardened shell of my openly-flaunted moral relativism! I will call upon the bishop I threatened you with to further instantiate my dominion over you in service to my self-aggrandizement, personal safety and security.”

Response: “But dear pastor, if there are rules as you suggest, upon what could these rules be based if not the foundation of common truth? Is this not the basis of our disagreement? Is it not also the basis of my line of questioning to you, in service to the flock that feeds us?”

Pastor: “Heresy! I shall not be questioned in my own castle, especially on matters of importance, for it is I who may declare their importance. Have you not heard of all these powerful men’s names I have dropped while imbued with earthly drink, slurring more with each utterance?”

Response: “Indeed, pastor, the waft of heavy rye has pierced through my senses, the wavering of your physical form is tremendous and noteworthy. The hint of sebaceous glint from the mechanical effort during your threats has become an unholy fever dream that may haunt me forever.”

Pastor: “You dare abjure a leader of a denomination that has been around for decades(!), do you not know of what poison I have beset within each and every one of your social support systems? Our church may be around for decades more, across these you shall lament your insolence.”

Response: “But pastor, are not these wretched corneal forests you chop with each successive blink a result of building such a lengthy abode out of your moral relativism? Could it be any more obvious that I have tried to protect your daughter from the very lumber you have felled?”

Pastor: “Enough with this verbal relativism! Moral relativism has no place for oppositional relativism. You see, boy, my relativism is what grants me such access to power: I can take one man’s gains and turn them into ruin; I have turned many men’s ruin into my own savory gains.”

Response: “But pastor, is this not an abomination!? Help me see how this conforms to the word of God! Is this not an attempt to use God as a tool for your own enrichment, using the flock as gears turning the machinery of the world into an assembly line for personal satisfaction?”

Pastor: “Everything I do I do for my daughter…”

Response: “I pray for her full recovery…”

Pastor: “Enjoy hell, wolf-boy.” He sips another gentle pull from a well-worn crystal tumbler. “You know, it isn’t so much what you have failed to do, it’s what you’re capable of doing. Moreover, it is what you’re capable of saying. It’s relativism that protects elders like me.”

Response: “I don’t understand.” Pastor: “Of course you do. How else would you have known to warn me about what I already knew?” Response: “…” Pastor: “What we do here in this place is ordered *just so* and to disrupt that order is a sin no matter how truthful you wish to be.”

Pastor: “Saving the flock, as you might put it, is not always the prerogative of the order of the flock, which is what I do and what you should have never interrupted.” Response: “How was I supposed to know that? I tried following your rules, what could I have done differently?”

Pastor: “When I told you ‘there are rules’, I never implied you had broken any rule, I signaled to you that we make the rules and that we can alter them at any time an annoyance like yourself comes between our order and an establishment of further order. God is what I say He is.”

Response: “That doesn’t make any sense…” Pastor: “That is because we have changed the rules. You aren’t supposed to ‘make sense’ of our rules, merely obey them.” Response: “But I was obeying the rules you set beforehand, even those ridiculous rules you praised me for obeying!”

Pastor: “This is preliminarily true, but only just so. You displayed a new understanding of the world which altered my appraisal of which rules you are required to obey. Perhaps if it had never occurred to you to ‘warn me’ of anything your current plight could have been avoided.”

Pastor: “See this arrangement in the freshened light you’ve shed upon your level of understanding: it is better for our order that you are discredited. Each truth you tell, no matter how much you strain to tell it, will be met with incredulity, distain, unpleasantries by others.”

Pastor: “We’ve already contacted your employer, who will treat you as though you are mentally disabled, day after day, despite their relative attainment compared to you - this is part of their incentive as well - we allow them their little ‘treat’ in mistreating you without sin.”

Pastor: “You will slowly decline in mental acuity as they berate you, hand-selected for their personal ability to squander your time as ineffectively as possible, ignoring any of your attempts to establish a proper rapport or equilibrium within the domain of human communication.”

Pastor: “You have of course noticed that your family has gone completely insane, we provided them falsified information about you, anything to defeat the most thorough alibi for your distress you could ever produce. I am very good at this. Your friends? An enemy would be kinder.”

Response: “…You are a monster…” Pastor: “I only appear as a monster to you, that much is certain. My reputation spans your whole life. Nothing you could ever say will harm me, no amount of fighting against me will ever be sufficient to dent my authority over how you are seen.”

Pastor: “Do you understand the rules now?” Response: “I understand that you are a psychopath who’s willing to sacrifice your daughter for nothing.” Pastor: “Only partially true: I’m willing to sacrifice you both in service to the order. Your sin was in intervening to keep her.”

Response: “I pray I never meet anyone like you ever again.” Pastor: “Ah, you’re beginning to learn. Good luck, wolf-boy. Keep up the good behavior and you might have your prayers answered. I pray you won’t forget what happens if you continue trying to ‘make sense’ of the world.”

A short story / fanfic entitled: “The United Method of Abuse”