Dogwood’s Dilemma

A View [Not] From the Pew
by Gerry Hunter

From the Desk The Undersecretary for Ecclesiastical Subversion

My Dear Dogwood,

On the one hand, I should be grateful to you for the derisive cackles that your application for acceptance into the Tempter Advancement Programme gave rise to at the meeting of the selection committee. On the other hand, once again, you have shown yourself quite incapable of managing what you have set in motion. And as a result of your drawing attention to this shortcoming through your application, there has been murmuring from the deepest parts of the lowrarchy directed at me, both as the undersecretary responsible, and as your uncle. Do not think for a moment that your vain presumption in applying for accelerated advancement downward, admirable though it might be in itself, will mitigate the wrath you have coming to you.

You know full well, because you were at the briefing, that Our Father Below was adamant in his determination not to repeat the mistakes made with that united church in Canada. Our goal has always been to turn the Enemy’s churches into instruments of our own purpose. It is so far from victory when we simply make them irrelevant to Christian witness that it is tantamount to abject failure. We wanted the Anglican expression of that institution to become more than just a place where the revealed truth and wretched Gospel the Enemy proclaimed ceased to have influence among the membership. We wanted to make it a place where the lies we induced that gullible woman in the garden to accept – about being gods, knowing right from wrong on their own reckoning, and being immortal through their own efforts – would be instilled and propagated on a massive scale. We wanted more than just an institution that had ceased to be relevant as a source of Christian witness, where such witness that survived was confined to a few enclaves of faithfulness to the enemy. Those enclaves are like cancers. They grow, and without something to overwhelm them, they can be real dangers for our war effort. By Hell, unless they are totally isolated and eradicated, those cancers can even revitalize the whole body. And now, thanks to your ineptitude, that’s just what might happen.

From the looks of things, you have yourself been duped by the very illusion that you foisted off on the church in New Westminster. You had everything going for you. Their headman was fully on board with the program, and had made some invaluable contacts among the folks he hobnobbed with in Brazil after he led his synod to do what suited us. You had them so turned inward that they really thought that, gathered together, they were in a position to set revelation aside and define reality as being what they voted it to be. In a superb realization of the “10-10-80” scheme (and oh, how I want to get my hands on that Guinness fellow for letting that one out of the bag), they had seized the levers of corporate control, and made sure that they would never be worked for the enemy’s purposes. Didn’t you realize how utterly important it was that if they worked them at all after that, they would have to do so with extreme finesse at first? Of course, you dolt, we wanted them to be brimming full of hubris. We all wanted that professor from the theology school we’ve neutralized to sing the praises of “order” as an excuse for disconnecting those pesky, malignant “dissidents” from the wider structures. But surely you didn’t believe for a moment that would be the end of it? Wanting those people to think themselves the be-all and end-all as they gathered to talk about money is one thing. Actually letting them base their actions on that premise is a blunder for which, you can be sure, I will enjoy making you pay.

The signs were all around you. The national Bishops who expressed their deep concerns over the turn of events last June were stymied in their House, but they never really gave in or gave up, as you seem to think they might have. Those pesky higher-ups from abroad who came on Labour Day should have been another warning to you. Of course we wanted the local ringleader to spin the observations that they and the national Bishops made as being “advice” to him, which he could accept or ignore. But it was your job to make sure he didn’t act as if that were really the case, and in that, you have, once again, failed miserably.

We here at headquarters can only wonder where you were and what you were about as other Christians were showing support for the “dissidents.” It’s one thing when some of their own kind won’t get with the program, and express support for the opposition to the scheme we favour. But when followers of the Enemy with a different tradition start doing so, surely that requires some action on your part. We have a master plan here, and it’s nothing less than an attack on the family and the order of life the Enemy has prescribed for the human vermin. So why didn’t you act when those people out in the far Eastern reaches of the battleground staged a rally of support? Not only didn’t you act on that, you seem to have done nothing about another gathering of support closer in to the center of action. You had a golden opportunity there. The featured speaker was from a group that your colleagues had done a fine job of marginalizing. And to top it all off, just a couple of weeks ago, a whole bunch of the Enemy’s followers gathered to pray in defense of the very things we are out to attack. That pesky group headquartered in Rome organized it, and not only did people from all different expressions of devotion to the Enemy turn up, but one of the “dissident” ringleaders actually lead them in prayer, as did other ringleaders, including the arch-leader of the local Roman faction. Don’t you realize that, while you have done nothing to effect, there has been an outbreak of Mere Christianity in support of those recalcitrant, obstinate, followers of the Enemy? No wonder I’m getting murmured at!

So then, instead of a steady neutralizing of witness to the Enemy, and an eventual co-opting of a corporate apparatus to oppose His plans, we have an outbreak of what He terms faithfulness. Do you not see the possible consequences? Instead of isolated cranks, we have focal points of faithfulness. Instead of division over details, we have a coming together under the banner of common Christian precepts. And to top it all off, it now appears that one of the principle supporters of the Enemy in the nearby region has been moved to act, with the support of people who are putting aside differences about the organization to support him. Has it escaped your notice, perhaps through believing your own disinformation, that the five senior corporate Enemy agents who endorse the local leader do so in spite of past differences in approach? We had made a good deal of capital out of the irregularity of the action of two of these senior agents. And now, three more senior agents have come together with them. And you, imbecile, don’t even have an overt act of “blessing a union” to show for your efforts. Instead, all you have is a ringleader desperately trying to cover up his stalling tactics during a process he admitted he never believed in, and who has turned to working the corporate levers in a manner that bespeaks fear and loss of control. (I know he never really had control, but your job was to make sure he thought he had, and there will be no defense of excuse for not doing so.)

So, as for your application to advance down the lowrarchy, I think you know what’s going to become of that. Whatever made you think that nurturing an outbreak of Mere Christianity, that could lead to renewal of the very corporate structure we are out to undermine, and the growth and spreading of those cancerous tumors that took form last June, would win you any favour at all is beyond me. Of course, all is not lost. There is bound to be a certain amount of disruption and friction that may provide us a chance to salvage things. But you have turned what was looking like a sure thing into a roll of the dice, and it’s the Enemy, not us, who has growing influence on the outcome of things. Fire and brimstone, the Enemy’s followers are coming together in His name! You, you little twit, may yet be responsible for an outbreak of clear, effective witness to the Enemy that hasn’t been seen in a very long time, and that might jeopardize the master plan itself. And thanks to you, I now have to write a report on this mess to the Profound Management Committee. I’ll be sure to send you a copy of the section with my recommendations on what to do with you. Meanwhile, I remain as ever,

Your affectionate uncle,

Tapeworm