Memoir Passage: The Impossible Equation
The fear was gone; only terror remained.
Stewart had spent one meeting telling us our foundation was built on sand because we lacked Grace. Now, he had poured acid on what little foundation we thought remained, declaring the new truth: “If anyone ever sins, he is not a Christian at all!” He didn’t just correct his past; he annihilated it, along with the spiritual identity of every person in the room.
For twenty-five years, we had been trained to confess our daily failings, but suddenly, every confession became a testimony against ourselves. My quiet, internal struggles were not merely flaws; they were definitive, damning proof that I was not born anew, that I was a mere “sheep” on a path that led to Hell. The relief I had felt when he confessed his error evaporated, replaced by the chilling realization that my struggle was not a sign of imperfection, but a sign of damnation.
The invisible grip had tightened. It wasn’t enough to work hard anymore, as the “Faith Overboard” error had required. Now, we had to become dead men—an impossible equation solved only by the conscious, constant “execution of hope.”
Stewart pointed to our secret desires, our quiet wishes for a nice spouse, a steady job, or any sense of control over our future, and labeled them “a vague hope in this life.” This hope, he insisted, was the last vestige of the old self, and its survival was proof we had not truly died on the cross. We had to literally kill the part of us that cared about this side of eternity. Only then, with our minds and wills entirely fixed on the world to come, could the old self be silenced, and the sinless life begin.
The outsider, John, saw the cruelty clearly, accusing Stewart of using hypnosis and coercion, but we were too far gone to listen. The shame of being a “liar” or a “coward” for clinging to our sin—or, worse, for clinging to the idea that God forgave sin—was heavier than the fear of Stewart’s wrath. His fierce, unrelenting certainty offered an escape from the unbearable ambiguity of our own spiritual lives. He gave us a terrifying, impossible standard, but he also gave us a defined enemy—the sinning, hoping, living “self”—and a single action—the act of dying—to achieve victory. It was the only way to make the past 25 years, and this new, horrifying reality, make any sense at all.