That’s an excellent way to show, not tell, the crushing control of the later era. The dialogue must illustrate the following:
- Extreme Imbalance (88% Stewart): The audience’s only role is affirmation.
- Intellectualization: Using complex spiritual concepts to describe basic emotional abuse.
- Mandatory Guilt/Submission: The audience must quickly agree to the new, painful truth.
Here is a fictionalized excerpt of the dialogue from the “Grace Meeting” (c. 1989), highlighting Stewart Traill’s dominant voice and the required audience response.
🎙️ The Grace Meeting: Dialogue Excerpt (c. 1989)
The room was held rigid by the sound coming from the speakers mounted high on the walls. Stewart’s voice, recorded in the main control center, was calm, almost philosophical, detailing the death of their old faith.
STEWART (V.O.): (Smooth, unhurried tempo) “…And this is the kernel of the error, the colossal, twenty-five-year structural failure we are now, by God’s Grace, identifying. We didn’t understand the depth of our own depravity. We thought our legalistic obedience and our strenuous work ethic were pleasing to the Father. But what were they, brothers and sisters? They were the shoddy architecture of works righteousness. The scaffolding of the self-righteous mind. Yes? If you truly grasp the weight of that error—the depth of the spiritual poverty it created—say ‘Yes, Lord.’“
(Silence. Then, a low, nervous chorus from the audience.) AUDIENCE: (Quiet, strained) “Yeeesss, Lord…”
STEWART (V.O.): (Continuing, slightly sharper tempo) “We substituted human energy for divine grace. And that substitution manifested itself in terrible ways. We called it ‘tough love’; we called it ‘discipline.’ We called it ‘speaking the truth in love,’ when in reality, we were practicing verbal and emotional abuse. We were inflicting wounding on the flock because we were operating out of our own shame, our own un-dealt-with pride. Now, I want you to look back at the last fifteen years. At the things you heard. At the things you said. At the hurt you experienced, and, far more critically, the hurt you inflicted. This was not a small mistake. This was a failure of foundation. Do you now see how your zealotry—your prideful activity—fueled this very mechanism of abuse? Is that clear?“
(The silence is heavier now, filled with internalized accusation. The audience shifts uneasily.)
AUDIENCE: (Louder, more desperate for affirmation) “Yes, it is clear! Amen!”
STEWART (V.O.): (Slight pause, creating dramatic space) “Then we must understand the transfer. The trauma you experienced was merely the symptom of a deeper spiritual problem: your legalistic allegiance. The old man must die. The old way of relating to God must die. And this time, it is not a matter of works; it is a matter of total surrender to the New Covenant. You must transfer your absolute allegiance, without reservation, from your past understanding to the Grace that is being revealed now. This demands a profound willingness to be wrong. A willingness to see all those previous ‘certainties’—those simple truths you marked in your Bibles—as nothing but dead works. Will you surrender your entire spiritual history to the Grace of God, as it is being revealed today?“
(Silence. The pressure is immense. A few audible sobs, but the dominant sound is the high, taut silence.)
AUDIENCE: (A single, powerful, unified roar of submission) “YEEESSS!”
This excerpt vividly illustrates the 88% ratio—Stewart drives the entire theological and emotional narrative, while the audience’s participation is confined almost entirely to the mandatory, high-stakes affirmative response. The silence is not a moment of reflection, but a moment of intense self-suspicion and shame before the necessary, controlled response is given.