Epilogue

This repentant man was invited back by letter to attend feast days at the Church of Israel in September, 1999. Upon arrival there, he was immediately met by Pastor Dan Gayman and told he should turn around, leave the Church grounds, and go home. This man's response was shock with sadness, that now after having waited for over 3 years, and though he had been invited back, he was now being told to leave once again. With tears of sadness he patiently told Pastor Gayman that he would leave quietly and without fanfare or trouble, return home to another state, and that he would never again request to return. He told Pastor Gayman that he would no longer have the "[name withheld] problem" to deal with.
Later that same day, with a full house for a special Atonement church service, one lone male member of the local Schell City Church of Israel congregation fell prostrate on the floor as church was concluding. This man cried out with weeping and stated publicly that he forgave the repentant one, who had quietly driven away just hours earlier. A fax letter was sent by Pastor Gayman immediately inviting [name withheld] to "turn around and come back." After some four hours on the road, this man's car broke down, and had to be towed to a repair shop. From the repair shop he "phoned home," and received the message to "turn around and come back," which he did as soon as his car was repaired the same day. He had a wonderful restoration with all his brethren whom he had mostly not seen in over three years. This man has since attended a number of festivals, with no negative incidents at all.
Upon reflection, there remain many unanswered questions, not about the restoration of the repentant one, but about why restoration was affirmed and a date set by Pastor Gayman, then restoration was denied even as a possibility (due to news media, loss of jobs, etc). What happenned to Pastor Gayman's long line up of supposed dangers to the local Church of Israel, if this man were ever to return there? Where have the "news media" been, during and after the successful restoration of this man? Who lost his job, as Pastor Gayman had said would happen, if this man were invited back? Which parent stood in church that day and protested his restoration then, or later in private? What happenned to the long string of other "consequences" of this man's original offense, which were billed by Pastor Gayman as the reasons he could not ever come back to the Church of Israel? Is this another example of Pastor Gayman's duplicity, his "double standard?"
The moral of this story becomes quite clear. There is a clear problem here, but not with the restoration of a repentant sinner, who came back without media fanfare and with no one losing a single job. There is a problem with a minister whose agenda became quite clear through this ordeal. That agenda was to avoid conflict at all costs. That agenda was to defend the hard hearted one whose well known anger and bitterness would not be confronted, not even by Pastor Dan Gayman, because he "might get mad and leave."
One lone hard hearted unrepentant man had successfully pressured Pastor Dan Gayman into keeping another gentle and long repentant man away from the Church of Israel for over three years (or at least for over two years, if we allow that the first year was proper due to the sin). Would the repentant man have been received back two years sooner, had the hard hearted man repented earlier? We are left to believe so, since there was not a single other voice who opposed the repentant man's return at the Church of Israel in September, 1999. We are all left to conclude that Pastor Dan Gayman refused to confront the unforgiving hard hearted man with his sin, even while he yielded to the pressures of that man to keep the soft hearted, repentant man away! For a minister of God to "punish" the repentant, while "defending" the undisciplined and recalcitrant man for over two years is a bizarre circumstance indeed. These things are submitted to the reader for whatever conclusions may be rightly drawn.