The hall had been booked, announcements sent forth
The knife cut excitement lofting thru air
For who could hope to calculate the worth?
The cream of Christendom soon would be there!
Was it a wedding of families great,
Which brought these crusaders o’er the green?
Nay! Naught but prestige to pass thru this gilt gate:
Stately Reform-Con, Twenty-Seventeen!
I first saw the edict on Zuckerberg’s site,
In that fount of all knowledge called the Reformed Pub.
A Calvinist meeting of theological might????
Truly, this could not be of Beelzebub!
My orbs did behold promis’d wonders most fair:
Guest speakers and coffee – symposiums, too!
Only one concern left – how to get on down there?
I booked passage on Delta, and away I did flew!
(Now the cost for this clambake was five hundred dollars,
Which some say is remuneration steep
But a gathering of such preeminent scholars
Cannot be expected to be done on the cheap!)
On I did fly – on and on, and still on
Hardly endeavoring to contain my glee
Like Caesar crossing Old Man Rubicon!
I bawled like a baby thru Toy Story 3.
And then Sir Boeing began his declension
Safely had I arrived – hooray!!!
To the meet’s locale (which I forgot to mention):
Quaint little old Fairfax, Vee Aay.
Now at this point I can hear great shoutings of anger:
‘What ho! Dare you to set foot in the South???
That haven of racists? (Such was Margaret Sanger!)
You warrant no less than a punch in the mouth!!!’
But brethren, I beg you – please hark to my plea:
This is the New South – cosmopolitan sure.
They’ve taken great pains to erase history!
Dost not that bespeak a conscience so pure?
Next morning I woke, rather late and quite groggy
(I’d partaken too much of the inn’s candy bars)
And my spilled Pepsi can had left pretty soggy
Reform-Con’s schedule – I’d brought it in from the car.
What matter! Said I – this life must have its trials!
The crucial thing is: I still have the address!
And so I prepar’d to cover the miles!
Like Vitus Bering, I set the GPS.
The traffic was heavy, it being past four
And my wee rental Prius was sluggish as hell
But as I approached fair conference’s door
All was forgot – my effete heart did swell!
What words can I blat, to express my delight
At the veritable Eden presented therein?
A gaggle of gents – bearded, grave, and uptight
Firm of conviction and unworthy of sin!
In their fresh pressed blue suits they engaged in discourse!
They talked there of golf, and showed off their Kindles
Of their pained looks, I considered the source:
Could they before have been sitting on spindles?
The women were fair, in traditional dress
The thought of the modern made them quite queasy!
And often they bent to gently caress
Their ebon orphans, adopted from Zambezi.
Fig’ratively speaking, the clock rang ding-dong!
The troupe left off talking, and in an instance,
Like Albion deserting good old Hong Kong,
Tromp’d into the hall. Let the council commence!
Prayers were first offered, most solemn and slow
That all profane jests might be deemed anathema
There followed at once a krunk laser light show
By the stoical gents of stern Apologia.
Then the speakers! And O, may songs e’er be sung
O’er the lore they did shew through a historian’s prism!
The magic began with Kevin DeYoung’s
Two hour talk on supralapsarianism.
Next up was John Piper with his ovoid head
Cramm’d full of good matters incredibly weighty!
He proceeded to denounce gunpowder and lead,
Then a status report on conversions in Haiti.
Thane McDurmon, all tattooed and wise
Proffer’d a game plan most noble and true:
“Let’s denigrate them Confederate guys!!!”
His pleas for AV funds were heeded by few.
Bojidar Marinov, the unshaven Bulgar:
Into liberty’s mine was he wont to delve!
He damned all borders as intrinsically vulgar
Whoso disagreed could go [censored] themselves!
Jolly Pittman, saturated with girth
Knew how Christians could reclaim the culture:
By adding to his and Jeff Durbin’s net worth!
He eyed the doughnuts like a ravenous vulture.
The gravitas broke by a song from LeCrae
Calling John MacArthur a ‘lit’ man of God
(He’d dropped his secularism for to-day!!!)
His dirty hoodie made a most apt ephod.
Till now things had been relatively benign:
Profound and joyous, everyone felt a winner.
But as it was now getting on towards nine
Many a Nazirite now wanted dinner.
Thing is, though: the sched called for just one more feller
To speak before the ordaining of repast:
None other than the renowned Dr. Tim Keller,
On the shame of Jewish men unduly harassed.
“What to do???” cried the admins, their teeth all a-gnashin’
“Such disorder! Such chaos! O, for a scapegoat!!!”
They then thought best (in Presbyterian fashion)
To put the thing up to an audience vote.
A simple solution, befitting this forum!
But there was a fly in the ointment, you see:
The show of hands was short a few for a quorum!
A handful of saints had gone out for a pee.
This matter’d not one whit to the question’s posers.
“Motion carried!” cried they with a pound of the gavel
And began to storm off with the force of bulldozers
To make the late buffet at Golden Corral.
But Keller’s fan club took an irascible sideview,
And howled their frustration with Roundhead elan:
“Thou tyrants! No longer can we bear to abide you!”
They then rushed the stage….thus the melee began.
Never in history’s recorded tensions
Were there such effusions of violence and gore!
Briefcases spilled torn Westmin’ster Confessions,
Certs, and sunglasses all over the floor!
Men hit, bit, slapped, scratched, and spat on each other
Their wingtip-clad hooves kicked out like angry mules.
I gasped ‘He ain’t heavy – he is my brother!’
When Pittman took one such shot straight in the jewels.
And just as my blood could not run more cold
From above, I heard peals of simian laughter
I looked up, and appallingly there did behold
The ebon orphans, swinging mad through the rafters!
I crawled to a barricade made up of tables
Where cringed a systems analyst from Des Moines.
Saith he ‘This isn’t like Anne of Green Gables!
The Eastern Orthodox I think I should join!’
I peered at John Piper, passed out and unfeeling,
A goose egg on his head the size of a pot roast.
(He had charged head down, his arms wildly cartwheeling,
And warp speed’d himself smack dab into a post.)
Gary North broke a chair across Doug Wilson’s teeth,
Voddie Baucham kung fu’ed Durbin most fair.
Marinov, that cagey Slavonic thief
Riffled thru purses – and nobody cared!
Three hours or more things went on with a bang.
Could this dissension possibly get more dire?
Yes it could! My nostrils picked up an acrid tang:
Some zealous Spurgeon had set the hall afire.
Gasping and choking, I stumbled on out
Past McDurmon, pinn’d underneath a fallen spar
As the flames engulfed him I heard his dying shout:
‘All this fire, but no damned Cuban cigar!!!’
The hall did collapse, the Fairfax sirens did wail:
The city’s finest had arrived at the scene!
They tased me and clubbed me and threw me in jail,
Which was perfectly cool, because Romans 13.
The casualty list was horrendously high
And much facial hair was irreparably singed
The victims went back home to have a good cry
And treated themselves to a Walking Dead binge.
A week later, while dining at a Pizza Hut
I considered the moral to be gleaned from this schism:
Granted, these people are certified nuts,
But give credit where due – they ain’t preachin’ kinism!
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