The Late, Great, New & Improved Dr. Doctrine: Chapter Four

I recently wrote a little story as a favor to a friend. He went another way, so I thought I'd post it here.

It's worth noting that the theme of this piece is not something I'm totally comfortable with. I've lately been feeling the need to put myself in more direct conversation with the people who disagree with me. It helps that the person who got me started on telling this story is a friend; the prominence given to God's wrath among people preoccupied with doctrine notwithstanding, in this case as in most cases, love starts, surrounds and sustains the story.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little parable. And I hope you don't take it any more seriously than I do. It is, after all, only a story.

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A few days later Dr. Doctrine and the Pied Piper met. Dr. Doctrine beamed brighter and brighter as they spoke: here, finally, was someone who understood the real priorities of medicine: first, do no harm; thereafter, prescribe the whole cure for the whole person. More than that, though: here was someone who could communicate the importance of good medical care in ways that made people eager to be treated, eager to make important life changes, eager to be healed and made whole. The Pied Piper could beat Dee Constructionist and Dr. Phil N. DeBlanc at their own game, and the town would be better off for it.

The day of the presentation came, and a large crowd gathered to learn the Pied Piper’s “exciting new method.” They were surprised to see Dr. Doctrine on the stage, but throughout his enthralling presentation the Pied Piper, true to his word, directed his audience to “seek true, whole healing,” which they would find at Dr. Doctrine’s office. By the end of the presentation, whole families were rushing the stage to thank the Pied Piper and to schedule appointments with Dr. Doctrine.

Things are better in town these days. Dee Constructionist and Dr. Phil N. DeBlanc are still in business, but they’re not growing like they had been, and more and more people are recognizing the flaws in their philosophies. Meanwhile, Dr. Doctrine hasn’t just added patients but other doctors, people who are committed, as he is, to treating the whole person with whole cures. This is, of course, nothing new: patients throughout the ages have needed exactly this kind of patient care. But sometimes the rediscovery of old things changes everything, people begin to look not just to the next new thing but to the tested and true. In doing so they move from sickness to health, from death to life. You might even say they’ve been born again. Dr. Doctrine is just fine with that: of all the medical care he offers his patients, new birth is his favorite practice.

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To be continued . . . ?