The Last Judgment (9 page)

“And your memo book contains your notes written at the time of the arrest, at the time of your encounter with Mr. Amahn, when the matters you're testifying about today were the freshest in your memory, correct?”

The deputy paused one last time before answering.

“I've testified to what I recall happened that day. Not everything I observed or heard was recorded in my memo book.”

“But the fact is,” Will said, his voice rising now with a sense of finality, “that Gilead Amahn's statement about not being afraid of violence was
not
in response to any questions by you about his intentions to create a violent episode, or a riot—but in fact had to do with his feelings while he was being beaten and pursued by the crowd. Correct?”

“I guess so.”

“Deputy—can you point out any entry you made in this memo book, on the day in question, where you record any statement from Gilead Amahn in which he indicates his sharing his religious beliefs with the attendees of the Islamic conference was intended in any way to provoke, instigate, or incite a riot or a public disturbance?”

“I don't believe so. I don't believe there's anything in my memo book that says that,” the deputy answered.

“But Gilead Amahn did tell you in the squad car that the reason he felt compelled to share his faith in the midst of such a hostile environment was that he was a former Muslim himself. That his mother had been a former Muslim. And that his mother had been killed for her faith over in Cairo, Egypt. Is this all correct?”

The Commonwealth attorney leaped to his feet and objected to the multiple form of the question.

Judge Hadfeld sustained the objection with a growing sense of impatience.

Will asked the question again, this time breaking it down into several parts, but with increasing emphasis in his voice.

“Yes,” the deputy answered quietly. “Mr. Amahn did say some of those things.”

Will rested his cross-examination, and the prosecutor presented no redirect and rested his case. Will then began arguing his motion for dismissal based on grounds of free speech and free exercise of religion. But Judge Hadfeld quickly cut him off.

“Counsel, I'm not going to grant your motion. But you can renew these arguments again in detail after the close of all the testimony. Now let's hear the defense case.”

Will nodded, then bent down to Gilead Amahn, who had been sitting quietly and patiently next to him at counsel table.

“This is it,” he whispered to his client. “Are you ready? If you'd like me to ask the Court to start this after lunch, I could probably make a pitch that way…”

“No,” Gilead replied confidently, “I would like to testify now. Let's go.”

He quickly made his way to the stand, raised his right hand with his left hand on the Bible, and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God. And then he sat down.

Will looked at Gilead, ready to commence his direct examination—but noticed something in his client's expression.

His eyes were not on Will or anything else in the courtroom, but somewhere else. Nor did he appear nervous. His face was relaxed, with a slight smile. It was as if Gilead Amahn, while waiting to testify in his own criminal case, was actually harboring a secret that had little to do with the legal proceedings in the District Court of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Will had thoroughly prepared his client for the trial, conducting a painstaking review of the sheriff's department's incident reports. However, he had been unsuccessful in his attempt to get the reports of the federal agents and the Department of Justice relating to their initial temporary detention of Gilead Amahn.

If his client was hiding something, Will wondered whether it, like some concealed detonation device, would be inadvertently tripped during the trial.

12

“G
ILEAD, TO REVIEW, THESE ARE THE REASONS
that you went to the conference at the Islamic Center that day: to preach Jesus Christ to those Muslim attendees, to honor the memory of your dead mother, who gave her life for her Christian faith, and to obey what you described as the command of the Great Commission—to preach the gospel to the whole world?”

“Yes, Mr. Chambers. That is why.”

“Did you deliberately seek to incite a violent reaction?”

“Of course not. That would be wrong.”

“What desire did you have to cause injury or harm to the attendees?”

“None whatsoever. I was very distressed that one of those in the audience—that professor fellow from Florida—got injured.”

“Did you make any threatening gestures while delivering your comments in the auditorium?”

“No.”

“Did you threaten to commit any act of violence yourself?”

“No.”

“What is the best description you can give of the nature of your comments that day at the Islamic Center?”

“Evangelistic. I was doing evangelism. Delivering the message of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Will rested his direct examination. The Commonwealth attorney stood up slowly and confidently.

“Mr. Amahn. You said you were being an evangelist—is that what you said?' ”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I've been to some real hell-fire-and-brimstone church services—but no evangelist I know gives a sermon with the intent that folks start throwing punches and get broken arms. Now, are you saying that you believed—as an
evangelist
—that you were somehow above the law?”

“Oh no. I never believed that.”

“But you
knew
that the whole auditorium of die-hard, fundamentalist-type Muslims—when you got through having your say—that they would set on you like a swarm of angry hornets out of a nest that had just gotten whacked. Right? You knew that, didn't you, Mr. Amahn?”

“I thought it might happen—”

“You told the deputy, in fact, that
you knew that they would react.
Those were your very words—your words to the deputy when he arrested you and put you in the squad car. Those were your
exact words
.”

Gilead was silent, considering the question.

“Speak up there, Mr. Amahn. Those were
your words
—admit it.”

“Yes.”

“I don't know about you, Mr. Amahn, but I can't think of any Christian men in the preaching ministry that give a sermon knowing it might cause a riot…”

“I can.”

“Oh? You can? You really can?”

“Yes.”

“Name one.”

“The apostle Paul. The riot that broke out in Ephesus. Book of Acts, chapter nineteen.”

The prosecutor waved his hands to signal a different tack in his questions, but not before Gilead added one more comment.

“Verses twenty-two to the end of the chapter, I believe.”

“You are comparing yourself to the apostle Paul—to Saint Paul himself, now are you?”

“Oh no.”

“And even Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers'—didn't He?” the prosecutor asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Yes.”

But before his questioner could change the subject, Gilead continued.

“But you see,” Gilead added softly, “Jesus, in His sermons, said He was many different things. Some were very beautiful and pleasant—He called Himself a shepherd…a door…waters of eternal life. Others were not so pleasant. Jesus also said that he came as a
sword
.”

“Are you saying that you were a sword, Mr. Amahn? Is that what you were, over there at the Islamic Center? A sword that would cut into the hearts of those people—who don't share your religious beliefs—prompting them to explode in a natural expression of anger at your insults—”

“I did not insult them—”

“Oh? You didn't?” the prosecutor said, his voice rising to almost a falsetto.

“ ‘You false teachers of the law…woe to you who lead millions upon millions astray'—if I am not mistaken, those were your exact words spoken at the microphone in the Islamic Center, isn't that correct? ”

“Yes, but—”

“ ‘Idolaters of religion, falsely so-called, vainly puffed up by your fleshly minds, taking delight in false humility and worship of angelic creatures'—those were also your words. Weren't they, Mr. Amahn?”

“I do admit I said that—”

“And you don't think that your words were insulting?”

Gilead was silent.

“You don't think that a bunch of fundamentalist Muslim clerics wouldn't be outraged by such epithets being hurled at them?”

When Gilead still did not respond, the prosecutor snorted, then told the judge he didn't need to hear the answer. He rested his cross-examination.

Will Chambers rose to his feet slowly. He was unperturbed.

“Gilead.”

“Yes, Mr. Chambers.”

“Those words you spoke at the microphone. Before the riot broke out. You said that these Islamic teachers were ‘vainly puffed up by your fleshly minds, taking delight in false humility.' Right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where did you get those phrases—those words?”

“From the Bible.”

“The New Testament?”

“That's right.”

“As a matter of fact, you were quoting, more or less, from the book of Colossians, chapter two, verse eighteen—isn't that right?”

“Exactly right.”

“Why?”

“Because in that part of Colossians, Paul is attacking the idea of false religion.”

“What kind of false religion?”

“The kind that imposes impossible, man-made standards of conduct as a condition of salvation. Paul calls them ‘self-imposed religion'—in contrast to God's truth revealed in the gospel.”

“And why did you pick that message to deliver that day?”

“Because I felt that, as a former Muslim myself, I wanted them to understand that grace and freedom and salvation comes only in one way—and not in some self-imposed rituals or commandments.”

Will paused a moment before his last series of questions.

“Gilead, can the message of Christ sometimes be like a door—and also at the same time, be like a sword—depending on the attitude of the hearer of that message?”

“Absolutely. To the seeker with an open heart, Jesus is the doorway leading to eternal life.”

“And how about the person with a closed heart?”

“I suppose to that person, the message I gave…was like a sword.”

“So,” Will concluded, “whether the person sees a door or feels the cold steel of a piercing sword—that's really up to them, isn't it?”

“Yes, Mr. Chambers. It is.”

Will sat down.

The Commonwealth attorney rose for his final recross.

“A sword?”

“Yes. That's what I said,” Gilead answered.

“So you are the almighty ‘sword of the Lord'—is that it?”

“I didn't exactly say that—”

“But Jesus said He was the sword, didn't He?”

“Yes. At one point in the Scriptures, He does say that.”

The prosecutor narrowed his eyes and studied the defendant sitting calmly in the witness chair. Several seconds went by in silence as the prosecutor allowed the thought of Christian terrorism to sink into the judge's deliberations. Then he asked his last question.

“You consider yourself some kind of messiah, Mr. Amahn?”

Instinctively, Will Chambers was on his feet, objecting to the question on the grounds that it was argumentative.

The judge sustained it and instructed Gilead not to answer.

With that, the prosecutor, confident in the effect created by his interrogation, leaned back comfortably in his chair.

But somewhere—just outside the regions of the trial-lawyer part of Will Chambers' brain—something was telling him that it was too bad he had had to object to that last question.

To Will, Gilead's quiet, impervious calm up there in the witness stand…and the mysterious smile that said little but seemed to conceal much…had raised more questions than answers, despite the orthodoxy of his testimony.

For reasons that could only be assigned to intuition, or some spiritual experience of the numinous that had made the hair rise a little on the back of his neck, Will Chambers could only wonder how his client would have answered that question.

13

“S
O YOU THINK THIS WHOLE CASE
boils down to this question—whether Gilead Amahn's comments at the Islamic Center constituted ‘fighting words.' Is that your position, Mr. Chambers?”