In a storm, I think, 'What if the gospel be not true? Then thou

Host: The storm was already upon the village — wind roaring through the trees, rain pounding against the windows like fists of forgotten saints. The old chapel on the hill stood alone, its candles trembling in their holders, their flames dancing as if afraid to die.

Inside, Jack and Jeeny sat across a rough wooden table, a single lantern between them. Outside, the world thundered. Inside, the soul did.

The quote still hung between them, written in Jeeny’s neat script on a piece of yellowing paper:

“In a storm, I think, ‘What if the gospel be not true? Then thou art, of all men, most foolish. For what hast thou given up—thy goods, thy ease, thy friends, thy reputation, thy country, thy life?’”
— John Wesley

Host: Jack’s eyes were gray and restless, the color of the sky before lightning. Jeeny’s hands were folded, still and patient, though her heart was not. The air smelled of wet wood and wax, of faith and doubt — ancient, inseparable.

Jack: “You know, Wesley’s words always bothered me. That kind of faith — it feels reckless. Almost tragic. To give up everything for something that might not even be true.”

Jeeny: “But that’s exactly what makes it faith, Jack. Not certainty — surrender.”

Jack: “Surrender?” (he laughs, bitterly) “To what? To an invisible promise? To the comfort of stories written two thousand years ago?”

Jeeny: “To the idea that life means something more than what you can see. That your suffering, your sacrifice, aren’t wasted.”

Host: The thunder cracked, shaking the old walls. The candles bent and flickered, as if the storm itself had opinions about salvation.

Jack: “That’s the thing, Jeeny — what if Wesley was foolish? What if all those years he preached in the rain, all the persecution, all the poverty — what if it was all for nothing?”

Jeeny: “And what if it wasn’t? What if the ‘nothing’ you fear is the test itself?”

Jack: “That sounds like a beautiful excuse.”

Jeeny: “Or a beautiful truth.”

Host: Jack stood, pacing by the window, where streaks of lightning illuminated the valley below. The rain ran down the glass in jagged rivers, like tears searching for a mouth to confess through.

Jack: “Look, I respect faith. But Wesley’s storm — that’s just terror dressed up as piety. He doubts, and instead of facing that doubt, he calls himself foolish for feeling it.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. He faces it — that’s what makes it powerful. He doesn’t deny the fear. He wrestles it. Just like the old Jacob wrestling the angel.”

Jack: “And limping away with delusions?”

Jeeny: “No — with a new name. A scar that means he met something greater than himself.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes glowed faintly in the candlelight. She wasn’t trying to win. She was trying to reach him — past the logic, past the armor of reason.

Jack: “But you see what that kind of thinking leads to, don’t you? Crusades. Fanatics. People burning others because they think their storm is divine.”

Jeeny: “And yet without storms, we’d never learn what anchors us. Doubt isn’t the enemy of faith — it’s the forge of it.”

Jack: “You sound like you’ve rehearsed that.”

Jeeny: “No. I’ve lived it.”

Host: A pause. The wind howled, rattling the chapel door. Jack turned to her, eyes sharp.

Jack: “You?”

Jeeny: “When my mother died, I begged heaven for an answer. Silence was all I got. I told myself if the gospel wasn’t true, then I’d been a fool — just like Wesley said. But then… I realized even that silence had a voice. It didn’t promise ease. It whispered endurance.”

Jack: (softly) “You think endurance is enough?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes it’s the only proof we get.”

Host: The rain softened for a moment, the rhythm steady, like breathing. Jack returned to the table, his hands trembling slightly as he reached for the old paper.

Jack: “He gave up everything — friends, reputation, life — for faith. I gave up nothing and still feel empty. Maybe that’s what he meant.”

Jeeny: “Maybe the foolishness isn’t in believing — maybe it’s in never risking enough to believe at all.”

Host: Her words hit him like quiet lightning — not burning, but illuminating.

Jack: “You think faith is risk?”

Jeeny: “The greatest one there is. Because it asks for everything and guarantees nothing.”

Jack: “Then it’s madness.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But sometimes madness is what saves us from meaninglessness.”

Host: The storm began to fade, its fury now distant, murmuring like an old argument finally tired of itself. The lantern between them burned low, casting long shadows that moved across their faces like thoughts finding form.

Jack: (sitting again) “You know, I used to pray when I was a kid. Not because I believed, but because I was afraid not to. I think that’s what Wesley’s storm feels like — that panic, that ‘what if.’”

Jeeny: “Fear is a beginning, not an end. Even Jesus was afraid in Gethsemane.”

Jack: “He was sure of resurrection.”

Jeeny: “No. He hoped for it. That’s what makes it human.”

Host: Jack’s eyes lifted, slowly. For a brief moment, something in him cracked — a glimmer of the boy he once was, the one who had once whispered prayers into the dark without knowing why.

Jack: “So maybe the storm never ends.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Maybe it just moves inside of us — until the thunder becomes faith.”

Host: The rain stopped. The world outside exhaled. Through the cracked window, a faint ray of moonlight cut through the cloud, touching the page between them — Wesley’s words glowing softly, like something remembered rather than read.

Jack: “What if the gospel isn’t true?”

Jeeny: “Then we love anyway. We forgive anyway. We give anyway. Because even if heaven never opens, the act of believing turns earth into something sacred.”

Host: Silence again — but this time, it was full. The kind of silence that feels like peace rather than absence.

Jack: (whispers) “You make faith sound like rebellion.”

Jeeny: (smiles) “It is. Against despair.”

Host: The candle finally burned out, smoke curling upward like the last breath of a question. Jack and Jeeny sat there in the dim afterglow, their faces half in shadow, half in light — a portrait of belief and doubt holding each other without needing to win.

Outside, the storm had passed. The air was clean. The stars — unseen for hours — had begun to pierce the sky again, one by one, patient and unafraid.

Host: The camera would pull back slowly, leaving the chapel small beneath the vast night — two figures still by the faint glow of faith, surrounded by the quiet echo of a man’s question that would outlive centuries:

“What if the gospel be not true?”

And somewhere in the stillness, as the world caught its breath, a voice seemed to answer — not in certainty, but in peace:

“Then love was still worth everything.”