Repenting in Dust and Ashes

This has got to stop.
Drayton's been out pacing backwards and forwards across the paddock all night, lamenting his fall from grace. I tell you, a girl can barely get any sleep round here with all this heresy. He's out there now, tipping ashes on his Armani and asking who can save him from his inevitable doom?

I've pointed out to him that half his congregation are probably borderline Arian in any case, if he bothered to enquire deeply into it. And said surely it was a mistake, a mere slip from his normal rectitude. And doesn't he believe in justification by grace through faith - not by getting his theological sums right? Doesn't he believe in a merciful God?

But he looked at me in a confused kind of way. Mouthed the word "merciful" like it was some kind of insect. And then wandered off back into the paddock for another lament.