When Truth Becomes Madness — The Iron Heel

Bishop Morehouse has a life-changing moment of clarity while riding through the city at night. He sees the stark inequality around him and decides to act on his Christian beliefs by bringing two sex workers into his mansion, planning to fill every room with society's outcasts. When he shares this vision at a public convention, his fellow religious leaders flee the platform in disgust, and he's quickly ushered away. Ernest predicts exactly what will happen next: the newspapers will suppress the Bishop's radical message, claiming he's had a breakdown from overwork.

If he persists in his beliefs, they'll declare him insane. The chapter reveals how those in power maintain control not through direct confrontation, but by controlling the narrative. The media becomes a tool of suppression, ensuring that dangerous ideas never reach the public.

Ernest's cynical predictions prove accurate when the next day's papers completely ignore the Bishop's revolutionary speech, instead reporting only bland platitudes from other speakers. This chapter shows how genuine Christian compassion, actually following Jesus's example of embracing society's outcasts, becomes a threat to the established order. The Bishop's transformation from comfortable religious leader to radical advocate illustrates how true awakening often leads to social isolation and persecution.