It was the first thought that crossed our minds Tuesday while getting some background material from our archives to flesh out the story that the city and HSV Entertainment were parting ways.

In that research the name Welton Worsham smacked us in the face, the lanky Four Oaks minister who preached a hellfire and brimstone sermon to city council in 2013 that God was punishing the city for not agreeing to sell him the troubled venue, who wanted the theater to be a light unto men.

Worsham was on a divine mission, he twice told council, getting in his mother's Mustang on an almost empty tank of gas and driving north, no prior knowledge of the plagues that beset the venue.

He ran out of gas on I-95, parallel to the building that was to be the centerpiece of a grand entertainment complex, a building that in many ways resembles a state capital building or a grand Southern mansion where the owner looks over a vast plantation that would some day save the city from its textile past and usher in a revival in the form of music, shops and restaurants.

Some chided him. We saw his 2013 message as some scene from a Flannery O'Connor short story but now you have to wonder with all the transgressions and blunders committed in bringing the theater here if the reverend didn't have a point after all.

“'I,' says the Lord, 'am displeased with your council.' That's why the city flooded. That's why the Lloyd Andrews building did also. 'I also sent my minister to Gilbert Chichester's office to hand deliver my gracious offer to buy the theatre. Ye will still not believe,'” he said in 2013.

Now you have to wonder whether the reverend didn't have a point. Save a few sterling moments — the North Carolina Symphony and Old Crow Medicine Show immediately come to mind — problems beset the theater.

Was it divine wrath or simply karma the way the whole thing continues to be a huge snafu?

There was no public input in its initial consideration. There was a thief in the night annexation of the Brandy Creek community, the problems with Randy Parton, which we still can't help but wonder if it was a setup and a succession of management that found more ways to ruin a good thing with no regard for shows the people wanted.

Then there was the whole disregard of an economic development study that said let the development of the out-parcels happen first and then build the theater. The if you build it they will come mentality only works in the movies, not when you're trying to pump new economic blood into your community.

If you look at it through the reverend's eyes, all the miscues in the operation of the venue can be traced back to an arrogance of power and in a spiritual sense arrogance of power is never good and would be classified as a sin. Taking what is not yours, like what happened in the Brandy Creek forced annexation, is also a sin and runs counter to what is typically preached in churches and temples, be they Christian or otherwise.

Since beginning this piece we learned of the real reason the city and HSV had to part ways — through a negotiated agreement with the feds that will leave HSV packing its gaming machines in lieu of facing a criminal investigation.

If that's not a sin in any religion or faith, we're not sure what is.

The only thing that is sure is that the current council, in which only two were on board during the original theater discussions, now have to figure out a way to clean up the sins of the past.

They can't play the role of Pilate. They have to come up with a plan and they are, negotiating with Bank of America to restructure the debt and coming up with a plan to sell the venue so it will no longer be in their hands.

There has to be some good to come out of this debacle and in the end we believe private ownership of this venue and a concerted effort to develop the parcels surrounding it are the key.

Still, as we hope for the best, we can't help but think that the good Reverend Worsham may have been right, maybe not so much about a spiritual indignation, but the karma that besets those who force their arrogance over the ones they perceive as a weak and force their will on others without looking at the consequences — Editor