When Trevor Morrow, Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, and Willie Thompson, MP for West Tyrone, both counsel the Orangemen of Portadown to rethink their strategy, it is a pointer to the seriousness of the tragedy-unfolding at Drumcree.
Dr Morrow is a Christian man who has lived on both sides of the Border. While he understands the nuances of loyalism, his ministry in the South has given him an appreciation of the republican mindset. Let's hope that his call for sanity will be heeded.
Mr Thompson is also a Christian man, a deeply committed Methodist whose convictions have been forged in the 30 years of destruction perpetrated by the IRA and its satellites. But even Willie Thompson knows that standing in the shadow of loyalist gunmen is no way forward for a so-called Protestant organisation. The plight of Orangeism, has reached a new depth when Johnny Adair emerges as its patron.
I do not doubt the sincerity of Mr Adair, however much I may detest his politics, but Orangeism is doomed when it can be portrayed as a mob in pawn to paramilitaries. No amount of hand-wringing by grand lodge officers will alter the world's perception, and a good case will have been squandered.
The Portadown men had a good case. To want to take a route they had used for 200 years returning from public worship, with a band playing sacred music, does not seem such a threat. That the opposition to this was orchestrated initially by Sinn Fein activists is known to everyone.
But, exactly as their enemies hoped, the Portadown Orange leaders jumped through every hoop set up for them. Instead of reacting as any sane man would, they set in motion the whole sorry saga that has so efficiently served the Sinn Fein propaganda machine. So well has the machine worked that the common perception in the Republic is that the nationalists of Portadown live in a state of siege, in daily fear of pogrom.
The Orangemen of Portadown, by the mouth of their esteemed district master, have landed us all in the soup by calling for the Protestants of Ulster to take their protest to the streets. So, when youngsters of 12 and upwards, orchestrated by sinister men in the shadows, take to burning cars and buses, the Orange brethren have no room for complaint when the likes of Martin McGuinness chides them for foolishness. He might justly have used much stronger language.
What is happening night by night at Drumcree is bringing shame on us all, and not least on an order that claims to uphold the rule of law. We need the Willie Thompsons and the Trevor Morrows to keep on calling us back from the brink of madness. Unless we heed them we shall be destroyed.
The Rev Warren Porter is a former grand chaplain for Ireland of the Orange Order