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Conversation Between A Wiccan And Born Again Christian


debrand

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When my daughter was about 15 I found a Book of Mormon in the house. I asked her about it and she said the missionaries had come and given it to her. I was appalled that she let 2 strange young men into the house. On the other hand, I always taught her to respect her gut feeling about strangers, and she said they seemed OK.

She took the book, and she didn't convert - must have been being polite - and maybe they were defrauding her!

When we lived in the hood, we had 2 adorable missionaries who walked past our house everyday. They were only 18 and always said hi,we saw them twice a day. They saw my then newborn and they wanted to hold him as they missed their younger brothers and sisters. They gave us a Book of Mormon after a few stops and sometimes they stopped for drinks of water(it was summer and they lived many blocks from us so I told them they could stop if they wanted a drink on their way past) but they never tried to do more than that to convert us. I knew they were lonely living in the hood and away from their families and we were a nice, young family who didn't hate them like most of the neighbors did.

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There's a liberal Evangelical blogger I like a lot who's discussed this, and what he said was that trying to convert someone is analogous to asking them for sex. Depending how you go about it, it could be a proposal of marriage, or politely and respectfully asking them on a date, or it could be really vile sexual harassment, but no matter how you do it, it's a really personal thing you're doing, and has a lot of potential to go wrong. I agree with him.

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We get JWs and a strange Christian group called something like "The Way The Life". I think they speak in tounges (sorry, cannot spell that word!) I mean, not when they come to your door, but at other times.

I don't open the door to them - we don't live in the greatest area ever and there have been bad experiences so we installed a peephole. I won't open the door to people I don't know and don't expect, or people who stand to one side of the peephole so I can't see them. So, nope.

My trusting housemate does and he will stand and patiently explain to them why no one in the house will be interested. This wastes his time and theirs, although it is kind of amusing. ;)

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My husband is Wiccan and he used the "I'll listen to you if you'll listen to me" tactic on a couple of JWs once. He said the results were very amusing; sadly, it was before I knew him. :)

I also belong to the UCC like another poster above--and I have had a couple of non-Christian friends tell me that I am one of the better examples of Christians they've run across precisely because I DON'T have any interest in converting or proselytizing in their general direction. So that makes me happy. I don't really get intentionally seeking people out to preach at them--this "soul-winning" crap that Zuszanna and company do. I wonder how many of those people agree to be "saved" just to get them to go away?

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I think the Amish also believe in letting the example of your life speak for your faith and not evangelizing to others. (LOL "No...it's just the Amish that don't believe in cars.." classic.)

I'm not sure about JWs now but I remember when I was little one came to my Nana's door and she told them we were Jewish (we're not) and then left promptly. Saying you were Jewish was a kind of get of jail free card, although judging by what you all have said it might not be anymore.

There were these two Mormon women who used to come to our house quite a bit. They were Americans and I'm not sure if they were doing mission work. They looked older like maybe in their 30s. My dad would invite them in and here what they had to say. He had no intention of becoming a Mormon. I think he was just bored...or maybe he thought one of them was cute? If that's the case I think I dodged a bullet. I remember them having hot drinks though...maybe coffee or tea. I don't think it was decaf as we never have decaf. Needless to say they were pretty harmless and I got a free Book of Mormon out of the deal.

A couple of days ago I had a rather interesting time. There were a group of Muslim students in our commons who had set up a booth with books and info, just to spread awareness about Islam. I was in the coffee line and looked over. There was some ditzy girl going on about how Jesus died for your sins and you must accept him to be saved. She was one of those girls who talked as though everything were a question. Yeah. So I went over and started talking to them, hoping to save them from her stupidity and maybe learn a thing or two. I ended up talking to one girl for close to an hour. She was very nice and never tried to convert me. She said the booth was mainly done to try to combat prejudice and discrimination. She said several people have called her a terrorist and things like that. It was sad. But I learned some things about their narrations, especially those on the Virgin Mary and I got a couple of free books on Islam. They were giving away books. For Free. That's always great.

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I think the Amish also believe in letting the example of your life speak for your faith and not evangelizing to others. (LOL "No...it's just the Amish that don't believe in cars.." classic.)

I'm not sure about JWs now but I remember when I was little one came to my Nana's door and she told them we were Jewish (we're not) and then left promptly. Saying you were Jewish was a kind of get of jail free card, although judging by what you all have said it might not be anymore.

There were these two Mormon women who used to come to our house quite a bit. They were Americans and I'm not sure if they were doing mission work. They looked older like maybe in their 30s. My dad would invite them in and here what they had to say. He had no intention of becoming a Mormon. I think he was just bored...or maybe he thought one of them was cute? If that's the case I think I dodged a bullet. I remember them having hot drinks though...maybe coffee or tea. I don't think it was decaf as we never have decaf. Needless to say they were pretty harmless and I got a free Book of Mormon out of the deal.

A couple of days ago I had a rather interesting time. There were a group of Muslim students in our commons who had set up a booth with books and info, just to spread awareness about Islam. I was in the coffee line and looked over. There was some ditzy girl going on about how Jesus died for your sins and you must accept him to be saved. She was one of those girls who talked as though everything were a question. Yeah. So I went over and started talking to them, hoping to save them from her stupidity and maybe learn a thing or two. I ended up talking to one girl for close to an hour. She was very nice and never tried to convert me. She said the booth was mainly done to try to combat prejudice and discrimination. She said several people have called her a terrorist and things like that. It was sad. But I learned some things about their narrations, especially those on the Virgin Mary and I got a couple of free books on Islam. They were giving away books. For Free. That's always great.

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There's no polite way to evangelize. It is polite to answer people's questions when they come to you, but that's not the same thing. There is no polite way to say essentially, you should believe what I believe because I think your beliefs are wrong. Especially just going up to people you don't know. Do people really get converted that way? I can't see it ever happening, unless they are the type that would have liked to ask questions on their own. That's why i like Judaism,we're not big on the converting people thing. I also think sincere conversions happen when a person looks into it on their own and studies it themselves, as opposed to taking a book from some guy on the street and deciding it was their ticket out of Hell. And helping others and being kind do a lot more than spreading hate or saying other people are going to Hell.

The only time I ever spoke to a Jehova's Witness she gave me a pamphlet type thing on how abortion was wrong and it would make me go to Hell unless I find Jesus. Never been pregnant, so I guess because I'm a young woman? Should have told her I'm a lesbian, i'm sure there was a pamphlet for that:) I do occasionally get asked if i know Jesus. I once said we've met but we don't really get along.

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Just remembered, I got a pamphlet on depression from the JWs - because I wear black, or do the only have one tract with them at any given time? I will never know and didn't read it, either.

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There's no polite way to evangelize. It is polite to answer people's questions when they come to you, but that's not the same thing. There is no polite way to say essentially, you should believe what I believe because I think your beliefs are wrong. Especially just going up to people you don't know. Do people really get converted that way? I can't see it ever happening, unless they are the type that would have liked to ask questions on their own. That's why i like Judaism,we're not big on the converting people thing. I also think sincere conversions happen when a person looks into it on their own and studies it themselves, as opposed to taking a book from some guy on the street and deciding it was their ticket out of Hell. And helping others and being kind do a lot more than spreading hate or saying other people are going to Hell.

The only time I ever spoke to a Jehova's Witness she gave me a pamphlet type thing on how abortion was wrong and it would make me go to Hell unless I find Jesus. Never been pregnant, so I guess because I'm a young woman? Should have told her I'm a lesbian, i'm sure there was a pamphlet for that:) I do occasionally get asked if i know Jesus. I once said we've met but we don't really get along.

Just to expand on your first paragraph, more "hip" evangelical churches began to realize this big-time in the 1990s. So they stopped a lot of the door-to-door, cold-call stuff and began to teach and employ a technique called "friendship evangelism". Friendship evangelism is when you strive to become friends with non-Christians and over time, as they see the "light" in your life, they will want to be like you and will ask questions and you will have an opportunity to lead them to Christ. The person you've befriended believes it to be an organic relationship, so is not threatened when you talk to them about Christianity.

Doesn't sound bad and doesn't seem as rude as random stranger witnessing, but even as an evangelical then, I felt it was pretty smarmy. The whole idea of befriending someone just to accomplish an end goal just never sat well with me. It seemed a lot like "using" people. I came to believe that it was more insidious than just knocking on someone's door and being an authentic PITA.

I saw people who had been brought to Christ this way pretty much abandoned sometimes. Their "Christian" friend would lead them to Christ, bring them to church and once they were hooked into the church, the friend would move on to the next conquest.

Something like this happened to a young woman I work with in that another woman in our workplace, an evangelical, took a strong interest in her for awhile, they did a lot of things together, spent a lot of time together. This young woman had been very lonely and so it all seemed great to her. After awhile, though, as she did not seem to make progress toward "the goal", the other woman basically dropped her, all of a sudden just "too busy" to get together.

Not right.

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If "friendship evangelism" was used on me, I'd feel used and disgusted. I want to be befriended for what I am, not for a perceived lack of something that has to be changed. Has nobody told them that a marriage is doomed to fail if partners try to change the person they married? Friendships are not so different.

It's like being befriended for being rich or famous. The Opus Dei is rumoured to use this tactic to get the intellectual elite to join up, and that is just as bad.

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one time last year, two guys came to my door [early enough in the morning to wake me up...i had just come home from my first stepmother's funeral the previous night and had gotten in very late so i had been sleeping in] and when i answered they asked me if they could read me some of the bible and talk to me. i told me, "sorry, i'm a jew so i'm already going to hell!" they asked me why, so i replied [using a line from family guy, ftw] "well, if you don't go to hell for killing the son of god and savior of the world, what DO you go to hell for?" they seemed totally unprepared for this assertion and just stared at me for a moment or two before telling me to have a nice day and leaving.

and, technically, i wasn't lying when i said i was jewish. i do have some jewish blood in me, though my overly religious parents withheld that from me for the longest time. i've actually even looked into judaism, and everyone i talked to was very nice and not pushy at all. i dunno about converting, though, i don't think it's wise to do something like that when i'm really still searching.

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If "friendship evangelism" was used on me, I'd feel used and disgusted. I want to be befriended for what I am, not for a perceived lack of something that has to be changed. Has nobody told them that a marriage is doomed to fail if partners try to change the person they married? Friendships are not so different.

It's like being befriended for being rich or famous. The Opus Dei is rumoured to use this tactic to get the intellectual elite to join up, and that is just as bad.

I have been the "victim" of friendship evangelism and it was horrible. I did not realize it until just now. A girl in my physics and calculus classes began acting all buddy-buddy with me, and every time she saw me, she would stop what she was doing and talk to me. I thought she was such a sweetie and reciprocated. One morning in the 7:30 physics lecture, she brought me coffee and said something about how hard it must be to get kids off to school and then make it to class on time; she did a lot of nice things like that and I started doing the same, bringing an extra muffin for her or whatever (we usually ate breakfast in class during lecture, even the prof). After a while, she began talking about her relationship with Jesus ALL THE TIME. I finally told her politely that I am so glad her religion makes her happy, but I feel uncomfortable discussing it all the time. She gave me a pamphlet on Jesus the next day and never spoke to me again. She became friendly with another girl in the class immediately thereafter.

It was a little perplexing and I thought maybe I had been too harsh with her, but now I totally see what happened. Yeah, that sucks. Totally sucks.

I worked with someone who was UU and she was the person who made me initially interested in them. We used to talk about religion occasionally (we worked in a lab and had a lot of busy work, and would chat to make the time pass) but it was always organic and mutually respectful. She was just a really kind person and left me with a good impression of UUs. Obviously that was more effective, because I am going to the UU church on weekends when there is no temple service.

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I remember onetime someone tried to evangelize me, I was on the bus I listened politely until I made it clear I didn't want to hear it and they kept going. After that I just turned my music back on, just loud enough I couldn't hear, but not so loud the other person could hear. I figure if they could be rude to me, I could be rude to them and let them talk to thin air for the rest of the ride.

Personally I find this type of evangelizing rude for a couple of reasons. It assumes you are right and the other person is wrong, and you have the right to tell them that. It assumes that you don't have to bother with basic social rules. And it's very much in line with that "15 things it took me 50 years to learn" number 4: People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want

you to share yours with them.

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The more accurate term for "friendship evangelism" is "love bombing." Wikipedia gives a good definition as "affection that is feigned or with an ulterior motive and that is used to reduce the subject's resistance to recruitment." In "Jesus Camp" there's a cut scene with the little girl Rachel who talks about becoming friends with the neighbor's daughter, about her age, while her parents became friends with the adults, in order to get the neighbors to go to their church. It's dishonest and disgusting. (You can find out a bit about what's happened with Levi from the documentary, but I've always been curious what happened to Rachel. Anyone know?)

ETA: Here's the deleted scene.

jEwq4EhVsI8

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I suspect I may have been the intended victim of "friendship evangelism" on one or two occasions in high school and college. It's very uncomfortable for me because I am shy and do not have an easy time becoming close to someone that quickly. Very strange, and sounds like they do more harm than good.

A few months ago I had a couple of JWs come to the door and I answered before I realized what they were about. I told them we were buddhist and declined a pamphlet "to save a tree" and it worked!

I was kind of proud of my 4 year old the other day. Our doorbell rang but I could tell it was JW's from looking through the peephole so I told her to be quiet and we went into another room. I told her that they were going to try to get us to go to our church and she said, "I don't want to go to their church" :lol: We're agnostic with Eastern religious leanings (like buddhism and taoism) but we send her to a preschool at a church, so we're certainly not against Christianity. I just thought it was funny that she was so sure that she didn't want to go to their church, especially since she enjoys time at the chapel during school hours.

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i've never heard of "jesus camp". shall have to check it out.

Oooh, you HAVE to, it's pretty amazing.

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I'm quite fond of the wee Rachel, everyone treats her with indulgence and I imagine her taking her bright eyed enthusiasm through life and eventually finding a cause she is just as excited about but not fundie. She seems to have a genuine liking for others.

The youtube linked me to Levi's fast, which was a bit grim. Look, mate, I'm an expert, it's not God talking to you when you don't eat and get strange feelings. Srsly not.

If he had wanted to fast for a day, OK. Break his fast at sunset like for Ramadan, no probs. Not eating for three days when you are 11, what the fuck and where are your parents.

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The more accurate term for "friendship evangelism" is "love bombing."

Yes, that's true, but evangelicals use the term "friendship evangelism" when they're pushing it at church. It doesn't sound as cult-y, but quite right in that it really is "love bombing".

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My dad always tells the story of how every time there would be a JW at the door at his parents house, my grandpa(who was strict Dutch Reformed) would go and talk to them and it always ended up with them throwing Bible verses at each other.

Jesus Camp is amazing in a train wreck kinda way.

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I think it's fine to discuss your faith, or even to suggest it to someone. One of my favourite interviews ever is between Woody Allen and Billy Graham, who are so extremely different in every way, but still have this funny, polite and thoughtful conversation- with Graham admitting at the end that he thinks Allen would be a very good minister. Certainly one can learn a lot from friends and coworkers of other faiths.

There is a polite way to evangelize- discuss it, hear the response, drop it. I once had some Mormons come to my door while I was home alone sick, and they took one look at me and basically said "Even if you want to hear what we're going to say, you're in no condition to have us barge in on you. We'll talk to you when you're feeling better. Hope you get well." Much better than the Canadian version Jesus camp I went to which starved and sleep-deprived kids into Christianity. Half of the kids were converted by the end of the week, but how sincere was that?

As for the JC movie, I always thought it was terrible distortion of young minds. Levi in particular seems like such a smart kid, and they were encouraging him where they could, but why not let him develop his own thoughts and opinions? Aaagh those fundies.

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I think it's rude to put someone on the spot by forcing them to tell you they don't want what you're selling.

Now I'm wondering if a couple of my friends originally started out to friendship evangelize me. I have two fundie-lite friends who became friendly with me very quickly. They haven't dropped me since discovering that I'm an ebil heathen, though. Not yet, anyway. Of course I'm delightful (and extremely modest :mrgreen: ), so how could they?

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I used to get friend-evangelized all the time as a kid - Baptists seem to teach their kids to always reach out to the new kid, and we moved around a lot, so I went to a lot of strange churches and won a lot of Bible-verse memorization contests.

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