Those interesting people at the door

Ever since I was young, I had watched with rapt interest as my father would tangle with every cult who came to our door. He would inform me that the other christians on our street who sent them away packing were possibly cutting off the only possibility these people had of hearing the gospel. I remember a Baptist lady who lived almost opposite us on our cul-de-sac. I had noticed that she was “one of those” christians who “sent them packing” and I found myself almost despising her for doing so.

As I grew older, from late high school years on I found myself actually looking forward to their visits. I had prepared myself well and knew how to tackle them on all their glaring doctrinal heresies. Debates at school were my favourite pastime, and my cult encounters became almost an extension of this – until – one weekend as a married man, I was engaging with two Mormon elders at my door. I became very aggressive as they continued to refute the clear truth of the deity of Jesus Christ. I felt deeply aggrieved. This truth was so precious to me and it was like I had to do battle for my Lord. For a moment, I forgot that Christ was still on his throne and still God of gods and Lord of lords.

When the encounter was over and I had time to reflect indoors, I realised I had seriously lost the plot. I began to have a God-talk. I thought there must be a better way of doing this. I needed a new song.

A new song

It took sometime but the Lord began to gradually show me some things.

I read “Forty years a watch-tower slave”¹. When I came to the end of that book, it began to occur to me how empty inside a number of Jehovah's Witnesses really were in spite of how they may present at the door. It may be a hot summer's day but no let-up, no freedom to go and take the family to a beach or public swimming pool for a few hours because they must get the message of the Kingdom out at all costs. There is a “corpselike obedience” to the Watchtower Organisation.

My aim is certainly not to win an argument but to be a link to win a soul.

I now commonly ask the Witnesses at my door, “Are you really happy?” They of course protest that they are. I can only hope it is catalytic for one of them at least to start challenging themselves, at a deeper level.

I have come to understand that the cults are taught that so-called “born again christians” have no christian love, and it is only they who practise the commandment “to love your neighbour as yourself.” The only way I can challenge that presupposition is to be gracious to them at the door. My aim is certainly not to win an argument but to be a link to win a soul.

Other approaches include waiting till they have run out of steam. Instead of arguing with them about their translation, invite them to consider with you some of the salvation texts in their own New World translation which are largely unaltered, eg. Romans 3:21-24, Acts 4:12.

Next time those people turn up at the door again, don't strive to win an argument, and don't hide under the bed. Try a new song like I did, and make yourself available to the Holy Spirit, to course His way through your life so that Jesus Christ might possibly become attractive to their world.

¹ William J Schnell, 30 years a watch-tower slave
Baker Book House Company 1971