The dreaded doorbell ring arrived this morning.... 2 Jehovah's witnesses.
But instead of turning them away, I tried to dialogue with them. The good part: I think we came to a better understanding of each others beliefs. The bad news: They said they would be back!
I did find out a lot of what they believe-- a lot of Biblical literalisms taken out of context, especially using literal quotes from Revelation, a book written in code to give hope to a people being persecuted. They did not take kindly to my plea for Christian unity (apparently they don't consider themselves Christians), and that one day we could all be united. When I tried to describe how different passages emphasize Jesus' humanity & others his divinity, they became a little agitated. And even more agitated when I said the fullness of the deposit of faith is contained in Sacred Scripture AND Sacred Tradition. After that, it didn't take long to determine they don't believe in 3 persons in one God.
They were encouraged when I told them I admired them for having the fortitude to go and knock on doors in the name of their beliefs. One of the 2, quiet up until that point said, "When one is as passionate as we are about our faith, we can help but get out & knock on doors." I offered that a knew a lot of folks who are kind of tepid, lukewarm about their faith life, they immediately referred to a Bible quote they interpreted as meaning those who are lukewarm are damned!
Overall, it was 45 min of some interesting conversation. I came away still impressed that they wore out a lot of shoe leather and devoted much of their life to evangelizing.
