Fall rains are falling

It’s been wet, wet, wet, wet, wet this week. Some of the rain has been quite heavy. The ground is completely saturated, and water is once again rising up into parts of our basement. It doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing any truly dry days over the next two weeks.

We were on the receiving end of proselytizing yesterday. Traveling Mormon missionaries are in Petersburg for a few months. They arrived about a week and a half ago. A week ago they stopped by and wanted to know if they could come back to give their “presentation.” I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I said they could. Thus they returned yesterday afternoon and for an hour they gave their talk while we listened. I threw in some questions and held to my view. Shelly called the whole thing a “debate.” She says that when she goes to the drama/communications class next Tuesday, she can report to the class that she sat through a debate! :) I asked who won, and she didn’t know. Probably like the current political debates, it’s pretty much a draw, not changing anyone’s minds. They left the Book of Mormon so that I could examine it and discuss it next week. I glanced through the chapter they asked me to read (the post-resurrection appearance to the Nephi), and it didn’t take much glancing to see that the Jesus described there isn’t the Jesus found in John 20 and 21 (post-resurrection appearances to the women and disciples).

The really sad thing is that whenever they seemed to get backed into a corner with reasoning and evidence that might suggest that that they believe isn’t reasonable, it came down to, “I believe because I prayed about it and the feeling I got from the prayer tells me it’s true.” Trying to persuade against experience is nearly impossible. It’s the same with any other faith, Christianity included. If a person believes that they’ve experienced a miracle, that becomes reality to them. Or if they believe God has spoken to them, it is nearly impossible to convince them otherwise.

I believe true Christian faith is based on reasonable evidence. Faith is the assurance of things we don’t see, based upon things we do see. Faith is trust in God because the past gives us assurance that God is trustworthy. True faith is not blind faith. Faith rests upon solid evidence.

I was going to preach this weekend (I have both our church and the Presbyterian service) on Part 2 of my Lord’s Prayer series, but I’ve decided instead to preach on Reason-able Faith – faith that is based upon and able to accommodate reason.

I guess the positive to come out of all this is that I’ve experienced the awful side of being the target of proselytism. Let me tell you it was very aggravating, frustrating, and stressful. I felt I was being sold a product I didn’t need nor want. They would say anything to try to get to where I would agree with them. Their offer of help to us and to people we might know in the community just oozed of an ulterior motive.

These are methods to which Christian witness and evangelism must never resort. We are not salespeople trying to sell God to the world. We should not witness with the goal to create more Christian or more church members. Our witness should be simply because we want to show a better way, to show what our God is really like, all without the goal of conversion. The work of conversion is through the Holy Spirit. We do not need to make overt attempts to persuade, because simply stating and showing the evidence for our faith should be persuasive enough. When I read the examples of Jesus, that is how I see him working.