One Saturday afternoon two Jehovah Witnesses came aknocking

It is Saturday 30 May and I was just done with the laundry and after concluding my Morning Prayer. Earlier, I responded to an SMS from a church ministry friend to prepare the scripture text for the Liturgy of the Word for Trinity Sunday, which Catholics will celebrate on Sunday, 7 June. It was a refresher on the doctrine of the Trinity as revealed through Jesus before his ascension into heaven, and the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and through the missionary teaching of the Apostles. Then I find two Jehovah Witnesses at my door. I welcome them in, if they wish to refresh themselves, or share their own joy. I knew in my heart that I would only listen out of respect if they respected my own faith in Jesus as the Divine Son, fully God and Man, and have nothing to do with the Arian heresy or the mutilated version of their bible (New World Translation). As they spoke, in particular from their prepared presentation and quotation, it came across as a hard pitch at their own theology and despite my indication that she should not proselytize under my roof and welcome out of respect of my beliefs, she continued. I finally told her: "The spirit of God is peace, and what you say is very disturbing to the peace I know in my God. I ask you to stop. You can speak if you choose to speak peaceably, but your doctrines I do not need to hear. We can praise God in psalms and scripture without you telling me what you have chosen to believe in, as I have my belief in Jesus as Lord and God as sacred Truth. That is an obstacle to you, not to me. If I respect you for your beliefs, you are welcome here as long as you respect mine; do not say to me about what you have chosen to believe as that is your choice. Otherwise, you will have to hear me about my belief in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to the scripture I present to you." What I have learnt is that: 1. if you can, welcome them as guests to refresh themselves, but decline to hear them preach their beliefs to you; 2. when they try, tell that you are not interested, even if what they begin with seems very agreeable - their scripted approach begins with the Old Testament about God's name being Jehovah or YHWH, and progresses to a strict course they have prepared. This is pointless because their translation of the bible is wholly inaccurate to all Christian editors (see my next blog entry extracts, and links); 3. avoid letting them quote scripture off their bible and their text or getting into a line-by-line debate even if you feel like you need to clarify with them their inaccuracies; these followers have chosen to wholly submit themselves to the beliefs of their founder and they are not interested in appreciating your effort to share with them historical fact and basic Christian Truth; 4. appreciate the fact that they twist and distort a great deal of accepted Christian tenets - they call themselves Christian because they say that they follow the teachings of Jesus as Christ; but in fact, they are not as they define Jesus as some being exalted between angels and the highest of men, but do not recognise his Divine nature - hence the connection to Arian heresy; The best thing to do when meeting Jehovah Witnesses is not confront them with any of their beliefs. It takes a certain type of person to accept a set of beliefs that is so distorted and to want to be a minority sect or cult. Cults appeal to the psychology of some individuals and these same people usually have a persecuted mentality which responds with an aggressive sense of survival and self-righteousness. This means: they just can see the reason and sensibility which others may espouse. It is simply "them" against a "world against them", and this means they do not share the same open heartedness to listen to fair-minded words or plain truth. So, the best thing when you meet these Jehovah Witnesses at your door, don't be fooled and let your true Christian hospitality be taken in. Note fairly and well, what St Peter cautions: " Keep sober and alert, because your enemy the devil is on the prowl like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8)