The LDS came to visit today

I was outside on my porch reading materials for my Monday class and the newest Newsweek when two missionaries rolled up on their bicycles. I had been waiting for this moment, actually. Not in a I-can't-wait-to-challenge-them-or-ridicule-them sort of way, but I now live in an area where the LDS population is high so the encounter was statistically inevitable.

I could have challenged them about the marriage propositions in Arzona and California, and the money their denomination sunk into them, but I didn't. One of them saw the cover of my Newsweek and basically said, "Oh Obama won?" It was either making small talk or genuinely not knowing; I left politics alone either way.

I learned a trick when I was talking to military recruiters in 2002: they always inevitably asked if I knew what I would do after graduation and were mostly thrown off when I could rattle off a five-year plan. They are trained to jump on uncertainty, so I denied them that point of attack (and it also helped that I was able to say that I was going into ROTC and planning to commission). I assume missionaries of any faith are also trained to look for uncertainty or the people that seem more receptive. There are very good reasons for missionaries to go out by twos, such as safety, but it is also undeniable that if the two people approach one (me in this case), it is an uneven exchange and there is a power dynamic in play. I wasn't in the mood to be converted but I wanted some conversation. I was proactive.

"So where are you two from?" Olympia, WA and Cartersville, GA. "Cool, I lived in Dahlonega for a while! What ward or church are you attached to while you are here?" I can see its steeple from my porch and they are responsible for three, well, "beats."

"Look guys, I have an LDS King James Version and a Book of Mormon already and I'm a grad student in Religious Studies, but I'd like to hear your story." This deflates the build-up to the pitch. The Georgian gave his abbreviated conversion story, focusing on the marvelous feeling of purpose and direction that the Faith brings.

"I completely understand that feeling..." And I do; see my earlier posts. So I think at this point I had established us three as equal believers which gave us the ability to talk without the encumbrance of an underlying agenda for the talk (except now I was perhaps wasting their time). We chatted about my work on just war tradiation and they gave me some warfare verses from the BoM, which could be handy. I wonder how the LDS determined the propriety of certain wars? A few other things came up, LDS history and the like, but I stayed away from theology or "what the Bible actually says." Missionaries from all denominations know their texts (particularly the proof-texts) and I wouldn't dare go against someone who trained from an early age to do just this type of missionary work, especially since I rarely touched a Bible from '96-'06. I'm now reading the Daily Lectionary but I'm not memorizing verses.

That being said, I have to tip my hat to the LDS. If you take the average pew-sitter in many other denominations and a Mormon to a memorized verse contest, my money is on the Mormon. They typically have more scriptural knowledge than many other Christians. What I remain curious about is if they know the history of English transations of the Bible or the fact that we do not even have copies of the copies of the copies of the original Gospels. I have problems with the KJV as a result of these histories.

As we were finishing up and possibly to call my bluff, the guy from Washington wanted to clarify that I had the BoM. "Sure, hold on." I went inside and returned within a few seconds with both the LDS KJV and a stand-alone BoM. "Yeah, I keep it next to my standard KJV, Trinity Catholic Bible, New Oxford (RSV) Bible, BCP, Tanakh, Qur'an, and Tao Te Ching."

They very warmly invited me to join them on Sunday mornings and I thanked them for their time. It was a pleasant exchange all in all... much better than last night. There was a church group around 8 p.m. at an intersection yelling "the Word" into a bullhorn at the cars passing by. If those were my only two experiences with Christianity, guess which church I would think actually wanted me to join and was considerate of a sense of common humanity?

The churches that are willing to get personal with the community deserve the blessings they get...and even more so if they act out the Gospels regardless of the chances of gaining converts.