Heaven help us

I went out with the missionaries today, which was a new experience. They asked me to meet them at this girl’s house, because they didn’t know if she would be alone or not and wanted everything to be above-board. Turns out, they shouldn’t have worried. Once her parents (she is 16) found out she’d met the Mormon missionaries and invited them over, they made the time to be there, and they brought the big guns with them.

Turns out their family are very faithful born-again Christians, which is great. But right away there were points of doctrine (like the “Grace v. Works" question) that we differed on in our explanations. It's possible that the girl may have had questions, but her parents weren’t having any of that, and preferred to point out the ways that what we believe (or what they thought we believe) is incorrect. One of the missionaries started to get a bit defensive and his voice started getting louder. I had to stop myself from patting him on the shoulder and saying, “Okay now, does somebody need a time-out?”

Anyway, when it was clear that this family wasn’t interested, we thanked them for their time and left.

One thing I will say for the born-again Christians here in England: They offer you a cup of tea before they tell you you’re going to hell. And that’s nice.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that if I do go to hell it won’t be because I interpret the scriptures differently than they do. It’ll be because of all those bodies in my basement—and the Ioan Gruffudd in my closet.

Posted in: England