Our apartment complex has a posted sign about no solicitation. Once that sign is posted, you have to get management’s permission for any random door-knocking. Court precedent in this state has made it clear that door-knocking evangelism is covered under that and plenty of organizations have been warned, some even punished for overly zealous annoyances.
It didn’t stop them knocking on my door this afternoon. It has to be pretty egregious for me to use the system against these naughty folks. Most of the time I just deal with it. Most of the time they get a clue by my responses. Not these two.
First they invited me to a “Bible study” using some generic sounding religious group name. I told them I had it covered another way, but when the conversation should have been over, one of them piped up about whether I had ever heard of the “Motherhood of God.” The other supplemented it with words about the feminine characteristics of God. The verbal hints made it clear this was a Western feminist mythology thing, and I said I was familiar with the concept. Then I dismissed them and closed the door when the first one kept trying to talk more. There’s only so much you can do, and if they come back for another round, I’ll be a little less polite.
Over the years I’ve waited to see how these door knockers expressed themselves to see whether it was worth engaging them. On rare occasions you could tell they had an active heart to some degree. In one neighborhood many years ago I used to allow the local Jehovah’s Witnesses to hang around because their trainer was kind and loving. I’ve not seen JWs like that before or after. I’m quite familiar with JW teaching and I don’t care for it. Those folks were worth my time regardless whether I had any use for their religious chatter. We crave heart-led interaction and the rest is just the excuse for being with them. At least once I recall physically stiff-arming some asshole who was overly aggressive, nearly knocking him off my porch backward. Both responses are entirely consistent with teaching a heart-led faith.
So it didn’t matter what those two chicks this evening were selling, because there was no heart at all in it. This was a political agenda dressed in sacred robes and manipulative measures were certainly part of the package. Content means nothing if there is no heart-wave carrier for the message.
