Conversion experience averted

One day several weeks ago, I was visited by two young men in white shirts and neckties, wearing black name tags and carrying backpacks. If I didn't know better, I would have assumed that the IRS was at my door to whisk me away on a camping trip. (I am a relatively scupulous tax-payer, after all). Well, it certainly wasn't the IRS, judging by the callow faces of these young "elders" asking me about Jesus Christ; to be sure, though, a kind of "trip" was involved. They were Mormon missionaries, and I had made the stupid mistake of opening my door.

The peripatetic Mormons have become a fixture of modern life. Like salesmen, they are inescapable, but whereas door-to-door peddling has become a thing of the past, missionary work, particularly in the suburbs (where souls really do need to be saved), continues to thrive. Principally speaking, the Mormon missionary and the traveling agent have a core objective: to sell a product. In the Mormon's case, that product is the Church of Latter-Day Saints, an odd strain of Christianity whose authority depends solely on divine revelation and gold tablets. To be fair, the traveling Mormon is not exactly like the salesman; he not only affirms its value but he actually believes in it, as well.

I allowed the two young men to come in. We sat down in the living room, where I was promptly interviewed about my faith. The questions were all predictable, of the "What kind of relationship do you have with Christ?" sort. I had quickly decided that I wouldn't wax skeptical about religion, lest I become the object of a feeble persuasion campaign. I figured that if I claim Roman Catholicism as my dominant faith, from which I do not stray on pain of death, they would leave me alone. (In fact, I have strayed from it, and very, very far at that). The young Mormons were relentless, invoking passages from their Book--which they directed me to read with them--that legitimated and reinforced their faith. When they spoke, it was with a pacific tone of voice unheard on the East coast--sincere, guileless, devout. The voice of thorough and unquestioned indoctrination.

I wondered later why I invited them in the first place. I'm almost sure it wasn't because a voice in a dark corner of my soul was pleading in small whispers for the comforts of Mormonism. I figure if it was a gesture of tolerance (to patiently hear their cause), then it was a naive gesture. Hadn't I learned from vampire lore? I had opened my door, perhaps not to demons but to agents of a mysterious religious order bent on "saving souls." Afterward, I was baffled that I wasn't more indignant about it, outraged that my freedom of self-determination was being subtly threatened. To "save one's soul" is really to lose one's reason, to voluntarily surrender one's critical faculties in the name of an authoritarian power structure founded on a myth. I should have tarred and feathered my missionaries! I should have grilled them on a spit!

Instead I wondered if, as a good secular humanist, I shouldn't try to disabuse these impressionable fellows of their simplistic and unquestioned beliefs. But, most likely, there weren't any arguments that I could make that they hadn't already heard and rejected. We could easily have engaged in some futile conversion competition. But it would have prolonged their visit, and I badly needed to read my Nietzsche.