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Ilf, I have been somewhat remiss in answering your post, but really I think you do have a point. There are so many variations of Christianity, though many adherents do not routinely go cold canvassing or doorknocking, unlike the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is the Australian name for the Mormon Church, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, for example. These particular churches are sometimes considered somewhat syncretic, often because they have been started in the USA during the 19th century, and their founders have been associated with religious texts which are only loosely based on the Bible, rather than the Bible, itself. Also, there are other, more discrete ways, of "spreading the word", such as letter box drops.
I think it is important to be able to identify which group is which, and to understand what distinguishes one group from another. You need to understand what they believe, and why you agree or disagree with them. Sometimes this is a matter of public record, such as the aversion to blood transfusions and some medical procedures famously held by Jehovah's Witness practitioners. However, the Christian Scientists, who have a much lower profile, and who, as far as I know, are considered more mainstream, also have a reputation for believing in what has been referred to as faith healing.
Whilst this may sound alarming, there is no doubt that meeting Jehovah's Witness objections has led to appropriate and less intrusive medical technology. And there is also no doubt that during WW2, the Jehovah's Witnesses were respected for their moral leadership in the German concentration camps to where they were sent. But if you feel you are being harassed by any group on religious grounds, whatever it is, the best solution is to tell them, politely and firmly, that you aren't interested today. There was a memorable incident I remember from years ago when a couple of Mormons on such a doorknock were intercepted at our front door by my anti-religious and irate Scottish-born husband, who ordered them to leave, telling them to go and get a proper job.
Last Friday (20th Sept 2014), we went to Joadja, now a ghost town and tourist attraction in our Southern Highlands, which once had a larger population in 1911 than the combined Southern Highlands townships of Mittagong, Bowral and Berrima at the time. Joadja was a company town, a rarity in Australia, where a group of Scottish immigrants ran a very profitable oil-shale mining venture, the largest of its kind in the world, at the time. They produced kerosene, or paraffin, before the discovery and processing of petroleum in USA made the process of getting kerosene so much more economical. The Joadja valley had everything they needed for their processes, including adjacent coal seams and lovely fresh water streams, orchards and plenty of trees. As well, they invented some marvellously constructed equipment to mine and process the keragen they used instead of petroleum. You'd think it was a heavenly spot, but the miners called it hell.
These hard-working and devout Presbyterians attended church in their all- purpose community hall, every day, and twice on Sunday. They did not believe in music and dancing, much like Oliver Cromwell's Puritans, though they weren't averse to attempts to distil whisky. And then we wondered how Scottish could they have still been without the associated bagpipes, highland dancing, caber-tossing and a related ethos of hospitality? The tour guide on the site said that over the years the police made several "raids" on this group, often departing with a flagon apiece of sly grog (moonshine).
He also said that these Presbyterians' very strict devoutness might also explain their eventual atheism, something they shared with many among miners and the labour movement.
However, the day afterwards, we were in Liverpool (NSW), where the local Presbyterian church had a little stand outside its church hall, where they advertised free coffee, tea and a place to sit down. They called this little venture the God's Breath Cafe, a gentle dig at our Hog's Breath Cafes. By that time, being weary and footsore, we certainly appreciated this refreshing pause far more than any front-door proselytising.
Last night we watched a TV program in which a Muslim couple hosted a man in their house in an attempt to explain their culture and religion. The couple considered themselves moderate and peaceloving followers of Islam. The wife, Lydia, who had been reared as a Catholic before converting to Islam, wanted to explain her own journey to Islam. But she did not get any chance to do so, she complained. The young man did not ask questions about her beliefs, only about the customs he found so confronting.
But what wasn't made absolutely clear was what religion, if any, the young man (didn't find out his name but I'll call him Fred) had adopted. Fred said he had been antagonised by the behaviour of obviously Muslim people in his home suburb. He pointed to a particular bookstore, selling all things Islamic, which had a prayer hall in its backyard. He felt hostile to the prayer hall's Internet activities, to the wearing of burqas, the emphasis on Halal food, which he thought was unnecessary, and other facets of Islam, such as the tax they place on Christians and Jews, not to mention Hindus, Buddhists and atheists. The result ended up as a stalemate.
I wonder what would have happened if a similar program featured a couple with a Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian or other faith rather than that of Islam.
Ilf wrote:Though it is just the extremists, and atheist-extremists have also bulldozed churches in china.
China is a more open society than it used to be, but it is basically an atheistic State where religious practitioners can be seen as socially disruptive. It is against Chinese law to do doorknocking to drum up religious adherents, or distribute religious material, including bibles, and mosques and churches alike can be regarded with equal disfavour.
On Sundays we are urged in services to pray for those persecuted Christians in other countries. These include famous people like Pastor Saeed Abedini or Asia Bibi. Even when less famous Christians are prayed for, we aren't told where they are. In many predominately Islamic countries like Pakistan, Iran or Saudi Arabia it would be difficult to downright impossible to even build churches, even in quarters assigned to Europeans, and again, it is illegal to even own, let alone distribute bibles. In Iran, the state religion is Islam (Shiite) and the Pastor I mentioned has been imprisoned for forsaking Islam for Christianity, even though he avers he was never Muslim in the first place. In prison he is beaten and is facing execution for apostasy.
I've heard that Saudi Arabia devotes funds to enable the building of mosques and madrassas elsewhere in the world, including Australia. But they do not welcome people of other faiths who want to practice their own religion.