I had hoped it might be a contest between [url=http://www.livingchurch.org ]The Living Church[/url] and [url=http://www.anglicandigest.org]The Anglican Digest[/url], but no such luck.
A nice and well dressed elderly couple came to my front door with Watch Tower tracts several weeks ago.
Before they could start their spiel, which I have heard before at different times and in different places, I informed them that I was an Anglican in my beliefs and then I recited to them my belief in key elements of the Nicene Creed.
They seemed to be set off balance by my pre-emptive witness and made a rapid and polite retreat to their car.
This was an easy matter to handle because the Jehovah’s Witnesses are very predictable in their prosyletization.
However, what is not an easy matter, is bearing witness to “…the Faith once given…” in less well-defined encounters with those who are non-believers, agnostics, atheists, followers of other belief systems or who are just plain antagonistic towards that “…Faith once given…” during our daily encounters with people.
I had hoped it might be a contest between [url=http://www.livingchurch.org ]The Living Church[/url] and [url=http://www.anglicandigest.org]The Anglican Digest[/url], but no such luck.
Perhaps the magazine most handed out, but actually read? I’d question that.
A nice and well dressed elderly couple came to my front door with Watch Tower tracts several weeks ago.
Before they could start their spiel, which I have heard before at different times and in different places, I informed them that I was an Anglican in my beliefs and then I recited to them my belief in key elements of the Nicene Creed.
They seemed to be set off balance by my pre-emptive witness and made a rapid and polite retreat to their car.
This was an easy matter to handle because the Jehovah’s Witnesses are very predictable in their prosyletization.
However, what is not an easy matter, is bearing witness to “…the Faith once given…” in less well-defined encounters with those who are non-believers, agnostics, atheists, followers of other belief systems or who are just plain antagonistic towards that “…Faith once given…” during our daily encounters with people.
‘Better Homes and Feng Shui’?
The interior of the article characterizes the circulation differently:
[i]The Watchtower is the most widely [b]distributed[/b] magazine in the world, with a circulation of more than 25 million.[/i]
Distribution is much different from readership in this case. The headline is misleading.
I’m guessing the most widely read magazine is Chinese.
Good comments, I used his headline in the entry. It is quite difficult to tell how much of any publication is actually read.
Given the population of India and China, one would think perhaps #5’s idea is correct.
I appreciated the brief history of the JW movement in this long article. But I can’t resist tossing in a little joke.
Q: What do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness and an Episcopalian?
A: Someone who rings a doorbell, but then doesn’t know why he’s there.
David Handy+
#5: Um, that’s why I said, but I’m too humble to draw attention to that.
#7: surely her chauffeur rings the bell?