Some of the local Mormons have been coming by doing the missionary thing. I talked with them a bit today. I have no idea why. I have no interest in becoming a Christian again and less in becoming a Mormon.
What's even worse is that I'm quite terrible at explaining that to people. I'm willing to be honest about my current beliefs and how I came to them, but it was a long, long... I was going to say "process", but it wasn't that organized. At any rate, I feel incredibly inarticulate and addled whenever I'm trying to talk about that with a religious person. Perhaps it's because I feel as if I don't have great answers. Perhaps it's because confrontation makes me shaky and anxious and turns my brain to mush.
So! For whatever reason, I talked to a couple of Mormons and accepted one of their brochures describing how I can "know" that their faith is a true one. Since the gentlemen on my porch kept things on the grand and vague level—with the exception of a reference to the Israelites who're supposed to have journeyed to North America whenever ago—I decided to flip through the booklet and see what it actually said.
Well, there was nothing unexpected, though I didn't think the sexism would be so apparent. What really made an impression on me, though, and makes me surprisingly frustrated, is that the illustrations uniformly depict Jesus and his disciples as pale European types. I know! Like, how can I possibly find this so irritating? Have I ever in my life seen a painting of a Middle Eastern Jesus? [Snorts.]
Ugh. And, unfortunately, my objections to their depictions of first-century Jews are not going to help me when those guys show up again.
