When Another Faith Knocks

A guy came to my door to tell me what he believed. Among other things, he said, “We don’t celebrate Halloween.” I said, “Is that because you don’t like strangers ringing your doorbell?”

Two members of a cult came to my brother’s door. He pretended to be deaf, so they went away.

My mother had a better way of dealing with such visitors.

When I was eighteen or so I saw her standing on our back step talking with a stranger—a woman in a long dress. I eaves-dropped and learned that this devout woman had bit off more than she could chew in my mother. Mom took an interest in her, asked for the stranger’s story and listened. Bored, I went to play football. When I returned, I heard Mom ask, “Who gets to heaven?” “Well, that’s complicated,” said the woman, clutching her Bible and scratching her chin. “Why?” asked mom. “Does it have to do with the number 144,000?” The lady said, “Yes, we call them the elect.”

Mom said, “How do I join?”

“Learn the Bible,” said the woman. “Practice it. And get baptized.”

“And follow lots of rules?”

“Well, uh…yes,” the woman answered.

Mom smiled. “If I died of a heart attack in two minutes, is that enough time for you to tell me how to get to heaven?”

The woman said, “No.”

As I eaves dropped, I learned that if Mom joined, she couldn’t celebrate her birthday, Christmas or Easter. Nor could she vote, have wind chimes, or be a cheerleader. I wondered why my mother would want to be a cheerleader, and then she told the lady her story.

Mom was a sinner, she said, lost without hope. But she came to God through faith in His Son Jesus who made a way to God by dying for her sins. “It is by grace we are saved through faith,” she said, “not by works. It is a gift from God. He saves us not because of what we do, but because of what Jesus did on the cross. The Bible says that whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life.”

I later asked Mom how she knew so much about these people. “Books,” she said. “If I join them, I can’t buy Girl Scout cookies, or serve on a jury.” Then she laughed. “Or wear a beard.”

“But how did you know what to say?”

She smiled, “I prayed. And I cared. And I know my Bible. You can spot a fake when you spend time with the real thing every day.”

Lynn Wilder, author of the book Unveiled Grace, spent 30 years following a false Jesus. But in the New Testament she found that Jesus’ teachings contradicted what she was taught. She told me, “I asked God to show me what was true and what was not. A personal relationship with Jesus is like nothing I had ever known. Our church kept everything in the dark. But Jesus brought everything into the light.”

I asked how we can keep our kids from following a false Christ. She said, “Spend time in the Bible. Teach your children to do the same—to love the Word and read it every day. This helps us recognize false gospels.” And how should we treat a friend who is on the wrong path? “Point them to the Gospels,” she said. “Pray for them. Love them. Love is the universal language.”

I think even my brother would agree that it sure beats pretending to be deaf.