Zealous Townhouse

My opinion about the propriety of plastering the façade of one’s townhouse with bible verses is neatly expressed in the face of the neighbor’s jack-o-lantern. (Click on the pic for your personal salvation.)

As we continued our walk through the Fort Green section of Brooklyn, I was thinking about some people’s need to proclaim their faith. To proselytize. To convert. To save. I have often been irked when hearing the eulogistic phrase “He was zealous for souls.” Why is that so admirable? I think real conversions take place because someone sees something in another person that is irresistibly attractive, and wants it in his own life. If you have to “get out there and sell it”, how good can it really be? Just another phone service, but this one promising a line to God.

I guess I never felt the premise that is necessary for the business of pro-active converting: that all men need to be exposed to the “Good News” so that they can join God’s family. And, that if we don’t get out there and spread the faith, others will somehow be deprived of God. He’s God, for God’s sake. If he wants to be known to all men, he can do the canvasing a lot better than I can. He does not need a yenta to make his introductions. Also foreign to me is the adjacent concept that those people who don’t have the gospel preached to them will be in some way deprived of the presence of God. Honestly, does that make any sense at all?

Anyway, I’m lumping this townhouse in with this one, and I am guessing that their occupants would hate having each other as neighbors.