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The Friendship of Missionaries

Despite their good manners, I dislike when Mormons knock at my door to sign me up for salvation. Whether the product is heaven or a vacuum cleaner, I am not much for salesmen. Can they know what's best for me, who do not know me? At least Mormons wear starched shirts and neckties to warn me I am the object of their calling. More cunning were the undercover missionaries I knew in college, who befriended people in order to convert them. Friendship and proselytizing are incompatible, for the latter requires molding others into your image, while the former requires leaving them as they are. Genuine friendship means respecting your friends enough to let them be damned.

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By The Quiet One on April 2, 2011 5:34 AM

Hmmm. On the contrary, I'd say that it is a poor friend who leaves his or her friend unchanged. People should seek to lift their friends up, to help them become better human beings. And that is exactly what missionaries try to do: they do not attempt to mold friends into their own image, but try to change both themselves and their friends for the better! They know there is something above both their friends and themselves, and strive for it in every part of their lives, friendship included. It is true that "befriending" someone only to convert them is not a worthy pursuit, and is not true friendship, as it leaves out real concern for the other person. But those of sincere faith tend to want the best for their friends; and for such believers, this includes sharing with their friends about one of the most meaningful parts of their lives - their faith.

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open quote Mr. Stanley’s Aphorisms and Paradoxes are outstanding examples of the long-form aphorism... inevitably studded with discrete individual aphorisms that could easily stand on their own. close quote

-James Geary, author of The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism

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