Witnessing What?

THEY CALL IT witnessing", which lends credence to it, makes it sound important, respectable, by giving it an air of legitimacy, of legal validity. they would say that they are serving, attesting to, being witnesses to the truth of Christ's gospel, his plan for salvation, the Christian faith, by living according to its principles, thus verifying its eternal verities, and spreading its message to all, among the unsaved. Another way of describing it is that they are witnessing the enhancement of their own self esteem by convincing themselves that of the thousands of religions on earth, of the hundreds of varieties of Christianity, theirs is the true religion, and that they are therefore spiritually superior, and cannot resist demonstrating their moral superiority to others by reminding others of it. Every few months they knock on my door, wanting to improve me, to save me from something, to enhance their sens of superiority and self esteem. My mother, a clever woman, used to tell them that she was Catholic, and would pray for them at mass.I invite them in, offer them refreshments, and proceed to tell them about my religiosity, and to quote Goethe, Einstein, Voltaire, and Jefferson. they want to help me, maybe I should return the favor. Pantheism, baby, Join me? That always seems to confuse them, annoy them, and to ultimately motivate them to write me off as incorrigible, and then to leave, sadly. So zealous are they that they travel not only around their own neighborhoods, but to foreign countries, trying to improve people of different cultural and religious heritages. Invariably, those they try to improve and save are as intelligent, happy, and dedicated to their existing religious beliefs as they are, but, to them, that is of no consequence. The unsaved must be saved by their superior religions. The fact that this is arrogant, insulting, and aggressive, and disrespectful never occurs to the evangelical witness, because, the evangelical witness, attesting to the true religion, the one true religion, is bringing a superior message to the misguided. The witnesses will never understand this, will never respect people whose religiosity differs from their own, for they are incapable of humbling themselves and opening their own minds to this reality. somehow, society survives their onslaught on decency and civilization. Maybe some fine day they will shrink in numbers to nothing, and we will be spared their contempt of us. If one of them tries to tell you that the pandemic is God's wrath for a wicked society which tolerates homosexuality, liberalism, atheism, and other religions, slam the door in their ugly, hateful faces.