Jehovah’s Witnesses are like cancerous tumors. Both are hard to detect, and even more difficult to get rid of. Keep in mind that I’m not referring to all Jehovah’s Witnesses here. The specific people I have in mind are the type that come in from the Appleton community and set up a folding card table with Jesus placards manned by an eerily intense and blank-eyed zealot of the faith in the lobby of my dorm.
My dorm. I am being recruited to make a major decision regarding religion in the very same building where my only 12-by-15-foot cinder block cell of semi-personal space is located, and it is not right.
When I get home from a day of classes, the last thing I’m worrying about is the condition of my eternal soul. And I shouldn’t have to be. Just because my eternal salvation has made it into someone else’s agenda doesn’t mean it’s weighing heavily on my mind.
And until it is, I would much appreciate being left alone.
What bothers and disgusts me most about the Jehovah’s Witnesses is the double standard they represent every time they invade what is ostensibly my home and most certainly my privacy.
When you stand alongside a little booth preaching religion to someone in the foyer of their home, you are requiring them to be tolerant, respectful, and open-minded. I think it’s rude, and ultimately infuriating that I can’t expect the same from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who discard those qualities the minute they step into my dorm and begin to preach.
My advice to the Jehovah’s Witnesses: go home and stay there. Celebrate your faith as individuals, and with a congregation of like-minded people, and share your religion with those who seek you out.
Do not, however, confront me with it every time I walk into the lobby of my dorm. This is my space, and much like a cancerous tumor, you are not welcome here.