LDS Lesson #12

So today I once again walked down to meet with the LDS missionaries. I got another surprise when I learned that Demophon had been transferred, being replaced with another missionary whom I'll call "Cresphontes". We got a ride back to campus with Epaphos, whose family had driven me to church the time I went last month. Epaphos, Kallinos, and Cresphontes accompanied me to the campus chapel, where we found an empty classroom in the basement to occupy. On the way over, Cresphontes and I chatted about where he'd been before his transfer: not too far from my hometown, as it turns out. He'd served with a predominantly Spanish-speaking ward in the county seat. Cresphontes, like Demophon and Kallinos before him, were in awe of the grandeur of the chapel; as I found out from Kallinos on the walk over, Demophon had been blown away by the pipe organ in the sanctuary.

When we got to the classroom, we chatted for a bit about a couple classes I'd had in the room before, one of which was Religion in America, and I explained to Epaphos that I'd actually taught the material on Mormonism in that class, since I knew more about it than the professor. I then, of course, had to explain yet again for Epaphos and Cresphontes how I first came into contact with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and then Kallinos opened us in prayer. Then I told them what the church building in Greece was like, how my discussions with Creon and Orestes and Admetus went, etc., etc., and eventually how I came to continue things here. The missionaries were somewhat surprised to hear that the missionaries in Greece couldn't get their hands on an English copy of the Doctrine and Covenants for me. And I also talked with them about fires, riots, and economic collapse - Greece in a nutshell, in other words.

Then, of course, Kallinos had to go and ask the question about what in particular got me interested in the Latter-day Saints, and I again gave my feeble answer of interest in the different range of exegetical and theological views that one finds there that aren't present in mainstream Christianity, etc., etc. I always have a hard time with that question. Then it went on:

Cresphontes: So you've read the Book of Mormon, ah, did you take Moroni's promise at the end? How'd you feel after that?

JB: Uhhh... I'm still working on persisting in prayer to know if these things are true. I haven't yet heard anything definitive either way. So I'm going to keep praying about it and keep working at it "by study and also by faith", I think is the phrase.

Kallinos: If you were to receive that it was true, what would you do?

JB: I would immediately begin moving in the direction of becoming a baptized member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Kallinos: Good, so you have the 'real intent' down....

[...]

Cresphontes: Do you mind if I share with you the experience I had, how I got my answer?

JB: Go for it.

Cresphontes: Well, I was raised in the church, so I mean, I was fed this stuff by my parents from an early age [...] but everyone needs to prove (?) it. Because we're not born Mormon, Buddhist, Taoist, anarchist. We find the truth by how hard we search for it [...] Um, when I was about fourteen or fifteen, and I was attending seminary - which is kind of like a class [...] high school, where [I learned (?)] gospel doctrine, I learned the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine & Covenants, the Old Testament and New Testament. I personally thought that the Book of Mormon was false, because there wasn't any scientific proof of it. Something I became very aware of is that trying to prove God exists with science might be fun but won't work. How I got my answer was, Gordon B. Hinckley - the prophet at the time - told us to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. So this was around August [...] like every teenager [...] I read little bits now and then. Around Christmas break, I was like, "You know what? If I read this, and if it's true, then what I believe is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, the authority of God is back on the earth in the priesthood, [...] Jesus Christ's true Church, the Church he set up, is back on the earth. If it's false, then I guess I gotta [...]." So for me it was kind of hit or miss. (?) [...] I prayed, and... there was no voice. And immediately I got choked up. Immediately I thought of my family: my mom, my dad, my brothers. I thought of the family I would have someday. It was like I saw my whole life, how it could be if the Church is true. And then right [...] I heard a voice, very small, very silent [...] 'it's true'. And after that I was like, "Well I guess I know the direction my life's going." [...] We are where we are today because we received those answers. What's nice is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is today being more and more able to provide proof intellectually that it's true... but ultimately Heavenly Father wants us to know spiritually that it's true. Because you can change your thoughts, you can change your opinions, but you really can't-- it's really hard to change your feelings about something. So if you get a burning within yourself, a feeling, especially that something is true, that changes your whole point of view [...] the course that God wants you to go. [...] Your answer will come, and it will be something you'll never forget.

Kallinos: So, how do you think that you can know that it's true?

JB: I think that ultimately I'll find the answer in prayer. I will pray earnestly to God with all of my being to know if it is true, and by persisting in doing so and making sure that I have real intent, pour everything that I am into it, eventually I believe that God will show me - whether it be like that, or whether it be by pointing me in the direction of things that will indicate to me one way or the other whether or not it's true - that God will reveal to me what the answer is.

Kallinos: Alright. Um, good, that's good, you're on the right track. Um, [...] you read the Bible, we know that you love the Bible, so [...]

I can't recall exactly what came in at this point, but Kallinos quoted James 2:19 and started saying things like "belief involves more than just faith", and essentially the gist of his monologue was that since I'm clearly doing everything else right, the problem must be some sort of moral failing, because that's the only thing they can think of that would explain why God hasn't told me that theirs is the One True Church^TM. In retrospect, the whole general tone of the conversation - well, monologue - had an uncanny resemblance to certain large swaths of the Book of Job. Now, even I found this portion at least somewhat insulting, indicating to me that perhaps Kallinos dozed off when the Missionary Training Center taught the lesson on this little thing called "tact". Tip to LDS missionaries: try to avoid making baseless insinuations that God isn't talking to your prospective convert because your convert is rebelling against God. Instead, maybe you could try something that would go a bit more like this:

A: Hmm, so you're clearly a believer in the Bible, you believe that Jesus is Son of God, Savior, and Lord... You know what's at stake in this, I can see that you have 'real intent', and you're praying in earnest to God to reveal this to you. Hmmm... may I read a few passages from the Bible with you?

B: Sure.

A: [select a few passages of moral exhortation] How would you currently rate yourself against this?

B: Well, I could always be doing better. But I am abiding by what you call the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom, and I strive to devote myself to following God's commands and living by grace through faith.

A: Very good! Well, I can't tell you just what it is that might explain why God isn't answering your prayers, although I'll certainly pray about it and pray for you. In the meantime, the only thing I can think to suggest - and, again, I don't claim to know what's in your heart at all - is to continue working on living up to God's standards insofar as you know them, and I'm sure that when you do so, God will reveal even more to you.

Not perfect, of course - it still smacks of a bit too much works-righteousness - but at least more tactful and less presumptuous. Kallinos, however, didn't go this route. Instead, what he said was filled with statements like these:

• "You've got a sincere heart, you've got the real intent... but there are lots of people with good intentions that don't really lead to very much."
• "You've got a lot of faith [...] and then it comes to the second part, which is repentance. And that's kind of the biggie, and a big preparation step. And that's what we would invite you to start working on now. You have all the faith in the world, that's definitely true, and now you need to start acting upon that. You know, there's a lot of things you could do besides just praying that will lead you to your answer. You know? It is within your capacity to come to church. It is within your capacity to study the [Standard Works (?)] and to pray. It is within your capacity to keep the Word of Wisdom. It is within your capacity to do a lot of other [...] gospel principle [...] right there?"
• He went on to cite Stephen R. Covey again to make the point that "the Church is true to you to the extent that you are true to the Church. If you're not being true to the Church, it's not going to be very true to you".
• "If you want to know whether this came from Joseph Smith or if this came from God, do it. Okay? More than just praying. You know, Moroni 10:3-5, you know, that's a great way to receive revelation, I use it a lot of the time, it does work, sometimes additional effort is required. 'To whom much is given, much is required' [Luke 12:48]. You've been given a lot [...] start acting on it."
• "Don't just wait for the answer to come to you; go and look for it. Search for it and keep the commandments of God. You know, don't just read the Book of Mormon for information's sake, read it with the intent of reading what it instructs you to do, and then do accordingly."

In the course of all of this, Kallinos talked some about how he'd gained a testimony, and how:

...it's not like the answer came all at once, it's not like it was a grand revelation or [...] a distinct feeling that this is true. That came later. It did come, but it didn't come at first. At first it was simply impressions or feelings that I should do this or I should do that - just little pieces and bits of the truth, you know - [...] and I had seen in the Book of Mormon or Doctrine & Covenants where it says that the Lord teaches you "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little" [2 Nephi 28:30; D&C 128:21]....

We also discussed a few other passages, like John 7:17 and Alma 7:23-25. Kallinos also grilled me some more about whether I'd really be willing to tithe, things like that. So anyway, after Kallinos was done lecturing me, he asked if I'd come out to their church again soon and I naturally agreed. He then assured me:

I just want you to know that, as you faithfully live the gospel of Jesus Christ and the principles that were brought forward in this modern dispensation - the dispensation that we know as "the fullness of times" - that you will know it's true.

And then Kallinos related the story of Glenn Beck's conversion, wherein Beck decided to try to disprove the "law of tithing" by following it and watching his life get worse, but instead was confounded when he found himself increasingly blessed by it. And eventually Kallinos qualified his previous lecture by acknowledging that I'm hardly an exceptionally sinful wanton, and he asked if I'd strive to live in accordance with God's commandments insofar as I know them. I said yes, and he replied, "Good, because I know that as you do so, you will receive an answer that it's true [...] because everything that's true is light, and light is discernible, that it's true. Truth has a familiar ring to it."

(I, on the other hand, would bring to mind passages like Jeremiah 17:9 and the simple patent fact that we humans have a nearly endless capacity for self-deception, especially when it comes to following our feelings - and, contrary to what Cresphontes suggested, beliefs obtained by reason are more properly stable than beliefs obtained by feelings. By that I mean that relatively seldom is, "I get a good feeling when I consider this", a good warrant for a belief in something. That's the overall problem that I have with standard LDS epistemology. I have little fundamental complaint at the notion of some beliefs being warranted by religious experience in certain situations, at least not so long as those beliefs are potentially defeasible. If we accept a general rule of, "Religious thoughts that bring a feeling of peace are true; religious thoughts that bring the opposite feelings are false", the result is absolute chaos if we're even a slight bit consistent.)

Cresphontes - the more tactful and easygoing of this missionary pair - then talked a bit about the usefulness of setting goals. And then he said something fairly interesting:

In the short time I've gotten to know you, and everything that we've both experienced, I've felt the Spirit probably a little more strongly than I have in my mission in this room right now. You have a wonderful testimony of these truths, you have an open mind, you have a soft heart - your heart isn't hardened, which is wonderful, I wish more people could be like that. I testify to you that as you start to set goals, as you start to make the leap of faith (as many people describe it), that God will prepare every step of your way - especially if this is true, especially if you make that leap. I promise you that as you do this, as you're setting goals, and especially [...] prayer [...] setting goals along with noble works, that those two will go together beautifully and that you will receive your answer. As a set-apart servant of the Lord and his messenger, I can promise you that you will receive one.

After that was done, I got to hear the story of how Epaphos had come to become a Latter-day Saint. He and his wife were converts from a nominal Lutheran background. One day when he wasn't home, some missionaries had dropped off a copy of the Book of Mormon with his wife, and when he got home, she said to him, "Some men dropped by today, and I think they were sent from God!" He was initially "rebellious", to use his word, and didn't much want to have further contact with them, but the missionaries were very persistent in sticking with him and suggesting times to meet until he couldn't duck them anymore. Eventually he got to the missionary discussions and reached the part where they taught about the LDS doctrine of the spirit's pre-existence, and Epaphos said that it was something that he'd always thought about but that his Lutheran church never discussed. "If we're spiritual, if we have a spirit, where was our spirit then? Before we're here? And I always thought about that, something missing in it, and that closed the gap right there, that was something that was missing, and I-- it was a familiar thing, too, when they taught it." And he went on to discuss some of his own experiences with being blessed through tithing, and then told a story about the second time he went to an LDS temple. (He said that the first time he was there to get his temple marriage and his endowment, it was all so new and strange to him that he doesn't even remember it well any more.) He said that when he sat down in the Celestial Room, "every question that entered my mind was immediately answered. Immediately! With answers I had never even thought of". He said that the questions had ranged from issues with raising his kids to interpretation of assorted scriptural passages. "And I knew the answer was coming from the Holy Spirit, I just knew it, because it was just things that I'd never thought about, never even imagined". He also said that he never forgot it because "it's never happened since, it was just this one time. And I guess God was giving me a special experience to strengthen my testimony. Because I do get answers from the Holy Ghost, just... not that way, a flood of answers". He also mentioned that, since it was nearly three decades ago, he's completely forgotten what the questions actually were. Epaphros went on to talk about how the Spirit doesn't speak to our physical bodies but to our own spirits, and how testimonies usually start out relatively little and grow over time.

Anyway, the missionaries talked for a bit about their stories, I think - I seem to recall Cresphontes talking about his dad - and we then covered some other topics, and in the process of explaining why I wasn't sure where I was in the Book of Mormon (I'd been going through an audio version), I described how my computer had just completely gone to pot - or, as I described it this time around, that "I guess you could say my computer joined the sons of perdition". And then I mentioned that I'd gotten a new computer recently, but that the upshot is that I no longer was certain what files I'd listened to and what files I hadn't.

Cresphontes then said that it had been a privilege talking to me and asked if I had any questions. I said that I did have one that I was curious about after visiting their church last time, and that was why water is used in the sacrament, rather than "something more grape-based" like wine or grape juice. They explained that it had been revealed to Joseph Smith (cf. D&C 27) not to use wine in the sacrament, since that would be contrary to the Word of Wisdom. Kallinos, after noting that they don't drink wine since they don't drink alcohol, simply said - in keeping with D&C 27:2 - that "it doesn't matter what we eat or drink; honestly, we could drink orange juice and eat a bagel if it came down to it, if we had nothing else, but what matters is that we do it 'with an eye single to the glory of God' and that we do it in remembrance that Jesus has died for our sins". Cresphontes added that in his ward back home, there are some people with gluten allergies, and consequently they have a special tray with rice cakes for the sacramental bread.

Eventually things took some interesting turns (I mentioned that very soon I'd be taking part in a big panel discussion on Christianity and homosexuality, so I'd been doing a lot of extra reading and preparation to "speak the truth in love" [Ephesians 4:15]), and I ended up as the recipient of a 'priesthood blessing' at Cresphontes' suggestion. (Kallinos half-rebuked Cresphontes by saying that "we don't solicit blessings", but Epaphos remarked that a person can hardly request one if they don't really know about them. In the end, I requested it.) So all three of them - Kallinos, Cresphontes, and Epaphos - all stood up and gathered around me and laid hands on the top of my head while I remained seated. I had chosen Kallinos to actually deliver the blessing, and so it went something like this:

[JB], in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the holy Melchizedek Priesthood which we hold, we give you a blessing of comfort and of peace from your Heavenly Father. [JB], your Heavenly Father is well aware of your circumstances. He loves you. He wants you to be happy, he wants you to experience all the joys and the privilege that comes to his children in this life. He wants you to taste of his love and his mercy in your life. He recognizes the difficulty of the schooling and education that you're going through at this time, and he will bless you with knowledge, with wisdom according to your needs, as you exercise your faith in him and as you turn to him in prayer. [JB], your Heavenly Father wants you to be at peace. He wants you to feel the Spirit. Always be willing to do that which will invite the Spirit. Always be willing to follow your savior Jesus Christ, and he will give unto you peace. Continue in the path that you are walking, because it is the correct path. As (?) you will continue to exercise your faith in Jesus Christ, he will continue to bless (?) you. We leave you with these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Anyway, that was how things wound down with our meeting, and as we walked upstairs and out of the chapel, we continued to hear the lovely singing of a large choir that had begun performing a concert about midway through the priesthood blessing. I parted ways with my friends on the sidewalk, looking forward to seeing them again at church the next Sunday.

LDS Lesson #11

So today I met with the missionaries outside the local pizza place where we'd had our previous meeting. Upon reflection, I had decided that the place was too noisy inside for me to hear clearly enough what was going on, so I decided that future meetings would be in secluded spots on campus. Rather than try to give directions by phone - reception is notoriously bad around here, and I got disconnected several times during even a brief phone conversation with Demophon - we decided to just meet there and walk over. I had extra free time because all classes were cancelled on the grounds of ridiculously inclement weather. And so I found myself at the shop early to grab a bit of food as a 'light' lunch (actually, it was vastly more filling than I'd imagined), and eventually I glimpsed Demophon approaching with his new partner. Sthenelos, you see, had been transferred just a day or so after I met him; and so I now met a Californian elder (born in Minnesota, though) whom I'll call "Kallinos". We took the trek back to campus, despite the utterly horrid wintery weather, and I showed them to the chapel. (They initially thought that the local art gallery, which used to be a church, was the building in question.) After leading them to the relatively comfortable lounge in the chapel basement and exchanging some chit-chat, one of the missionaries opened with a brief word of prayer.

So first I got to know Kallinos a bit better; he has a rather low and quiet voice, so it wasn't always easy to make out what he was saying. One thing I found is that he really likes to read... a lot. (As he remarked at one point, "I devour books.") Which, of course, really connected to me--I'm the exact same way. He's done mostly fiction, but since going on his mission he's realized how valuable some religious non-fiction could be, so he's excited to have time after his mission to really dive into that. On his mission, he's been mostly restricted to reading the Standard Works, although he did recently read Stephen R. Covey's Spiritual Roots of Human Relations. He said, though, that at times he does tire of reading just the scriptures; he compared it to being made to eat chocolate cake all day, every day--good stuff, but maybe some less rich stuff for contrast would be nice. (Of course, being allergic to chocolate and not at all a fan of its flavor or its aroma, which itself can make me feel ill, I suppose some of that was lost on me.) He's an English major, and he hopes to eventually earn a doctorate in the field and teach at the university level.

Kallinos and Demophon agreed, however, that if they read too much theology--even LDS theology--while on their mission, they might get distracted from the main purpose of their calling, which is to "teach repentance". Demophon then checked if missionaries had ever talked to me about things like the law of tithing, the Word of Wisdom, and a couple other topics; I said yes, since I've been as far through the missionary discussions as a non-convert can get. Kallinos asked if I "understand it all pretty well"; my answer was, "I think so". I am quite sure that I grasp the meaning of what the missionaries provided, but I'm usually relatively hesitant to say that I understand something, because I don't want to be presumptuous or to exclude the possibility (however distant it may be) that I'm completely off-base. Blame my personality type:

A major concern for INTPs is the haunting sense of impending failure. They spend considerable time second-guessing themselves. The open-endedness (from Perceiving) conjoined with the need for competence (NT) is expressed in a sense that one's conclusion may well be met by an equally plausible alternative solution, and that, after all, one may very well overlooked some critical bit of data.

Anyway, they asked if I've "applied what they [Creon and Orestes] taught [me]", and I said yes, because I do strive to live by many of the same general principles as Latter-day Saints do (even if I don't consider tithing a law and don't necessarily consider the Word of Wisdom to always be the required option, or anything like that). They then asked if I've been reading and praying, and if I've come to church; I said that I have been continuing to work through the Book of Mormon and pray for wisdom and enlightenment from God, but that I haven't been to an LDS church yet, but would like to. We're going to see about arranging for me to visit the nearest one on 14 March 2010.

They then asked me "how [my] prayers have been going", which is always a perplexing question for me. I view prayer as communication with God, communication with a real being who listens; asking how prayer has been going is like asking how a phone conversation has been going. It's not necessarily a nonsensical question, but a peculiar one nonetheless. At any rate, I said that regarding the whole Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith thing, I "haven't heard an answer back yet", but I intend to continue persevering in prayer and entrusting myself to God. They then asked me "what [I] usually pray for when [I] pray", and I answered, "I pray that God would grant me wisdom, that he would enlighten my mind, that he would move in me to accomplish his will, whatsoe'er it may be." One of the missionaries asked me whether I "get into specifics at all", and I replied that "I also pray that he would, you know, reveal to me whether or not the Book of Mormon is true, whether or not The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church, whether or not Joseph Smith was a prophet called by God".

Demophon then decided to ask me more about "the feelings that [I] receive from reading the Book of Mormon", to describe them. Another unexpected question, and one that made me pause to think. In light of my pause, one of the missionaries said he's pretty sure it couldn't have just been emptiness, there had to be some feeling there. Anyway, I said that when I read the Book of Mormon, I generally have a positive feeling, but nothing "out of the ordinary"; I also said that "I do really enjoy reading the Book of Mormon, I learn a lot from it". In retrospect I'm not entirely sure how true that is; I'd probably enjoy the Book of Mormon a whole lot more if it weren't written in an affected archaic style to imitate the King James Version, which I also don't especially enjoy reading, to be perfectly honest. Demophon then asked "what it is [I'm] expecting", and I said that all I would expect from God as an answer to my prayer, assuming that he does wish to communicate to me that the Book of Mormon is true, would be "really anything that would let me know that it is God revealing it to me. It doesn't have to be, you know, exceptionally flashy or anything like that, just simply the 'still, small voice' of God saying, 'This is me, here I am.'" The missionaries seemed to accept that answer.

The missionaries then wanted to go over a few passages of Scripture with me, starting with Galatians 5:22-25. I read them aloud for us, and then Demophon wanted to turn to Doctrine and Covenants 46:7-26. We spent quite a bit of time on this one, going a few verses and then talking about it for a bit. (I was actually somewhat surprised at how fluently I was able to read my parts, since I'm not terribly used to the rhythm and style of the wording.) The section from the D&C was basically about the distribution of spiritual gifts, and I admit that spiritual gifts has been a topic of at least some interest for me lately.

(Perhaps I should interject an anecdote. As I may have mentioned, my roommate Childeric is heavily into the charismatic movement. Very... very heavily into the charismatic movement, in what I consider to be a perhaps unhealthy degree. I have no grievance against charismatic believers, save when there's an obviously problematic excess or imbalance. And my roommate really is a great guy, and very passionate for the Lord. Still, I've heard him speak in tongues roughly 10,000% more than I've heard him discuss the gospel, which has been more on the order of... well, I'm not actually sure if he'd have an answer besides "spiritual gifts" if I asked him what the gospel is. Whenever I say that the center of my faith is Christ crucified and risen from the dead, he actually seems to get a bit uncomfortable and try to shift the topic back to the gifts of healing, prophecy, and personal revelation in the contemporary Christian life. He generally intersperses this with remarks about how much more spiritually enlightened he is than anyone else around here. Anyway, he runs a Sunday morning worship service on campus this semester, and this past Sunday I attended. There were only a few people there. During the service, the speaker's wife said that someone present needed to be healed from back pain; I suffer from chronic back pain, probably largely due to scoliosis and all-around terrible joints, so I raised my hand. (It caught me especially off-guard because on the way to the service, I'd thought to myself that the one thing that would convince me beyond doubt of my roommate's radical position was if he and his friends were to heal my back...) Before I knew it, there was plenty of laying on of hands and praying in tongues - often, I'll add, in ways that are in apparent defiance of Paul's admonitions on the subject - for my healing. Because I'd been caught off-guard, I succeeded in persuading myself that I was healed, which actually did remove the pain for perhaps a day or so, by and large; now that the euphoria has worn off, of course, my back is no better than it was a month ago, although I certainly did strive to follow through humbly and boldly on every bit of advice I was given. The power of suggestion is, I suppose, a powerful thing indeed. A fascinating lesson nonetheless.)

So anyway, we discussed that passage for a while, not really saying much; neither of the missionaries seemed to be totally sure what the phrase "differences of administration" (D&C 46:15) was supposed to mean. The student manual that Latter-day Saints use quoted Sidney B. Sperry's Doctrine and Covenants Compendium (p. 196) as saying on the topic:

What is meant by differences of administration? By referring to 1 Corinthians 12:5, where the Apostle Paul is speaking about the same thing, we may get a suitable answer. Apparently by 'differences of administration' is meant the distinctive varieties of service and ministration by which things are accomplished in the Church. The Lord seems to be saying (vs. 15) that while there are diversities of services and ministers or agents, such as Apostles, High Priests, Seventies, and the like in the Church, they all depend on the same Lord and Savior, who is the head of the whole Church. One who has the gift by the Holy Ghost to know differences of administration is one who discerns correctly the services and agencies by which the Lord works. (quoted in Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual, p. 100)

Anyway, after Kallinos told a story about his father and how this gift has played a role in his life, Demophon remarked that this is something important that they wanted to discuss with me because "when [I] do become a member of the Church, [I] will be asked to do things, but when we serve [...] our Heavenly Father, we're blessed and we grow". So from there we continued to work through that portion of the Doctrine and Covenants. I believe that at one point the missionaries asked me what knowledge has done in my life, and I explained that it helps me approach the Scriptures more richly and take from them a greater wealth of practical guidance for living, as well as beholding the truth itself more clearly and thus coming to understand God better. Something like that, anyway. They also asked if I've seen it impact those around me; after I said yes, Kallinos noted that the reason God gives us gifts is for the benefit of those around us. Demophon then referred to 1 Kings 3:11-14, talking about the value of wisdom for Solomon.

Kallinos eventually came to ask me, "How much have you looked into why we do things?" A bit perplexed by the question, I asked him to clarify the relevant universe of discourse. (In layman's terms, I asked him whether he was using "we" as people in general, "we" as believers in God, "we" as LDS missionaries, or whatever.) Upon finding agreement to "humans in general", I answered that a lot of things can motivate us, and that while it's often selfishness, but also by the desire to serve God and others. As I said, "we're motivated by how we mentally rank things", how we prioritize our worlds. The highest form of motivation, of course, is do act sheerly from love of God, which expands also to love of others for the sake of the God who is Love. Kallinos then expounded on the Book of Mormon definition of "charity" as the "pure love of Christ", noting that because we have this love of Christ through love for Christ, we do everything for the sake of the other, and only incidentally for ourselves.

When you show God that you want to do everything you do for the benefit of his children, then he's going to help you do it. If you do it for a selfish cause, like-- there are even people within our Church that try to live the gospel of Jesus Christ for themselves, for the benefit of, you know, receiving their own salvation, receiving their own eternal reward or whatever it is. But the highest form of motivation comes not for serving yourself but for serving others.

He then turned to Moroni 7:5-11 and read it, and then discussed it briefly. Commenting on the statement that praying apart from "real intent" is counted by God as an evil, Kallinos said:

It's like, it says that it is accounted evil unto a man if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart. If you are praying, if you're trying to communicate your desires to God, and it's not with real intent of heart if your motivation isn't sincere, it's not real, then it's counted nothing towards you. You need to make sure that your motivations are pure, that they're-- that they're what God wants. [...] It's like, um, Cain and Abel, you know? They both offered sacrifices. Cain offered the fruit of the ground; Abel offered the firstlings of his flock. It was in the motivation... Cain offered it because it was just what he was required to give, you know, just the fruit of the ground. Abel did it because he wanted to, and so he gave his best, you know? Everything good comes from God, and everything evil comes from the devil. If what we do is good, then it's gonna be inspired of God; if what we do is bad, it's the devil. A little bit where I'm trying to go with this is that we need to make sure that our motivations are pure if we're gonna get what we're asking for from God. If you want an answer to your prayers, you need to make sure that your motivations are pure. It can't be for intellectual gain, it can't be for some selfish desire or anything like that, it's got to be because you want to follow Christ and you want to know that this comes from Christ.

(My cellphone rang while he was talking, but I ignored it. It was odd because I'm not used to people desiring to contact me.) He then went on to talk about how in his own life before he went on his mission, the gospel was basically just "a lot of mental Tinkertoys" for him, not any real devotion. He did things because he was told to, but not because of any deep desire; he would, on the other hand, "look into the deep doctrines of the faith because they were cool and fun and interesting", but "it really wasn't heartfelt, it really wasn't meaningful to me, it had no practical application to my life". Only when his heart was "softened" and he "got down on [his] knees and prayed", "really pleading with the Lord if it is true", did God give him the affirmative answer he sought. Then, of course, came the relatively standard testimony-bearing to the effect that he knew that the experience he had (he described it as "a baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost") could only come from God, and couldn't possibly have arisen from within himself. (I can't speak for others, but I generally don't have a positive reaction to testimony-bearing of this sort, since it largely serves as a discussion stopper. Basically, I don't regard it as one of the more effective ways for a Latter-day Saint to reach a person like me, I'm in good company. I deem it particularly ineffective insofar as it reminds me that many Latter-day Saints hold a view of religious epistemology that I generally consider wrongheaded.) Then came a brief conversation that might not have been the most judicious on their part:

Kallinos: Um, I don't know, you say you've been praying. But have you really prayed? Like, have you really gotten on your knees, and poured out your whole soul into your prayer, and pled with the Lord that he would answer your prayer?

JB: I would say yes. And I shall do so again.

Kallinos: Okay.

At this point, Kallinos wanted to turn to Moroni 7:45-48, which naturally we did. It struck me as a pretty clear borrowing from Paul. Demophon said that this passage amply illustrates "what truly motivates us". After some of Demophon's pontificating on the value of having an other-centered live, Kallinos added that he didn't come on his mission for himself, but rather to benefit others like me.

Demophon at last asked whether or not I had any questions. Now, I had thought a little bit about some of the questions I'd previously posed to Creon and Orestes, but because Demophon and Kallinos had taken far more time for their own things than I had anticipated, I really didn't want to launch into a deep discussion of any sort in the time remaining, and I definitely didn't want things to run over the scheduled time limit, since I had other things to do today. For that reason, after contemplating it for a little bit, I said that I'd think more about my questions and try asking them next time. Demophon asked whether the questions were scriptural, theological, or historical, and I answered that I had some of all three; he said that they'd definitely be willing to do any homework they needed to in order to answer the questions. I think that Kallinos is the one who chimed in with the comment, "I do know that all questions can be answered with the power of the Holy Ghost." Well, then, I may just have to hold them to that. Demophon started saying something about "if [I] come to accept that the Book of Mormon is true", but caught himself very quickly and changed the "if" to "when". They're very confident.

Anyway, we wrapped things up in prayer, and we parted in the chapel narthex; they went out one set of doors, and I went out the other direction. By way of reflection, I will say that I don't enjoy meeting with these missionaries nearly as much as I did with the ones I knew in Greece. Creon and Orestes were more... perhaps laid-back. I suppose I just don't feel the same actual sense of warmth from Demophon and Kallinos. But, time will tell, I suppose.

LDS Lesson #10

Another meeting with LDS missionaries... in America? You betcha. When I left Greece, Creon and Orestes agreed to forward my contact information onward to the mission president of my area. (Turns out to be a fairly large mission, apparently.) So after playing a fair bit of 'e-mail tag' with that guy for a while, I eventually succeeded in getting in touch with a pair of missionaries from the ward under which my college would fall. I'll be calling these guys 'Sthenelos' and 'Demophon'. (Think those are terrible choices? Deal with it.) So today I had a meeting with them at the local pizza joint. They had a dinner scheduled for after that, so all we really got was perhaps a soda or cup or water for Demophon before I got there - if I was going to be the only one eating, I can save money and just use the campus meal plan for lower quality food.

At any rate, as I walked around the building from behind to the sound of helicopters overhead, I caught a glimpse of the missionaries in the side window and smiled at them. I think they knew I must be the one they were looking for. Finally entering and sitting down, we struck up a chat with some brief introductions, and they asked how my day had been, what I study (religion, philosophy, and math - the third is a minor, not a major), why I picked religion as a field of study, etc.

The next part really caught me by surprise. Sthenelos asked me if I'd met Creon when I was in Greece, and I said that I had. He was surprised to find that Creon was one of the missionaries I'd studied with there... and I was surprised to learn that Sthenelos and Creon had been college roommates at Brigham Young University! We were all absolutely amazed at the idea that the missionaries I'd meet here back at home should have such a close connection to the ones I met in Greece - the elders of course ascribed this to divine providence. Anyway, we spent some time sharing some stories, and I filled in Sthenelos on how Creon's been doing over there, and told him that Creon had been transferred from Athens to Thessaloniki a month or so ago, and all that. Creon really is a great guy, and I could tell that I'd also get along with Sthenelos and Demophon. I agreed to help Sthenelos get in touch with Creon again.

Also, they asked where I'd met the missionaries in Greece, and I mentioned that I'd met them in Mars Hill in Athens. Demophon asked if that was a cafe of some sort (he thought he'd been to one in NYC), and I replied that no, it was where Paul preached when he was in Athens, and then Demophon felt somewhat silly. They also asked if I had been able to attend church over there, and I said that while I'd been to some functions at the LDS Church, I hadn't attended any actual 'services', though I had gone to an evangelical church in Athens. I did say that I'd like to attend one sometime, though, so we'll see if we can work that out. I won't be able to attend as soon as I'd like because I agreed to attend a service that my interesting roommate 'Childeric' is organizing on campus.

Anyway, we basically got to know each other better, and they asked how far I'd gotten in my discussions with the missionaries in Greece; they were a bit surprised to know that I'd gotten basically all the way through. They also asked what interested me in their church, which has always been a difficult question for me to answer, but I basically said that the range of opinions present there that aren't common in other Christian groups really interested me--which I think is the reason why I'm so fascinated with the field of Mormon studies; I told them the story of how I got my first copy of the Book of Mormon. Also, somewhere in all of this, the missionaries presented me with, not just a copy of the Doctrine and Covenants, but a full-scale triple combination. That's the Book of Mormon, the D&C, and the Pearl of Great Price, all in a single volume. Cool!

They also asked if I had any questions to throw at them, which kind of caught me off-guard. For some reason, when I envisioned this meeting, it never occurred to me to think of that. So I didn't have any, for once, but I said that I'd try to think about it until next time. And they also asked me whether, if I came to believe in their church and all that, if I'd be willing to be baptized; my reply was that "if God tells me it's the truth, then I'm going with it", and when asked about the First Vision, I also said that if it was indeed a real occurrence and was indeed from God, then it's undoubtedly significant. I could tell that they weren't really used to finding people who are passionately willing to act on those sorts of things; they said basically as much themselves, and said that when most people come across the First Vision, they don't seem to get what the fuss is about.

Anyway, I don't recall everything that happened at our meeting, but I do remember being asked about the atonement and explaining how grateful I am for what Christ did for us, and the missionaries essentially said several times that they were very confident that if I kept praying sincerely as they recognized that I currently am and would persist in my determination, God would reveal the truth to me. Also, I don't recall either of them explicitly bearing testimony ("I KNOW that this Church is true", etc., etc.)

The last thing I remember inside the restaurant (after setting up a next meeting) was them asking if there was anything they could do for me, and my answer was simple: "Pray for me." After that, we left, and we got to walk to the corner down the street together while chatting before we had to part ways, and I headed up to the cafeteria where I had a decent light dinner with a number of my friends from the campus gay rights group.

JW Study Meeting #32

Today at 2:00 PM, the Jehovah's Witnesses caught me just a little bit off-guard. I had lost myself in some genealogical research (one of my other hobbies), and the time had passed by quite quickly. So as I let them in, I said a silent prayer in my mind that their minds would be enlightened with the truth of God and that they would come to know God as he truly is. Uriah stepped in, and he had with him another Jehovah's Witness, whom I'll call "Raanan", who had some profoundly noticeable borborygmi throughout the meeting. We showed Uriah a nice, useful site that can help him save some money on eating out (this led to some discussions of various restaurants in the area), and Uriah also approved a flier I'd made for something coming up. (Stay tuned!)

Then Uriah asked what I'd thought of the circuit assembly, and I replied that I enjoyed it. (This is true, though with the caveat that I enjoyed it as an observer, but I have difficulty imagining reaping actual spiritual benefit from it.) We talked about assemblies for a while longer; Uriah remarked once again on how much more comfortable the seats are there, and Uriah and Raanan both talked for a while about some experiences they had when assemblies/conventions were held at more outdoor venues. Uriah had never gotten hit with any rain, but there was some light mist on one occasion; Raanan hadn't been so fortunate. We also spoke a bit of Ithamar's family, and I mentioned how much I really enjoyed talking to Talya (and, as it turns out, I'm not alone in having difficulty making out what she's saying). They also told a few other stories; Raanan related one about his grandson's friend's family moving to the Philippines. He had another interesting story about how a school had invited people of several faith traditions (a Jewish rabbi, a Lutheran minister, and himself as a Jehovah's Witness) to explain to some sixth-graders what their respective groups believe; the rabbi was a no-show and the Lutheran barely gave five minutes, so Raanan had to fill up most of the time, and then a number of the kids asked really intelligent questions. Later in the conversation, Uriah asked me how my girlfriend has been doing, and so I told him about her current quest for a more "solid" teaching position, and how she's currently substituting whenever she has the chance.

We finally got to the 'Bible study', turning to Chapter 10 of What Does the Bible Really Teach?, pp. 96-105; today we'd be getting through the first nine paragraphs on pp. 96-100. Before Uriah had me read the first paragraph, he asked me the three opening questions:

Uriah: Surprise, it's your turn to read. [*laughs*] Before you do that, "do angels help people?"

JB: Yep.

Uriah: You think so, okay. "How have wicked spirits influenced humans?"

JB: By suggesting horrible ideas, by tempting towards sin, by diverse manners, one might say.

Uriah: Okay. "Do we need to fear wicked spirits?"

JB: No.

Uriah: Okay--

JB: Be wary, but not fear.

Uriah: Okay! Okay, good, very good. Very good! Now you may read, sir.

With that, I launched into the first paragraph, which dealt asserted that it's important to learn about the angels--to study biblical angelology, in other words--because "getting to know Jehovah God includes becoming better acquainted with his angelic family", and the question for the paragraph was, "Why should we want to learn about angels?" Well, only an absolute dunce would fail to see the answer they were seeking, so I fleshed it out by referring to the angels as part of the great crowd of witnesses watching us contend for the faith on earth, and as part of the companionship we'll have in the age to come. Uriah, as is customary, added his own question:

Uriah: If a Christian is trying to teach God's truth to a non-Christian, a person who
didn't have an opportunity to believe or whatever, do you think the angels have
any feelings about that?

JB: I believe that they will be working alongside the Christian.

Uriah: Okay, good. Okay.

Raanan read the second paragraph, which.... well, here it is:

The Bible refers to angels hundreds of times. Let us consider a few of these references to learn more about angels. Where did angels come from? Colossians 1:16 says: "By means of him [Jesus Christ] all other things were created in the heavens and upon the earth." Hence, all the spirit creatures called angels were individually created by Jehovah God through his firstborn Son. How many angels are there? The Bible indicates that hundreds of millions of angels were created, and all of them are powerful.--Psalm 103:20.

Uriah then read the question ("Where did angels come from, and how many are there?"), and so I essentially returned the content of the paragraph, which--aside from the underlying sense of Jesus as merely the instrumental cause of their creation, rather than participating in the divine activity as efficient cause (although in a somewhat more instrumental fashion, with comparison to the Father)--was relatively unobjectionable, from a biblical standpoint. When I mentioned that the angels were created through/by Christ, Uriah asked whether that meant that there were no angels before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and I made clear that the angels antedate the earth. The third paragraph, which I then read, states this explicitly and also adds that Job 38:4-7 "shows that angels have feelings, for it says that they 'joyfully cried out together.' Note that 'all the sons of God' rejoiced together. At that time, all the angels were part of a united family serving Jehovah God." Again, nothing terribly controversial, save perhaps to an ardent Thomist. No difficulty in summarizing it to answer the associated question: "What does Job 38:4-7 tell us about angels?" (Seriously, if the level of difficulty in JW study questions is at all indicative of the level of intelligence of the average American, I weep for my country.) In giving my answer (which Uriah said was "excellent"), I mentioned that the unison of the angels would be disrupted later, and so he asked me to recap that further, to which I replied that "we know that there was the war in heaven, we know that Satan drew away about a third of the angels into his rebellion with him and thus broke the harmony that had once existed among the angelic sons of God".

We moved to the next section, titled "Angelic Support and Protection", comprised of paragraphs 4-6. Again, from a biblical standpoint, nothing especially objectionable, not unless we're going to delve into real minutiae. (But, as will become clear later in this account, I have nothing against such delving...) The fourth paragraph talks about the angels becoming sad/happy in response to our (dis)obedience to God, and the question was, "How does the Bible show that faithful angels are interested in human activities?" When I answered, I tossed in the bonus remark that it makes perfect sense for the angels to care, since "the human story is basically the centerpiece of God's creation, it's the narrative that it's all about, in one sense, then naturally the angels are going to be fascinated by it because they know that this is what God is truly interested in". (Uriah liked this answer and then brought up the God's-will-being-done-in-heaven thing, and then had to explain to Raanan that we have different views on that clause in the Lord's Prayer.) The fifth paragraph gave a number of examples of angelic intervention: saving Lot, rescuing Daniel, freeing Peter from prison, and strengthening Jesus in Gethsemane. The related question was, "What examples of angelic support do we find in the Bible?" (Hint: I just listed the ones they listed.)

The sixth paragraph stated that, while "angels no longer appear visibly to God's people on earth", they still protect us from spiritual harm, i.e., from the influence of evil spirits, rather than physical harm. There were two questions for this one. The first was, "How do angels protect God's people today?" After I gave the answer, Uriah asked if I believe that as well, and I said that I did; he asked if it was safe to say that I've never personally seen an angel, and I said, "Not that I know of." Laughing, he remarked, "Good! I don't always get that answer!" The second question for the sixth paragraph was, "What questions will we now consider?"--a pretty easy one, considering that the paragraph ended with three such questions. This whole section was fairly uneventful, but after the fifth paragraph, Uriah tried tossing me a little surprise bonus question:

Uriah: What about the times where we see that an angel came to strengthen Jesus? A couple paragraphs ago, we read that Jesus created the angels--or, Jehovah created them through Jesus. So how does that make sense, if he needed them to strengthen him?

JB: Well, of course, when Jesus became human, he took upon himself things like human weakness, physical weakness, the need to eat, the capacity to be profoundly disturbed, all sorts of things--conditions that would at times be greatly allieved by assistance.

Initially, I figured that Uriah was going to be tossing this out there as sort of a challenge to belief in the full deity of Christ, which he knows I believe quite deeply. However, when he phrases it as a problem to reconcile this biblical passage with a statement found earlier in the Bible Teach book, it becomes clear, at least to me, that this was another sort of test case designed to let us work on a problem shared by both of our positions, not something unique to Trinitarians like myself. Uriah found my answer quite acceptable.

The seventh paragraph was also not too objectionable; it spoke of Satan's great success in corrupting the antediluvian world, noting that Abel, Enoch, and Noah stood as three of the very few who remained faithful to God. The question was, "To what extent did Satan succeed in turning people away from God?" Like I said, aside from maybe a quibble as to the historicity of the 'antediluvian world' depicted in Genesis 1-6, nothing objectionable, at least not from a biblical standpoint. Uriah added the question, "Who did he not turn away--and I don't mean names, I mean as a group." The answer, as we both agreed, was those who refused to surrender to temptation and who instead insisted upon remaining loyal to Jehovah. The eighth paragraph stirred up some more controversy, mostly because I felt like being annoying. The text read:

In Noah's day, other angels rebelled against Jehovah. They left their place in God's heavenly family, came down to the earth, and took on fleshly bodies. Why? We read at Genesis 6:2: "The sons of the true God began to notice the daughters of men, that they were good-looking; and they went taking wives for themselves, namely, all whom they chose." But Jehovah God did not allow the actions of these angels and the resulting corruption of mankind to go on. He brought upon the earth a global flood that swept away all wicked humans and preserved only his faithful servants. (Genesis 7:17, 23) Thus, the rebellious angels, or demons, were forced to abandon their fleshly bodies and return to heaven as spirit creatures. They put themselves on the side of the Devil, who became "the ruler of the humans."--Matthew 9:34.

Before I'd deal with the question, I had a counter-question. This part of the text explicitly identifies the "rebellious angels" and the "demons", and I wanted to know if they had any explicit biblical backing for that statement. I let Uriah sort of fumble around for a while trying to figure out exactly what I was getting at, and then finally I said that the reason I was asking is because a number of Jewish and Christian exegetes from around the time of Jesus, give or take a couple centuries on either side, identified the demons with the Nephilim rather than their parents, the "sons of God". (I chose not to call into question the identification of the "sons of God" in this passage as angels, although one major traditional interpretation is that the "sons of God" are merely human, perhaps rulers; mostly, I didn't raise that issue because I'm inclined to favor the more traditional angelic view of the passage.)

This part included lots of silence and thumbing through Bibles. Basically, they stumbled around for a while, and the closest they came to offering a Scripture citation was Genesis 6:1-2 again, which of course never uses the term "demon" or anything like it; Uriah had originally considered trying to reference something in Revelation, but realized that it wouldn't do the trick, and so he eventually conceded that he'd never heard that question before (as I reminded him, I like to keep things surprising), and he agreed to see if he could find an answer for me. Later on, Uriah did indeed e-mail me the entry under "demons" from the JW two-volume publication Insight into the Scriptures. Needless to say, the article never actually provided an answer to the question, since the most it could do was insinuate that since the rebellious angels are wicked spirit creatures who want to subvert God's plan, and the demons are wicked spirit creatures who want to subvert God's plan, they're just obviously one and the same.

Anyway, the closest that Raanan came to giving a good reason to reject the Nephilim interpretation is that it would require the Nephilim to have an immaterial component to their being, and I agree. Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe that anything has such a component, but Uriah informed Raanan that I'm not convinced by their anthropological monism as of yet. And, as I added, even if one did accept that humans do not generally have immaterial aspects that endure beyond the death of the body, such a person could readily posit that the Nephilim, being the (hybrid?) offspring of angels and humans, might have a different ontological make-up that would include such an element. (I also made sure to mention that I'm not personally committed to the view that identifies the demons with the Nephilim; I mostly just wanted to see if they could come up with an answer, especially considering how proud they are of deriving all their beliefs exclusively from Scripture apart from "interpretation".)

We also discussed their opinion (shared, I think, with some early Christian thinkers) that the story of the Nephilim is related to the stories of Greek and Roman demigods. (Also, somewhere in here Uriah gave me the latest issues of The Watchtower and Awake!, as well as a print-out of an article about the pagan origins of Valentine's Day in the orgiastic festival of Lupercalia; when Uriah mentioned orgies, I made the comment, "Or as some people I know would call them, the good ol' days", which got a few laughs.) We also had a brief discussion of Greek food, and I mused with nostalgia about the way gyros are made in Greece.

At any rate, we agreed to deal with the 'demon' thing further later. When I suggested that perhaps I'd find the quotes of the aforementioned early exegetes of the passage, Uriah flippantly said something to the effect that Mark 7:7 ("It is in vain that they keep worshiping me, because they teach as doctrines commands of men") renders it irrelevant. (This brings me to another mini-rant: one highly disappointing thing about Jehovah's Witnesses is that absolutely zero consideration is given, at least where not obviously convenient, to anything not written by them or contained in the Bible. It's sola scriptura extremis of the worst sort, and it's little wonder that the result is a often-subtle perversion of the Scriptures.) I gave qualified answers to the questions for the eighth and ninth paragraphs: "How did some angels become demons?", "To survive the Flood of Noah's day, what did the demons have to do?", "What happened to the demons when they returned to heaven?", and "We will consider what with regard to the demons?" Again, working within the framework they've established, the questions and their intended answers aren't so much unbiblical as largely irrelevant. Uriah also asked why demons feel the need to mislead people, and Raanan and I both had the same thought: "Misery loves company." As to why they use people in this way, my answer was that since God himself is unassailable, the worst they can do is to hurt those God loves--namely, us.

That brought us to the end of what we'd intended to get through today, and my mother and Uriah had a conversation about how my grandparents had been good friends of Atarah's parents; this, of course, led to a conversation of many of the bars in the area, since my mother had been in them since she was small enough to walk under the tables; the conversation eventually turned to dogs biting people. So, at last, I bade the Jehovah's Witnesses farewell until 22 February, and after giving us some advice on some home repair stuff (the pipes between the floors of the house have issues, and now the ceiling is falling apart... again....) they trekked down to their car; they'd had to park quite a distance away because the sides of the streets were packed with tremendous quantities of snow from the blizzard.

JW Study Meeting #31

As with the last meeting, Uriah and Shem arrived at 2:00 PM. First came the typical obligatory chitchat at the beginning and some hammering out of details regarding the circuit assembly. I learned, for example, that every year, they have one two-day circuit assembly (that's the one coming up), another one-day circuit assembly, and then a 'special' assembly that sounded intriguing and evidently is more specifically tailored to the immediate needs of the circuit in question, such as moral issues relevant to those congregations. As Uriah put it, "If a bunch of us are starting to get drunk and axe-murder people, then it'll deal with that. Stuff like that." (I'm starting to get the feeling that I live in a particularly exciting circuit...) Uriah also mentioned once again that the seats at the circuit assembly are much more comfortable than the ones we sat in at the district convention. He also pointed out how nice it is to have the baptisms displayed on a large screen, because everyone who gets baptized will generally have at least a few people who want to watch, and that adds up to a substantial crowd.

When we eventually turned back to the chapter, Shem read paragraphs 12 and 13 first. By this point in time, I had realized that I was feeling rather light-headed today and was probably not going to be nearly as capable as usual of actually thinking carefully through my answers, and I admitted as much to them. (This also means that I was feeling even more non-confrontational than usual, which you may see reflected in my record of the discussion.) These paragraphs and the next one dealt largely with how, according to Jehovah's Witnesses, their preaching ministry is the direct fulfillment of Daniel 12:4 ("And as for you, O Daniel, make secret the words and seal up the book, until the time of [the] end. Many will rove about, and the [true] knowledge will become abundant"). Contrast this, first of all, with the way contemporary dispensationalist 'end-times' gurus tend to interpret this verse--in which the word "true" of course never appears, but rather is a JW addition to the text--with reference to modern advances in technology and science. As for the ensuing conversation:

Uriah: "How has 'true knowledge' become abundant in this 'time of the end'?"

JB: Well, no matter how, exactly, you interpret the verse in question, it's undeniable that the truth of God's message is being spread. By whom, where, when... One thing you can't deny is that it is being spread.

Uriah: Okay.

JB: The message is going forth.

Uriah: Right. So what we-- what we agree on here is, the prophecy inspired by God did come true-- has-- is coming true, and God will not fail to make this known as the system winds down. The devil's not gonna overpower him.

JB: Right.

Uriah: Okay, good. We both know different things that the devil has tried and keeps trying, and he's not winning. God is going to have his will done. Okay! That was easy. Okay...

At that point, I read paragraph 14 (and for anyone who's for some reason following along in their copy or anything, this is page 92 of the JW publication What Does the Bible Really Teach?) for the group. That one focuses more on how, in their belief, Jehovah's Witnesses are the ones fulfilling the passage (as well as ) because of their ministry. In the paragraph, they assert:

Throughout the earth, the good news of the Kingdom--what the Kingdom is, what it will do, and how we can receive its blessings--is being preached in over 230 lands and in more than 400 languages. Millions of Jehovah's Witnesses zealously preach the Kingdom good news. They come from "all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues." (Revelation 7:9) The Witnesses conduct free home Bible studies with millions of people who want to know what the Bible really teaches. What an impressive fulfillment of prophecy, especially since Jesus foretold that true Christians would be "objects of hatred by all people"!--Luke 21:17.

When Uriah asked the book's assigned study question ("How widespread is the preaching of the Kingdom good news today, and who are preaching it?"), I replied that of course I know that we'll have some disagreements as to who's doing the work and how well (not to mention exactly how directly contemporary developments relate to biblical prophecy), but we can move beyond that to rejoice that the work is being done. Since my church recently had a guest speaker who talked to us about the word of Wycliffe Bible Translators, I managed to get us onto the topic of Bible translation. Uriah talked quite a bit about how "the Society" has computer programs that can assist in translating from one language to another--I remember seeing some of this in more primitive form on one of the videos I'd watched a while back, in which the computers being used are absolutely archaic by modern standards. We talked about the languages out there that have yet to receive any of the Bible. I personally suspect that when What Does the Bible Really Teach? boasts of the "more than 400 languages" in which they're working (Uriah suspects that it's risen to maybe 500 since then, but since there are around 6,909 known living languages, that's still a pittance), every single one of those has already been reached by more orthodox missionaries. When I asked, Uriah said (but wasn't sure) that in most cases the Watchtower probably translates the English New World Translation into other languages, rather than working anew from Hebrew and Greek texts. (I won't pass judgment on this, since Wycliffe Bible Translators probably does the same and I'm sure they're doing fine work, even if I imagine that the distant future will require better translations from the original text itself. Both Wycliffe Bible Translators and the folks at the Watchtower do purportedly check their results against the Hebrew and Greek.) However, he also asserted that the New World Translation in English was itself translated directly from Hebrew and Greek, which I find possible but suspect. When we finally returned to the question at hand, Uriah found that perhaps we have a bit of agreement after all:

Uriah: Okay, well, you and I completely agree on paragraph 14 as far as when we say who's teaching it, we can agree that it's people who use the Bible.

JB: Yeah.

Uriah: Yeah. [Not (?)] Muslims, Hindus... Mormons... [laughs] It's people who use the Bible that's inspired by God without adding or subtracting anything from it.

JB: Yeah.

Uriah: Good. Okay-- Because, you know, there's groups that are doing it that are sincere [...] the right thing. We don't personally believe they're the right group, but they are sincere; they're doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Shem then read paragraph 15, which started a concluding section entitled "What Will You Do?" (Paragraphs 12-14 had comprised a section called "Positive Developments!", in contrast to the overriding negativity of, well, pretty much everything before that in the chapter. Paragraph 15 essentially, after the preceding material, finally announces that it's sure that we've reached the very end of this system of things; and it was followed by a two-part question:

Shem: "Since so many Bible prophecies are being fulfilled today, do you not agree that we are living in the last days? After the good news is preached to Jehovah's satisfaction, 'the end' is certain to come. [(Matthew 24:14)] 'The end' means the time when God will get rid of wickedness on earth. To destroy all who willfully oppose him, Jehovah will use Jesus and powerful angels. [(2 Thessalonians 1:6-9)] Satan and his demons will no longer mislead the nations. After that, God's Kingdom will shower blessings upon all who submit to its righteous rulership.[--Revelation 20:1-3; 21:3-5.]"

Uriah: "Do you believe that we are living in the last days, and why?"

JB: Well, I believe that we've been living in "the last days" since the times of the apostles.

Uriah: Okay.

JB: So in that sense, I can answer, "Yes, I believe that we are living in the last days."

Uriah: Yeah. (?)

JB: I believe that first and foremost because the New Testament has already declared these are the last days that we're living in. I also believe that we're living in the last days because time is moving on, and no matter when the final consummation is going to come, it's getting closer and closer every single second. That's something I think that is probably not a matter of controversy here.

Uriah: Right, right.

JB: We need to be prepared for it when it does come.

Uriah: Right! You know, when I talk about this with people... Let's say that human beings have been on the earth for 6000 years, give or take-- you're, what, how old are you?

JB: Twenty-one. And twenty-two maybe... next week? Couple of weeks.

Uriah: Okay. Let's say you're 22. And let's say that science marches on, the medical profession starts doing what it can - which is kind of a joke [laughs] - for the betterment of mankind, and you're already civilized, you know about hygiene and all that, let's say you live to a hundred years old, 'cause that gets to be the life expectancy [...]. You're already 22, so that gives you only 88 years left. That's how close the end is, for you personally. It's in the next 88 years. And [Shem] and I have less! [laughs] It's closer for us. If we're going to use 100 as our date of death and that's all we can do to serve God. So if you look at the 6,000 years and the 88, it's close! It's real close. If we go to Timothy, and see what people are going to be like in the last days, we know it's even closer than that. I doubt that you're going to reach 100 in this system of things. Or 30. I personally doubt it, but I don't know. I don't know. But if we look at what the Bible's telling us, if we do an in-depth study of Revelation, I think-- like you and most people, even people who aren't religious, know that something's coming, something's changing, uhh... Talk to people who are 50 years old, ask them what it was like when they were a kid, things are getting worse faster.

I'll omit Uriah's extended discourse about how generations of farmers used to follow in their fathers' footsteps but no longer do because the skills utilized by one generation are obsolete by the next. He went on to add, "But, like I said, the end of this system of things is at most 88 years for you personally. Barring any accidents or disease or whatever. So that's how long you have to please God at most. [laughs] You're close; [Shem]'s way closer." (When Uriah tried to assert that he's 28 years old, in the manner of many older folks playfully reasserting their youth, I fired back that he's been 28 years old since the American Revolution.) Another member of my household chimed in eventually to correct Uriah's math, since 100 - 22 = 78, not 88. When it came time for the second half of the question:

Uriah: Okay, "What will 'the end' mean for those who oppose Jehovah and for those who submit to the rulership of God's Kingdom?"

JB: For those who oppose Jehovah, 'the end' will not mean anything good. It will mean their destruction, because they've been holding out against a loving Ruler who has been urging them to lay down their arms of rebellion and come back in. And they've steadfastly refused and refused and refused, and that can't keep going on forever. There has to be a deadline. When that deadline is finally reached, it's time for justice and they'll be destroyed.

Uriah: Okay.

JB: But for those who do submit to his rulership, it will be the beginning of every conceivable blessing and many that we can't conceive of, because the King we serve will finally be acknowledged as ruler of all, and reality will reflect that.

Uriah: Excellent. Good.

I was then called upon to read paragraph 16, which urges the reader to become involved in studying the Bible and getting to know God better and making it one's "habit to associate regularly with others who seek to do Jehovah's will". Nothing really controversial there, and I answered accordingly. The last two paragraphs were similarly inoffensive. Paragraph 17 dealt with how many people would be caught utterly off-guard by God's surprising sudden action. During the discussion on that one, we talked a bit about how even people who attend church and read the Bible can be caught off-guard, because (as I put it) what matters is more than being in a place and having an object; one needs to do with both according to the purpose for which they were given us. Uriah also asked about whether it was enough to also tithe (one common critique JWs have for 'Christendom' is that tithing seems to them to be what some other 'Christians' hold as our sole responsibility to God); I referred to this mentality as "paying God off" and a "cosmic bribe". We also discussed how many people, when confronted by Jehovah's Witnesses, will say something along the lines of, "I already have a church." (The JW book Reasoning from the Scriptures, of course, has several polite replies to this. I, however, offered up the simpler answer I would say if I were a Jehovah's Witness hearing that while going door-to-door: "So?") Uriah also created a hypothetical scenario in which some friends of mine mock my faith and urge me to do something ungodly with them, and I answered that I'd refuse and explain to them "the reasons why I'm not willing to, I don't know, go on some crazy escapade to Iceland to retrieve the head of the prime minister". Uriah's response? "Yeah, yeah, right." Shem's, on the other hand, was just, "...Wow..." (Uriah isn't the only one with a somewhat twisted imagination, heh.)

Paragraph 18 then dealt with Jesus' warnings not to be caught up in a hedonistic lifestyle that pays no attention to the things of God. I answered the relevant question ("What warning by Jesus should we take to heart?") quite satisfactorily, of course, since it was about as easy as it can get. So Uriah tossed me another hypothetical scenario in which I'm a minister counseling a man who works in, e.g., a hula-hoop factory every weekday, watches some sports to unwind on Saturday, goes to church for a bit on Sunday and sleeps through some of the message because he's so exhausted, and then just repeats it all the next week. First he asked how "Jesus' warning would fit into that schedule", and I said:

There's no ultimate purpose, there's no-- it's way too cyclical, it just views the same thing repeating over and over again as if that's the pattern that the entire universe always has and always will use. Jesus is talking about something linear, something where there are big things, God-things, that break into our lives and dramatically disrupt our little routines. That sort of cycle of a week you just described gives no attention to anything beyond itself. There's no-- These rituals here, these rituals here, all the little routines that never go beyond themselves. So that's what he was warning us against: getting so caught up in these little mundane things that we miss out on the overall trajectory of the reality in which we live.

Then he asked what advice I'd give to the man if he objected that the Bible commands him to support his family and so he can't find time or energy for spirituality, and I said:

Well, the first thing I'd do is take him to some words of Paul that talk about whether we live, we live to God, whether we die, we die to Christ, you know, whatever we do, it's for him. So the first thing I would do is ask him, probe around a little bit, if these-- you know, his job at the hula-hoop factory or whatever - if he's really doing every task to God, to Christ. And from the description, it sounds like he isn't, so the first thing that he can do is learn to take his little day-to-day things that he knows he has to do, and reorient their purpose, make sure that even in the little routines he's doing, he's got this big picture encapsulated within all that that fits into a larger pattern, a pattern with an order. The next thing I'd say is that if he knows he's got a limited amount of energy, make sure that God comes first, because he's rendering to Caesar the things that are God's at that moment. What he needs to do is make sure that God gets our firstfruits, not the little, you know, whatever we have in the back storage shed. And he's got to make sure that he follows through on that, you know, not making the error of Ananias and Sapphira and holding something back. He's got to really give it all over. So those are two of the first things I'd say, make sure you're putting God first in allocating your limited resources, as it were, and making sure that everything else is transformed by that transcendental focus, and three, learn how to reorganize your schedule a little bit here and there to make sure you do have time and energy for the things that matter. You know, maybe go to bed a bit earlier on Saturday night, not spend so much time, you know, on sports and whatever, so that you can pay more attention on Sunday, you're not just sleeping through it. And make sure that you have enough energy to focus on what's being said, really think about it, and then see how you can apply that throughout the cycles as the week goes on, and always be focused on where it's all headed.

After Uriah approved my answer, he asked me what advice I'd give the man about prayer, and I said that I'd tell him to integrate it into every facet of his life. Uriah, Shem, and I then turned to the customary end-of-chapter box located at the bottom of page 95. We read the three fairly uncontroversial statements summarizing the chapter's least controversial points. To discuss one of them, we turned to 2 Timothy 3:1-5 again, and Uriah asked me if the "critical times hard to deal with" would be for everybody but Christians. I denied that we'd get any sort of exception from trials and tribulations, and said on the contrary that we'd get our lion's share. Uriah was delighted with the answer, and after we noted that Satan wouldn't need to waste much time tempting wayward folks off the path, I gave as an analogy a quarterback running toward the wrong goal without the ball, and how the opposing team will instead be tackling the player who's posing a threat by running the right way with the ball. It was, as I noted thereafter, probably the first adequate sports analogy I've ever used. I think we were all a bit surprised. When discussing verse 5 ("having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power"), Uriah asked me if I'd heard what Pat Robertson recently said about Haiti, which gave me an occasion to promptly refer to Robertson as "an idiot" and catalogue a few of his other idiotic public statements. I also told Uriah my friend Daniel's favorite disclaimer story about The 700 Club; rather than saying that the show does not necessarily reflect the network's views, they found it more accurate to bluntly state that the show does not reflect the network's views.

(There was also a brief retelling of a story from a Bethelite speaker whose brother had no interest in Jehovah's Witnesses. The guy was given an issue of The Watchtower but, not intending to read it, threw it in the bathroom trash. Shortly thereafter, he caught some sort of bug and ended up with pretty bad diarrhea, which put him in the bathroom for several hours. Needing something to read, he fished The Watchtower from the trash, read it all the way through, and decided he'd like a JW Bible study after all. Now, I've heard some interesting stories alleging God's special intervention in a person's life to guide them along, but I haven't heard too many that involved diarrhea!)

Uriah also noticed that in the stack of books behind me - needless to say, my house contains many stacks of books, a title that caught his eye: Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals. It was beneath my copy of L. Ron Hubbard's laughable Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. I explained briefly that William Webb's Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis was about Webb's detailed system of determining how to properly get from what the Bible says about something to how we should behave today. He tested his technique on three of the most controversial issues he could find in that regard: slavery, women, and homosexuality--hence the title.

Anyway, we finished up Chapter 9 ("Are We Living in 'the Last Days'?"), and the next study meeting will begin Chapter 10 ("Spirit Creatures--How They Affect Us"). However, the next time I'll see Uriah and Shem will be at the circuit assembly at the end of the month.

JW Study Meeting #30

Uriah and Shem arrived at 2:00 PM, as scheduled; 1:00 PM was becoming increasingly inconvenient for my household. As usual, we started with some fairly idle chitchat, chiefly about pets, travel, etc. I inquired as to any upcoming events, and aside from a circuit assembly that I hope to attend at the end of the month, the only certain date as of now is that Uriah will be delivering a talk on February 14 at a local Kingdom Hall. The reason for the rearrangements is that every three months, a Kingdom Hall gets a visit from a Bethelite speaker, and a Bethelite gets to choose when in that time frame they wish to visit. One had chosen the last week of his, and the next had chosen the first week of his, but two back-to-back Bethelite speakers just isn't a good idea, so they're working on juggling things around. Shem quipped that it'd be funny if the Bethelites were back-to-back and gave the exact same talk, and Uriah thought it'd be even funnier to see how many people wouldn't even notice. He also added that no one sleeps during their meetings anymore, though there used to be one elderly, blind JW who did, which was understandable. To quote them:

Uriah: We don't have anybody that sleeps anymore.

Shem: I haven't seen any.

Uriah: We had a-- We had a brother that slept pretty much regularly through every meeting. I mean, he was-- he was old, and he was blind. So he would study on the tapes, and he would answer a question, and after that he was pretty much [snoring sound]. [laughs] Which is a shame, he was our only blind person. He was handy for being the--

Shem: Chaperone.

Uriah: --chaperone on dates. [laughs]

I also asked about the current size and demographics of their own congregation, since I haven't been there in a while. Uriah said that it had been rather steady at around 80 for quite a years, but two JW families had recently moved to the area, and so they now have 87 members. I got the impression that their congregation hasn't gained more than maybe one or two converts at most over the past number of years, which I find interesting. I'll have to pay close attention to the number of baptisms at the circuit assembly, because now that I think about it, there were only 34 baptisms at the district convention last year (see my report from the convention's second day), and they seemed quite pleased with the number. Now, a number of those seemed to be youth who were, presumably, from JW households. And that was for an entire district including territory from three states, with well over 5000 people in attendance. I have a feeling that conversion rates are quite, quite low. Anyway, Uriah and Shem also said that their congregation is mostly weighted towards the elderly (their oldest JW woman is 85); they've got some kids, pretty evenly distributed up to the early teens, and then a rather sparse gap, and then it gets rather evenly distributed (though sparsely) for the upper 20s and 30s; they could only think of one JW in their congregation who's perhaps within a year of my age.

Uriah also had a brief story about little kids and the door-to-door ministry. To summarize, they were using a van in the door-to-door publishing work, and they had a pair of young sisters with them; the younger one was five and very spoiled. The older sister (not sure how old) wanted to go on a door-to-door visit without her little sister because she knew they'd be discussing serious spiritual matters. The little sister insisted on going, but Uriah offered to babysit for a bit while the older sister and another JW made the call. So, sure enough, after the older sister left, the little one started throwing a temper tantrum inside the van (Uriah rolled the windows up to muffle the predictable noise), and so he said to her, "You know what, [girl]? If you don't stop screaming, I'm gonna start this car, and we're gonna leave. We're gonna leave your sister standing there, and you'll never see her again." Evidently, it worked quite well as a deterrent to the tantrum.

We eventually got to the subject at hand (and I should note that I'm being sparing with detail and precise chronological order because I've had to type this material over several times now, but my computer keeps destroying it...), which led to us beginning a new chapter. Chapter 9 of What Does the Bible Really Teach? is entitled, "Are We Living in 'the Last Days'?" We wanted to hurry to the content because, as Uriah put it, "We gotta keep hustlin' here because [Shem]'s got a hot date. Don't wanna make him late." The chapter mostly consisted of a walkthrough of key verses in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24--on which, see this excellent online commentary by a very cool friend of mine). Early on in the chapter, though, there's a brief discussion of "war in heaven", focusing on passages like Revelation 12. The fourth paragraph assumes that the reader is already convinced that "Jesus Christ became King in heaven in the year 1914" and cites Daniel 7:13-14 in support. There was also a footnote referencing a section of the book's appendix (pp. 218-219) wherein the Jesus-as-Michael identification is defended. Uriah had me read the text of that section, so I'll give it here:

THE spirit creature called Michael is not mentioned often in the Bible. However, when he is referred to, he is in action. In the book of Daniel, Michael is battling wicked angels; in he letter of Jude, he is disputing with Satan; and in Revelation, he is waging war with the Devil and his demons. By defending Jehovah's rulership and fighting God's enemies, Michael lives up to the meaning of his name--"Who Is Like God?" But who is Michael?

At times, individuals are known by more than one name. For example, the patriarch Jacob is also known as Israel, and the apostle Peter, as Simon. (Genesis 49:1, 2; Matthew 10:2) Likewise, the Bible indicates that Michael is another name for Jesus Christ, before and after his life on earth. Let us consider Scriptural reasons for drawing that conclusion.

Archangel. God's Word refers to Michael "the archangel." (Jude 9) This term means "chief angel." Notice that Michael is called the archangel. This suggests that there is only one such angel. In fact, the term "archangel" occurs in the Bible only in the singular, never in the plural. Moreover, Jesus is linked with the office of archangel. Regarding the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 states: "The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a commanding call, with an archangel's voice." Thus the voice of Jesus is described as being that of an archangel. This scripture therefore suggests that Jesus himself is the archangel Michael.

Army Leader. The Bible states that "Michael and his angels battled with the dragon . . . and its angels." (Revelation 12:7) Thus, Michael is the Leader of an army of faithful angels. Revelation also describes Jesus as the Leader of an army of faithful angels. (Revelation 19:14-16) And the apostle Paul specifically mentions "the Lord Jesus" and "his powerful angels." (2 Thessalonians 1:7; Matthew 16:27; 24:31; 1 Peter 3:22) So the Bible speaks of both Michael and "his angels" and Jesus and "his angels." (Matthew 13:41) Since God's Word nowhere indicates that there are two armies of faithful angels in heaven--one headed by Michael and one headed by Jesus--it is logical to conclude that Michael is none other than Jesus Christ in his heavenly role.

As should be fairly evident, their case for Jesus-as-Michael is vastly weaker than the biblical case for the full deity of Christ. If I may provide a few other brief comments, intertestamental literature clearly and unambiguously allows for multiple archangels, and considering the infrequency of the term in the New Testament, their assumptions are clearly unwarranted. (Admittedly, others hold to the one-archangel view, including Billy Graham, so Jehovah's Witnesses aren't alone on that score.) The arguments they have are rather scanty. Talk of "the archangel" doesn't inherently require just one; in certain contexts, I could speak of "the senator", despite the plurality of senators. For that matter, some would see the "an archangel" of 1 Thessalonians 4:16 as pointing to a greater possible number of archangels. The "his angels" argument, while interesting, assumes that if Michael and Jesus are distinct and both command angelic armies, these armies must be distinct; it seems equally possible to suppose that Michael is an angelic commander subordinate to Christ. (And even if Michael is Jesus, this is in no way obviously incompatible with the deity of Christ; or, at least, Seventh-Day Adventists and others don't seem to think so.)

At any rate, paragraphs 6 through 11 were the last six we got through, and they chiefly dealt with 'signs of the end'. Things like war, pestilence, earthquake activity, famine, and immorality. The basic strategy was this: Jesus talked about various conditions; those conditions are in evidence today; therefore THE END IS NEAR!!!!!!! ...Of course, I would note that this is wrongly argued. It forces Jesus' words into the minds of contemporary readers without considering the setting in which he said them and what he might have meant in so saying. In short, it is thoroughly eisegetical. Likewise, it betrays a very limited historical consciousness on the part of Jehovah's Witnesses, I think. True, many of the calamities of which Jesus spoke are present in our lives, but they routinely use just the past century and a half or so as a benchmark by which to measure them. That's patently insufficient. Rather, even on a futurist view, one should look at all of human history to the extent that one can. Also, what never seems to cross their minds is the notion that, even if these elements are present in severe ways in the present, it might be exponentially more so in, say, six more generations. Without the erroneous chronology that yields 1914 as the basis for their measurements, everything in their eschatological scenario crumbles.

Of interest is one little conversation snippet that transpired after Shem got severely tongue-tied while reading paragraphs 6 and 7:

Uriah: "How are Jesus' words about wars and food shortages being fulfilled today?"

JB: Well, the circumstances of today can certainly be described using Jesus's words. All of those things are very true today. There are food shortages, there are nation rising up against nation, kingdom against kingdom... You've got plenty of warfare and famine in the present age.

Uriah: Okay... How do you think we can have famine and deaths from hunger in a world where we also pay some farmers not to grow crops?

JB: Because we're insane.

Uriah: That's close! Close enough. [laughs] Okay.

JB: It's amazing, the terrible way we distribute food in today's world.

Uriah: Mmhmm. Yep.

JB: Even when we try to pull off relief efforts and ship tons of food over to the places that most need it, in many of those places tyrannical dictators block the food shipments because they're using famine as a way to control their own people.

Uriah: Absolutely. And supplement the military.

JB: Yeah.

Uriah: Okay. Lemme change the question a little bit, I wanna ask you this personally.

JB: Okay.

Uriah: Do you believe Jesus' words about wars and food shortages are being fulfilled today?

JB: I believe that his specific meaning was for-- he was describing specifically the circumstances that would be leading up to certain events in the past. I think that he was actually referring to circumstances that are already past, even though many of those same situations are also the case today.

Uriah: Okay. Do you personally believe that a prophecy can have a minor and a major fulfillment?

JB: It can.

Uriah: Okay.

I quote the first part mostly so I can have a good reason to link to the sites of charities like WorldVision, Stop Hunger Now, and the Famine Relief Foundation. The second part gives me a chance to point readers to the second appendix, "Excursus Typology", of my friend's commentary on the Olivet Discourse. I think it's a quite good treatment of the subject of multiple fulfillment from a preterist perspective. And that, I think, is also a good note on which to end this account of my thirtieth meeting with Jehovah's Witnesses. The next one will be a week from today.