About the Children

One of my favorite topics of conversation is religion and philosophy. Understanding people with a different point of view than I have is very important for my continual growth and development of compassion. Often these topics come up in the most innocent places and take the most unexpected twists and turns.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of talking with someone who worked as a missionary with the Church of Latter Day Saints (you might also know this as the Mormon Church). We discussed proselytizing and evangelism; we discussed the many approaches of the religious sects that do so. We talked about the variety of interpretations of Christianity, of the word and of the variety of bibles that were testament of Christ. We talked about religion and ritual. I learned that Mormon belief is that those people who live a kind and compassionate life are welcomed to heaven; that they have a fairly progressive view of heaven and hell.

I shared some of my many conversations with neighborhood Jehovah's Witnesses that visited my home and the interesting conversations I've had with them (certainly not fruitful for them in gaining a new member, but always interesting). I related a story about the two women that visited me when I lived in Cleveland Heights and asked, "Do you ever wonder whether you will see your loved ones who have died again?" My response, a succinct, "No." I thought that was an interesting approach to a front-door evangelical discussion; one I had never heard. They were honestly surprised, perhaps stunned and this lead to a conversation about my world view.

The conversation with my missionary friend continued.

I shared with him a story about my dear friends, a couple who are "Bible-based" Christians; she Calvanist and he a little less conservative and the fact they do believe that only those who accept Christ as an adult would go to heaven. I described my disbelief, when she told me that, yes indeed, she believed I was going to hell and was pretty nonplussed about it. Given my understanding of hell, I would think it would really bother her. I shared about how tragic it was to think that when she lost a pregnancy at the 16th week, she birthed the girl baby, she and her husband named and buried her. And this baby, according to their faith would spend eternity in hell. So very tragic.

This is when my missionary friend said, "That is what those women who came to your house wanted to talk about. Their goal was to give people who believed that children, the mentally challenged, those of other religions...they don't necessarily go to hell. That people will meet again in heaven...that you don't have to live with the risk of such a tragedy."

I found that profoundly moving.