As much as I can’t stand the beliefs the Witnesses have about women and homosexuality, it was the highlight of my week if they showed up at my door because we could talk theology. I live for that. I love to analyze the source material of one’s faith and figure out how to interpret it.
But you do have to find a way to make them leave, eventually. And it would be really nice if you could keep them from coming back.
Some people try to drive Witnesses away by being scary and obnoxious, like showing up at the door with firearms. Or snakes. Or no clothes. Or burning Bibles, and making stupid jokes about blood-orgies and eating babies.
This doesn’t work. The Witnesses are trained to expect this when they’re sent out to preach. Usually they (correctly) decide that someone doing this is being an edgy jerk. And then they (understandably) decide that maybe you need Jesus a little more than they thought, and offer to replace the KJV Bible you burned with a NWV translation.
Also baby-eating jokes smack of Blood Libel so…don’t do that.
What does work, however, is preaching right back at them. Pagans take a lot of pride in not evangelizing, but in this situation? Screw it. They came to your house, knocked on your door and asked for your time.
And I’m not saying to pick apart the Bible with them. You’re a Heathen. The Bible is none of your business. The Bible, or at least one specific translation of it, is very much the business of the Witnesses. They’re the ones reading it and following weird interpretations of it on the regular, not you. Plus, they’re already trained to expect resistance, and they’re not playing by the rules you expect.
Play your home team advantage. Set the rules. Talk to them about Heathenry and don’t let them get a word in edgewise. Annoy the hell out of them in any other way you like, but be pointedly, flamboyantly, unapologetically Heathen about it.
When they try to bring you the good news about Jesus, regale them with the tales of Odin sacrificing himself to himself to get runes. Revel in how metal this is, of course, but talk their ears off about it.
If they speak about your fate at the end of the world, gleefully explain to them that the two survivors of Ragnarok are pre-assigned, and you aren’t one of them. Neither are they. And, hey, maybe Ragnarok already happened, so none of this really matters and you don’t have to worry about the consequences of being swept up in the ultimate fate of the world.
Your porch, your rules.
If they approach you in the street, and you do not successfully get them to ignore you, make it aggressively clear that you are a dirty fucking Heathen.
The thing about Jehovah’s Witnesses is that–on top of believing that lifesaving technology like blood tranfusions is against their god and that women aren’t people of any real worth beyond their uterus–contact with the world is spiritually hazardous. Just talking to you, a non-Witness, puts their souls in danger.
Which is fascinating, because the call to minister to the outside world is also compulsory. You’re required to endanger your soul to save it. But also it might not do anything. And also some people are more dangerous to your spirit than others.
But what that also means is that, for you, a Heathen, reading your favorite piece of common-sense advice out of the Havamal and repeatedly, helpfully reminding them that this advice is attributed to Odin will drive them off your doorstep. Quickly.
It also means that if you do it enough times, they blacklist you. You can get banned from being preached to by the Witnesses.
I discovered this completely by accident, because they haven’t come around in over five years and I was trying to figure out why. It’s kind of a bummer. The local Kingdom Hall is pretty close by. It’s not like it’s hard for them to come see me.
They just really don’t want to.
Falkabarn 