You might recall some time ago I wrote of the intrusion of religion in my workplace. Well, it's happened again, albeit in a different fashion.
One day I checked my mail slot and pulled out something unexpected: a 40-page newsletter called "Personal Update." It's put out by Koinonia House. I had no idea what it was, until I started reading the front cover, the editorial letter. It began, "Dear Friend in Christ."
Yeah, right.
The entire newsletter is just chock full of what you'd expect, though this group seems to be a bit more anti-pagan than most. For example, in one article, it says this: "…with Biblical Christianity becoming increasingly 'politically incorrect' in the United States and potentially viewed as 'enemies of the pagan state'…"
What is that supposed to mean? We got Wiccans in the White House or something?
And the front page editorial itself described Halloween as a "sinister and spiritually hazardous event." (If you check the website above, you might find this article on Halloween, full of inaccuracies and outright lies regarding the pagan festival.)
What other fun stuff is in here? Well, there's an article about Y2K that says, among other things, that praying will help.
Uh, huh.
Lots of other empty-headed stuff, too, but of course, my main concern was: Why is this in my mailbox, at work, with my name imprinted upon it?
I strongly suspect that one of my co-workers (quite possibly the pizza preacher) put me in for a subscription. (The first year of it is free.) Now… what's wrong with this picture?
I could speculate on several things. I could speculate that my email to my sales manager (which never was answered, by the way) got back to him, and that he subscribed me to this thing as a way of "getting back" at me.
Or it could be an honest attempt to share what he considers to be useful information.
But the point is that this action, whoever's it was, was not the kind of thing I think people should do. I would never think of subscribing someone to any kind of regular mailing unless I knew they wanted it. And to push a religious subscription, of all things…
Is this Christian arrogance and presumption, or am I being too sensitive?
