Just hardly two minutes ago before I began with this post, I was in a half-hour conversation with someone I met at the Toyota Service Centre (and I'm still here, having my car put through a thorough servicing).

This lady whom I happened to be sharing the same table with at the waiting room began the conversation with me by asking, "Excuse me, are you a Christian?" I said, "Why, yes, I am. And you?", to which she answered "I'm a Jehovah's Witness".

It was an extremely interesting conversation, because I'd always wanted to have a more detailed conversation with a Jehovah's Witness. Not so much because I wanted any sort of argument (I'm interested in nothing of that sort), but because I've always wanted to learn firsthand about the faith of these nice people.

It was very enlightening to learn what they believed about Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the 144,000 chosen ones who'd be taken to heaven with Jesus at the end, what the death of Jesus on the cross means for them, the way life in their faith community is regulated, etc. I'm extremely impressed at how fervent they are about the necessity of sharing their faith in obedience to the command of Jesus to go and preach to all peoples.

However, I began to get offended when she started talking to me about MY faith. She was perfectly nice when talking about her faith, and I was very happy to listen and learn. But when she started telling me, "Catholics believe in three Gods", I said "No, we don't". And you know what, this was the very first propositional statement I had made throughout the course of the entire conversation!

With great audacity, she replied, "Yes, you do believe in three Gods. If you believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God, then it means you believe in three Gods". I said, "Yes, we do believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God, but we don't believe that the Trinity is about having three Gods. We believe in one God." And my goodness, she persisted, "If that's the case, it's three Gods".

I was terribly irritated at her lack of respect for my faith claims. I told her, "NO. What you've just said is what YOU believe we believe; it's not what we truly believe. There's a difference. We reject the view that the Trinity comprises three gods. The Trinity is three persons in a unity of one Godhead. Now, THAT'S what we believe."

When she realised I had got offended, she was stumped for a while. And as I blog now, she's still trying to engage me to continue the conversation with her, which I refuse to do. She asked me (in trying to further our conversation), "Do you Catholics believe that all people will go to heaven". I just briefly answered, "No, we don't".

I have decided that our conversation is over, and I refuse to engage in any theological conversation with her anymore. Because it's not a mutual conversation. She was preaching at me, not sharing with me. And I was made to feel demeaned and disrespected.

It is utterly offensive when we try to tell people of a certain religion what they believe, as if we knew their religious claims better than they did. Obviously, she had no intention of listening to anything I had to say; all she wanted was for me to listen to her pontificating about her truth claims.

In the end, after several minutes of silence, something suddenly clicked for her - she probably realised on hindsight (through our earlier conversation) that my earlier questions were so clearly directed, which most likely indicated that I had a deeper than average understanding of Christianity. So she asked me, "Are you a pastor?" I said, "I'm a theologian". And she nodded.

She is still seated with me at the same table this very moment. But our conversation is stumped. Because she has offended me by insulting the fact that I know what I believe better than what she thinks I believe. I hope she learns.

Well, at least her fervency in sharing her religious convictions in a car service centre is still something I can admire. But that's where it ends today. And I think my car is probably almost ready too.