This is a clear lesson in the application of the law of non-contradiction.

Setting: Cape Town international airport

Tim sees a man holding two little booklets.

Tim - What's this all about?
Hare Krishna - It's about you!
Tim takes a closer look at the books and sees that it is about Hare Krishna.
Tim - Why should I become a follower?
HK - It's about being closer to God.
Tim - Who is God?
HK - He is the God of many religions.
Tim - But Islam teaches that God is one [I could have put this better]. Christianity teaches that God is triune - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! They can't be both right at the same time!
HK - Okay...so you are right and I am wrong.
Tim - ...or we are both wrong [logically speaking]

The follower of Hare Krishna then leaves.

I hope that I was able to communicate to this person that his statements were logically fallacious. Next time I will ask if following Hare Krishna gets my sins forgiven. I also think I need to always have some good Christian tracts on my person. The difficult thing was that this happened so quickly. One must always be ready to get right to the point.

Question: how quickly can you give the gospel?

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Tim Lindsay
member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, Halifax, NS, Canada
Living in Cape Town, South Africa
"under the Southern Cross, at the foot of Table Mountain, not far from the Cape of Good Hope"

Interesting scenario, Tim. But to the question directly, I can communicate the gospel rapidly in a couple breaths but I would much rather prefer to draw it out and be a little more precise. And it depends on who I am talking to also. I really don't know much about Hare Krishna so I wouldn't know what details I would have to expound on. If talking to a Muslim, the issues of God's holiness and man's wickedness are already understood to a degree and I could focus on man's inability to be righteous enough for heaven on his own; we cannot do enough good works to save our souls. God requires perfection and none but Christ was perfect. Thus, we must have the perfection of Christ who willingly bore the sins of God's children when we died as a sacrifice on the cross. The children of God are those who have faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and have repented of their sin, etc. However, groups like Scientologists don't have much that I could use to help express the gospel effectively as far as I know. Some folks are just so far "out there" that every point will have to be expressed and perhaps explained if necessary. It is far easier to say that "God is holy" to a Muslim than to a Universalist.

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Andrew Thornquist My Photo Album
Calvinistic Baptist
Ukiah, California
To follow Christ was the best decision God made for me!