the day i got trolled on an online forum

Not me, specifically, really. More like the entire forum. A little background: about six months ago, we had this really ridiculous fellow come on whose entire purpose seemed to be yelling at us about how we were all going to hell. Without knowing us, without even understanding how the forum worked in any way. Just one day:

Hi, I'm Travis. Let me tell you about my God who wants to send you to hell if you don't repent. Oh, and love or something like that.

Quite literally. Well, now he's back. Either it's him or his little brother. One or the other. Basically, for the past two weeks, he's been posting topics once or twice a week, telling us all we're evil devil worshippers and should repent.

For obvious reasons, I find this quite amusing.

So today, on his newest topic, I went on and told him that I still couldn't decide if he was a troll or sincere, and that he should really find some less heavy-handed way of getting the Gospel out. Because, obviously, beating people upside the head with the most random verses in the Bible isn't helping. Our side-conversation led to him saying I wasn't a real Christian and he'd be praying that I would find Jesus.

I laughed at him.

And then he said he hoped I'd realize the error of my ways and hold onto faith as if it were my life. Which, you know, it sort of is, considering I'm a missionary and depend on God for my life pretty much.

Anyway. Besides the obvious fact that questioning the salvation of someone you've never even talked to is pretty silly, I'd like to just point something out to anyone who'd be inclined to follow in Travis' footsteps. When you go into an established community, whether online or off, and start issuing blanket condemnations of people, it doesn't make people want to listen to you. In fact, it actually hurts the cause of Christ, because you make people think you actually are a Christian, and that hurts the rest of us.

When you just shout at someone and tell them they're evil devil-worshipers and should repent or God will damn them to hell, it doesn't help. Maybe it's true in some cases. But it still doesn't help. It does nothing to endear people to the true message of Christ's coming--that we have a mighty Savior who loves us more than we can imagine.

- Kyla Denae