Not wanting to be outdone by the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, fundamentalists have long been fans of door-to-door outreach programs. Thursday evenings or Saturday mornings will find any number of fundamentalists about town giving a gospel soft-sell pitch.

“Hi, my name is Rufus! We’re here from Lighthouse Completely and Totally Separated Baptist Temple and we were just wondering if you go to church anywhere.”

These are not randomly chosen words. The training for door-to-door outreach is very specific about the words used to draw the net around a potential convert. The spiel is tried and proven; the clothes are picked with care; even the number of times to knock on the door is carefully planned. If it’s good enough for encyclopedia salesmen, it’s good enough for the fundies.

It doesn’t matter whether or not door-to-door is culturally acceptable any more or even if anybody bothers to listen — just get out there every week and knock on those doors. 13 million Mormons can’t be wrong.