Light witnessing is what people tell themselves they’re doing when they are not screaming in someone’s face about religion. It’s still witnessing, and the food server STILL has to stand there and take it with a smiling face, never letting on that this is offensive. Because it is offensive, and there is no good answer or response to witnessing. The server or clerk absolutely cannot let on that s/he would rather not be witnessed to in any degree, because some customers WILL go directly to the manager and complain that the server/clerk was rude.
Light witnessing is about the same as hitting on someone lightly. The object of the attention cannot run away screaming.
Someone might consider ‘light witnessing’ to be something like, ‘don’t mind us - we just came from church’ in hopes that someone might ask, 'oh really? what church?" so they can say “amazing grace baptist presbyterian lutheran chapel of the holy episcopalian synagogue - you should visit sometime.”
Is that even “witnessing?” Sounds like a fairly normal case of trying to strike up a conversation with someone and get them talking about something you’re interested in. Which isn’t really appropriate in this case, of course, but does it rise to the level of actual witnessing?
Hm…now that I think about it, I think what my coworker does can be considered “light witnessing.” FWIW, she’s my bestest bud at work and she’ll only do it in a “friend” context, and usually when we’re out to lunch or otherwise off site. She’ll mention the effects that her faith has on her life or when telling a story about something slightly shady in her past she might say “that was before I found the Lord, of course.” In other words, she’s made it clear that she’s very happy that she’s found Jesus but she doesn’t pressure me, call me out, or confront me about my own lack of faith. I don’t like it, per se, but it’s way better than if she felt that she couldn’t or shouldn’t say anything about it at all to me. Her off-work life is centered around her church, so it’s really a very important part of her life.
Anecdote time: We were coming back from lunch. She was driving. It was raining. We pulled into the parking lot and she said “Please, Lord, let me find a close parking space.” I said “Come on! Do you really think the Lord pays attention to parking spaces?”* Just then, a car in the space closest to the door starts backing out. She was like “Aha! See! See!” It was really funny.
I very rarely challenge her beliefs or anything, but I guess I did that day.
So yah, obviously my loathing of evangelicals is just a wee bit out of proportion. But please take a look at the kind of think that has me so cheesed. From the Dec. 31 Westword:
Guys like this want to take things way beyond proselytizing captive audiences at work. They want to turn the entire country into some theocratic craphole for all of us, one where (their half-witted version of) the Bible is enforced by the police. I doubt they will succeed, but if they do it means reason is jettisoned from the legal system, and from there anything goes. Government would devolve quickly into autocracy. The best way to resist is to force them to play by the same rules as everyone else.
So let’s stay legal. By “fucked!”, I mean to have the evangelical movement re-defined as a political movement, and then revoke their churches’ tax exemptions. People will still be free to attempt to hijack the government with their religious beliefs, only they can pay for it themselves instead of being subsidized by taxpayers/their potential victims.