Canada's National Post tells us about Francois Verschelden, a preacher who's trying to spread the Baptist message in the traditionally Catholic community of Joliette, Quebec. He's detected some wariness on the part of the locals:

"In Quebec, if you change religions, they have the impression that you are rejecting the culture, the two are so intertwined," he says.

...So alien is the U.S. version of evangelism to people in this area that the kindly- looking father of two, who became a born-again Christian when he was 19, has been ridiculed, threatened and even had parents warn their children to stay away from him for his proselytizing since returning to his home province.

Gosh, why should people be so wary of a guy like this?

I'm baffled -- but hey, maybe it's because he represents a church whose online news service links his story with this headline (check the scroll in the upper right corner):

Countering Canada's Catholic culture key to capturing Quebec for the King

Whew! I guess some Baptists never got that "Catholics are getting more conservative so we like them now" memo.

(Oh, and maybe the people of Joliette are wary because, as the National Post story explains, Pastor Verschelden is going to be followed by "six successive waves of Baptist mission teams ... from Texas, Kentucky, the Carolinas and British Columbia," bankrolled by a U.S. megachurch based in a shopping mall, as part of "a worldwide church planting effort" to set up evangelical congregations in "the most un-reached places on Earth." The new Heart of Darkness -- Quebec! Yeah, I might be a bit testy if people were talking about where I live that way.)