The Memorial was attended by about 200 Jehovah’s Witnesses. The police, who arrived in 10 squad cars after Moscow citizens reported the meeting, detained 14 Jehovah’s Witnesses and questioned the detainees between two and four hours before they were released.

The police told the worshipers that they were violating a 2004 ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow.

In June 2004, the Moscow City Court barred the denomination from engaging in religious activities, citing a law that bans religious groups deemed to incite hatred or intolerance.

Kalin, the spokesman of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, said the ban applied to Jehovah’s Witnesses only as a legal entity and that the Russian Constitution guaranteed members freedom of assembly.

The U.S. State Department’s 2005 report on religious freedom, released in November, said that “some federal agencies and many local authorities” in Russia “continued to restrict the rights of various religious minorities” and cited specifically the 2004 ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses activities in Moscow.

The report cited “indications that the security services, including the Federal Security Service, increasingly treated the leadership of some minority religious groups as security threats.”

Criticism concerning the lack of religious freedom has been repeatedly dismissed by government and Russian Orthodox Church officials.

There are about 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow and 142,439 in whole Russia, according to Watchtower statistics.

Sources used: MOSNEWS.COM and The Moscow Times.

Peter Mosier: “The domain “Watchtower.ca” has been transferred to WTS (I assume they will have it pointing to Borg.org watchtower.org ASAP). My copies of the site have been destroyed, the files deleted, and my WT Library CD has been destroyed, in accordance with the Settlement Agreement which will afford a “discontinuance” of their suit against me”.

WTS vs Quotes: Requiem for a Research Web Site

In compliance with the terms of a Settlement Agreement, my information and research web site, http://quotes.watchtower.ca, is now “dark”. The domain “Watchtower.ca” has been transferred to WTS (I assume they will have it pointing to Borg.org watchtower.org ASAP). My copies of the site have been destroyed, the files deleted, and my WT Library CD has been destroyed, in accordance with the Settlement Agreement which will afford a “discontinuance” of their suit against me. (Interesting aside: a discontinuance means the suit is merely in “suspended animation”. It will always be there, waiting to thaw out, to haunt me for the rest of my life. It will become part of my estate after I’m gone. That’s just the way it works.)

The complete scan of the settlement (PDF) is available by clicking here.

It has been said that settlement negotiations are two people working toward a mutually disagreeable conclusion. Unfortunately, due to the restrictions of Paragraph 12 of the settlement, I am unable to comment on the negotiations of the settlement. However, by that same paragraph, I am able to comment on the terms of the settlement; hence I provide the details by providing the complete settlement agreement. I have nothing to hide.

Now I can put this behind me, but I am free to talk about it publicly. Of course, that will be challenging, since I agreed, as part of the settlement, to destroy all my copies of the site and also destroy my WT LIBRARY CD. But at least I will be able to tell my story. In fact, I may even write a book, or perhaps (when I dare to dream) a screenplay. I am thinking of a farcical yet fact-based comedy, with Jim Carey playing the lead. Can you imagine the high-jinx?  ALLRIGHTYTHEN!

I extend my sincere and deep THANKS to everyone that offered moral support and offers of financial help.

Frequently Ask Questions

Q: Surely people here at JWD would help with legal expenses. Why did you give up so easily? I offered you money and you didn’t accept it!

A: I was truly thankful to the many people that offered money (and for the record, I did not accept any money from anyone). However, let me explain the magnitude of the finances involved so you can see how futile this was. Intellectual Property disputes are a specialty under the law. This is another way of saying IP lawyers charge a LOT of money. $500 per hour is the STARTING number, at the bottom of the scale. If my case went to trial, I could easily be up to $50,000 to $100,000 before ever getting in front of a judge, just with all the pre-trial motions, discovery, mandated mediation, legal research, etc. Once finally in court, costs can be $10,000 PER DAY.

If I added up all the wonderful offers of assistance, I would have, perhaps, $2,000 to $3,000. That may be enough for a simple, uncontested divorce or something, but is not nearly enough to cover my costs in this case. Also, I know that many of you, like the parable of the widow with the two coins that gave all she had, (insert groan here) were offering me money you really couldn’t afford to be without. I could not in good conscience accept money from people that are themselves struggling to make ends meet.

I would ask that you instead direct your money to a much more worthy cause: Shunned Father in Calgary is suing WTS. His case is very  promising. I don’t know if he has completed setting up his Defence Fund, but I know that is where I am going to put my money.

Q: But if/when you win the case, you would be able to get your legal costs back by filing a claim for costs!

A: True, but I would still have to come up with the money up front. Do you have $100,000? I don’t. I suppose I could have 2nd mortgaged my home, or even sold it; sold my car, etc. But frankly, it likely still wouldn’t have been enough. And I fully expect that WTS would have used every trick in the book to drag things out as long as possible, knowing that my funds would run out long, long before theirs. It has taken 3.5 months just to reach a “quick, give it all away” settlement. How long would it have taken if I fought them? How much would it have cost?

Q: But their case is completely without merit! Their arguments in the Statement of Claim are not even internally consistent! You didn’t break any copyright laws! How can you let them get away with this B.S.??

A:

I must say, I was very naive. I felt, and still feel, that my Watch Tower Quotes web site was fully in compliance with copyright law, and therefore I felt I was safe and would be held harmless. But I was naive to think that just because I was not breaking any laws, WTS would be unable to do anything. Obviously, I overestimated their decency; or perhaps, underestimated their ability to “frame mischief by law”. I felt that only radical groups like Scientology would stoop to the strong-arm tactics of a law suit. Obviously, I was wrong.

They have access to millions of dollars of cash and assets, and also have the convenience of in-house legal counsel (clothed, housed, and paid for through tax-exempt donations). IMO, WTS is 80% printing/publisher, and 20% law firm. Keep in mind, you don’t have to be a very good lawyer to harass someone by launching a suit. BTW, WTS retained a TOP Intellectual Property law firm. I think, amazingly, they actually sincerely expected to litigate this. Obviously they overestimated how deep “Satan’s” pockets are! I wonder if any of the tax-exempt “Katrina Relief” or “Asian Tsunami Relief” money ended up paying for lawyers, thanks to it being labelled only for the “Worldwide Work”? (I’m just speculating here.)

Q: “Quotes, I am a multi-millionaire, and I want to fund your fight.”

A: Where were you 3 months ago? And do you need a resident nerd to fix your computer?   

OK, seriously now. Even if this offer were made, I would still be reluctant to continue to fight WTS. Just these past 3.5 months have taken a tremendous emotional toll on both me, and (more importantly) my lovely, supportive wife. She was never a JW, and doesn’t deserve to get abused by WTS persecution.

Also, this arrived when I was at a time in my life when I thought the WTS toll was entirely behind me. I was done with being an ex-JW, and was slowly becoming a regular person. I rarely updated my site, (having realized that cataloging interesting and significant WTS quotes is an ENDLESS job) and rarely posted here at JWD. Then, on Sept 8, I got punched in the stomach, when I was served.

You have to pick your battles. And this isn’t a battle I want to fight. If you have access to large amounts of money, and want to make WTS look foolish to the world by having them silence their own words, well, be my guest. More power to you. But realize you are playing in their domain, by their rules.

Q: I downloaded a copy of your site using one of the two methods you had posted. I now want to put it on my own web space. Will that hurt you? Should I do this?

A: I will not offer an opinion on this. I have destroyed all copies of my site “known to and controlled by” me. If you have a site, I don’t want to know about it, and furthermore, I obviously have no control over it.

A: I am truly sorry that I have been forced to remove this resource due to Watch Tower’s persecution. But the world turned before my site came along, and I’m certain that it will continue to rotate now that “Quotes” is dark.

I have long felt that the most damaging, most effective tool against Watch Tower (or any other High Control Group) is to carefully and rationally study the group’s words and works. WTS thrives on information control, including controlling access to their own information — not too much, not too soon. Clearly my site struck a nerve with the old men that control WTS. Their Statement of Claim plainly stated that they feel that a collection of their own words can only have one purpose: to embarrass them. (BTW, I’ve never figured how they felt that, even if such a ridiculous claim were true, how it is relevant to a case of alleged copyright infringement! I didn’t see any “embarrassment” clauses in the Copyright laws.)

Perhaps one day another young Jedi Paduan, or old Jedi Master, will pick up the torch. The funny thing about squishing Cockroaches is they seem to be able to reproduce faster than you can squish them. You don’t have to worry about the one you just squished, you have to worry about the 10,000 offspring hatching under the cupboard.

Finally, since I am certain that my posts here are monitored to ensure my ongoing compliance with the terms of the Settlement Agreement, I would like to offer the following lyrics, in a gesture of, frankly, legitimate Copyright Violation. You know, if you’re going to do the time, you might as well do the crime.

Of course I’ve heard this song many times before, but when I heard it a couple of days ago, I immediately thought of the following people, and it is to these people I

would like to dedicate this little ditty:

• Ken Little (President of WTS Canada, and signatory to the Settlement Agreement)
• Glen How, O.C., Q.C., L.S.M., (and personal friend of my mother since her first days in Canada)
• John Burns, LL.B.
• David Gnam, CGA, LL.B. (and as the CGA, likely the only person who REALLY knows how much money they have, at least in Canada)
• Shane H. Brady, LL.B. (and CBBE: Cinnamon Bun Baker Extraordinaire!)
• …and all the other (Ken) Little people, the cleaners, the drywallers, the plumbers, the floor refinishers, order desk clerks, and the rest of the Nowhere Men who become pseudo-important — albeit dysfunctional — elders within the confines of The Watch Tower Society… men that fight to protect their little fiefdom with all the sincerity of a September 11th Terrorist.

~Quotes, of the “Once I Had A Web Site, Made it Run On Time… Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” class

Originally posted on jehovahs-witness.com

The brothers, their parents and J.R. Brown, director of public information for the Watchtower Bible Tract Society, all speak out about Jehovah’s Witnesses and military service.Two brothers, Jason and Johel Woodliff, came back from Iraq with their comrades in a Marine Corps battalion that lost 48 members, greeted by a mile-long parade attended by thousands of strangers.

But not by their family.

Thomas and Mia Woodliff, who are devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, were so upset by their sons’ decisions to join the Marine Reserves that they did not meet them at the airport upon their return last month.

“I begged my mother to come, but I knew she wouldn’t,” Johel said. “Several families know our situation and have taken us under their wing. My mom knows I’ll always have love for her. I believe love is unconditional.”

His brother is less forgiving.

“What’s the most important thing in the Bible? Love and family,” Jason asked. “It’s not like I blasphemed God or worshipped the devil. It’s just ridiculous to me.”

In a written statement, Thomas and Mia Woodliff respond:

“We love our sons and are saddened that they have expressed public disappointment regarding what should be a private, family matter, that is, our choice not to attend the recent homecoming party for the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines. As you know, we are Jehovah’s Witnesses and are neutral as to the political and military affairs of the world. We base our beliefs on Scriptures such as John 17:14, 16, Matthew 5:43, 44 and Matthew 26:52 among others. This means we are neither for nor against the political involvements of the 200-plus nations that we can be found in. This does not mean that we do not love the land in which we live, or that we disrespect the government or those in authority. We recognize that each nations ruling authority has the right to enact and enforce laws, make foreign policy and to purse its own sovereign interests. We simply choose not to participate.

However, we are generally known as exemplary taxpayers and citizens and we try to follow the laws of the land to the extent that our Bible-trained conscience will individually permit. Which leads us to the main point of our statement. Our two sons were taught to be peace-loving followers of Jesus Christ. Instead, they have chosen a different path. We respect their right to chose whatever lifestyle they wish. And we hope one day for reconciliation so that we can be a united family again. We have many fond memories of the abundant good times we shared together. In the meantime, please be assured that the current difference in point of view, and the separation in ties that has occurred as a result, does not mean that we love our children less.”

Graduates of Washington High School in Massillon, the Woodliffs said they had a strict upbringing based on their parents’ faith, and that the real trouble began when they announced their intentions to become Marines.

“When they found out I wanted to join, they were very upset about it,” said Johel, 20, who turned down a college scholarship to join the Marines in 2003. “I let them know that as I grew older, I had done some research on the religion, and that it didn’t abide with my beliefs.”

Jason, 23, claims that when he informed his parents in 2004 that he too intended to join the Marines, he was asked to leave the house.

“I was 18 years old, living by myself in a trailer,” he said. “I haven’t had a conversation with my dad in five years. For him, it’s 100 percent about the religion.”

Though the Bible is filled with accounts of battles and war imagery, J.R. Brown, director of public information for the Watchtower Bible Tract Society, confirmed that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t participate in military service based on their interpretation of Scripture, and that the actions of the Woodliffs’ parents are consistent with the faith.

“As Christians, we’re neutral with respect to the conflicts that nations have,” he said. “Our neutrality is just in regards to conflicts of men. This doesn’t mean we’re adversaries. We try to (convey) that to the person as best we can, but because they’re usually partisan, they think we’re against them. That’s not the case. We’re truly neutral.”

Brown noted that numerous U.S. court decisions have recognized members’ right to neutrality.

“We’re not be feared,” Brown said, adding that the church is merely adhering to Jesus’ admonition to, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God, the things that are God’s.”

Brown acknowledged that family members who enter the military voluntarily, risk “disassociation.”

“We as an organization or local congregation do not initiate this action,” he explained. “Rather than ‘disfellowship,’ we use ‘disassociation’ as a term. That means the individual made a conscientious decision that he or she would no longer ascribe to the principles that we do. He or she has decided to take a side; the individual has left the position of ‘neutral.’ We look at disassociation as accepting the person’s decision to take a side.”

Given that the faith places a great deal of emphasis on the family, Brown concedes that others might see the policy as contradictory.

“It depends on how you look at your Christian responsibility,” he said. “We look at our responsibility before God as our first and foremost responsibility. As our creator, he comes first. We feel our position of neutrality is based on our love for him. If a family member does not accept the same decision, we feel they have to bear the consequences. It pains us. We’re human too.”

Brown said members must prioritize their allegiances.

“You have to decide who’s first in your life, is it God more than any human?” he said. “The fact is, we do not even put ourselves and our own interests ahead of God. He’s our creator. Our allegiance is first to him. In making that decision, it does at times create problems within the family. Husbands, wives, parents can be torn; there’s love there. But the apostle said we must obey God as ruler rather than man.”

The Woodliff brothers say they consider themselves nondenominational but still fervently believe in God. Johel Woodliff carries a camouflage Bible and wears a medallion of St. Michael, the warrior angel, on a chain with his dog tags.

“There are Scriptures written all over Iraq,” Johel said. “My favorite is John 15:13.”

“War shouldn’t be necessary, but war has existed since the beginning of man,” he said. “The Bible speaks of war constantly. King David was one of the greatest warriors. It shouldn’t be a necessity, but it’s a reality.”

Based on Associated Press and cantonrep.com articles

A disfellowshipped Jehovah’s Witness admitted to vandalizing a Jehovah’s Witness assembly hall in New York’s Harlem neighborhood.

Dasun Allah, editor of the hip-hop magazine The Source, told the New York Post he “tagged” the building to expose the religion’s “hypocrisy.”

Police were called to the scene where Allah had painted a number of cryptic symbols, but the graffiti had been painted over by then, the Post said Friday.

Allah, 32, said he was disfellowshipped more than 13 years ago and now belongs to the Islam-based Nation of Gods and Earths.

“They said I didn’t fit the criteria, because, to put it lightly, I wasn’t a choirboy,” Allah said.

Based on an UPI article

Andrew Holden
Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, UK

ABSTRACT

Jehovah’s Witnesses are members of a puritanical religious movement that claims to be in but not of the world.  The movement has expanded rapidly over the past 130 years and there are now more than 6 million devotees worldwide. This paper examines the effects of Witness conversion on the family lives of non-Witness relatives.  Interviews with couples in mixed marriages reveal discrepancies in how devotees deal with the dissonance between personal feelings and religious principles, and demonstrate that there is, in effect, no uniform or stereotypical Jehovah’s Witness response to domestic scenarios in which beliefs may need to be tempered. The paper exposes some of the problems that arise in a modern secular society for those who hold millenarian convictions.  It concludes that mutual tolerance is essential for amicable domestic relations.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are members of a world-renouncing religious movement officially known as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.  The Society was founded by Charles Taze Russell in 1872 and claims to monopolise the word of God.  Since the foundation of the movement, devotees have maintained that we are living in the Final Days.  Their eschatology is based on a literal interpretation of the Bible and almost all the movement’s literature makes reference to the New Kingdom which the Witnesses believe will be inaugurated by Jehovah at Armageddon.[i]  The Society’s worldwide membership rose from a mere 44,080 in 1928 to an impressive 6,035,564 in 2000, making an annual net growth of around 5 per cent (Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 2001).[ii]  Even the most conservative estimates indicate that by the year 2020, there will be something in the region of 12,475,115 Witness evangelists (Stark and Iannaccone 1997:153-4).[iii] The Witnesses attribute their international success to the fulfilment of the prophecy of Matthew 24 which states that the gospel of the Kingdom will be preached to the ends of the earth. They espouse an exclusive message which declares that while a great multitude of righteous people (including those who do not necessarily share their faith), will be granted eternal life on earth, only 144,000 members of their own community (the figure mentioned in Revelation 14:3) will enter heaven. Their heterodox purity code which prohibits, among other things, sexual relationships outside marriage, blood transfusions, annual celebrations (including Christmas, Easter, birthdays and national festivals) and involvement in all political affairs means that they are highly unlikely, despite their worldwide ministry, to recruit anything other than a small number of zealous members. The Society (to which the Witnesses themselves refer as the truth) rejects all other religious creeds as heresy and supports its doctrines with biblical texts. The movement is fundamentally a rational, rather than a mystical one.  It is a religion of disenchantment and serious study of the Bible and Watch Tower publications, of which prospective recruits must demonstrate their knowledge before they can be baptised.  Spiritual activities comprise a series of weekly meetings at the local Kingdom Hall (the official name for the Witnesses’ place of worship) and aggressive door-to-door evangelism. The movement discourages devotees from associating unnecessary with non-members and are thus able to offer those who are willing to accept its millenarian message a plausible weltanschauung and the security of a tightly knit community.  In a modern secular world in which all manner of life options are available, the Witnesses stand out as calculating, conservative and authoritarian.  The movement’s demand of unquestioning loyalty means that those who violate its moral or doctrinal code risk disfellowship.  To the sceptical outsider, this is a movement that bears all the hallmarks of a totalitarian regime.

Private beliefs and public disapproval

Paul went on to explain how his atheistic worldview prevented him from accepting the Witnesses’ vision of the Last Days or their doctrines of life after death.  His optimistic view of secular society enabled him to regard scantily-clad girls entering nightclubs as young people in pursuit of fun.  He believed that although crime existed, it was carried out by only a small number of wayward individuals.  Paul’s secular outlook allowed him to embrace the modern world, for all its discontents, in positive terms.  Margaret’s perspective, on the other hand, is premised on the view that the world has deteriorated because it has become secular.  She was emphatic in her belief that young people who entered nightclubs had questionable motives and that such places were reprehensible.  She expressed grave concerns about the influences to which her own child could later be exposed and hoped earnestly for the arrival of Armageddon before things got worse.  As far as Margaret was concerned, whatever small concessions the world could offer, be it success in careers, material wealth or a happy marriage, real contentment could only ever be achieved, and sustained, in the Eden-like

realm of Jehovah’s New Kingdom. Margaret and Paul’s heated dialogue shows how contrasting views that may already exist between two people become accentuated when one spouse enters a religious movement that propounds an absolutist creed. This is no ordinary scenario. If Margaret and Paul were to remain married and living in the same household, they had to find a way of managing their different perspectives and all the potential conflicts to which these could give rise.  It seems that in situations like these, tolerance is imperative. Paul had no other choice than to allow Margaret the freedom to practise her religion, even if meant that there would be many occasions when she would not be at home. Conversely, Margaret needed to temper her zeal and keep her spiritual activities to a minimum if she was to prevent Paul from complaining that her involvement in the movement was having a damaging effect on the family.

secularisation theorist who argued that religious institutions have been progressively forced to withdraw from the modern capitalist economy and occupy a peripheral position in a world that has become increasingly abstract, impersonal and narcissistic. Luckmann refers to this as the privatisation thesis.  Luckmann’s thesis is based on the claim that non-religious rôles which are both specialised and functionally rational, now dominate the public sphere. In the modern West, this has led many people to adopt a secular view of the world, while those who

continue to embrace religious beliefs find themselves moving from secular to sacred activities in routine fashion. Whatever the consequences of modernity, people are left to negotiate their way through a whole series of conflicting ideas and demands. In crude terms, ascetic religion has become an increasingly private matter.[v]

for taking into account personal motives for action. The Witnesses know only too well the tensions, potential and actual, between public mores and private belief, and recognise that where certain behaviour is prescribed or prohibited, their loyalty is to their co-religionists. But in domestic settings, the ‘public’ teachings of their community often conflict with the wishes of unbelieving relatives. Even movements with unambiguous boundaries cannot always control the domestic lives of those who defer to its authority, and it is here that devotees must balance their obligation towards their loved ones with their sense of religious duty. Although the Witnesses are corollaries of the privatisation of religion, there are times when their world- renouncing theology costs them their individual privacy.

Stretching the boundaries: tension within the family and marriage

Another woman gave a more traumatic account:

to counter disapproval. It is a sociological axiom that world-renouncing religion has grown and prospered on hostility, real or putative. Biblical texts such as Matthew 12:48 where Jesus puts salvation before his own family are used by the Watch Tower community to prepare new recruits for opposition from their nearest and dearest who may have little sympathy for the movement’s beliefs.  These three testimonies can thus be seen as mythic autobiographies in which new converts are conceived as having carried out a heroic act which involves subjugating their loved ones to the devil. In this respect, opposition from sceptical relat
ives affirms the Witnesses’ view that the ordinary world is sinful and serves to show the individual that s/he is right. Be this as it may, the above testimonies show how difficult it can be for devotees to avert their faith from their relatives. For one thing, remaining silent about millenarian convictions defeats the whole object of evangelising to others, and for another, the movement’s heterodox theology and the fervour with which it is upheld is bound, at some stage, to impact on family life. One young woman told me of the dilemma she faced when she had to decide how to acknowledge her mother’s birthday without compromising the movement’s teachings. Her saving grace was the fact that the movement does not renounce social gatherings and on this basis, she agreed to attend the party. She explained to her mother that although she would be unable to buy her a present or sing Happy Birthday along with the rest of the family, she would treat her to lunch and buy her a gift later in the year. This is one of many scenarios in which Witnesses find themselves having to balance their religious principles with their affection for outsiders.

get her mum to have the kids. We do still spend time together, and I’ve got more used to it now, but at first I was really resentful. I just wanted to walk out and never come back. But even now, I’ll never condone what she does.

‘unbelieving mate’. The first book of Corinthians chapter 7 says that if the unbeliever

is happy to stay with you in that state – because it may be that later on he’s won to the faith without you speaking a word because of your conduct; so stay put – so we recommend that wives or husbands who come into the truth stick to their mate.

In another account of a spouse’s reaction to a Witness conversion, I learned:

years. But I got the strength and the determination to carry on because I knew what I

was doing was right.

to remain silent about her beliefs enabled the marriage to survive as long as it did. This shows that in domestic settings where emotional tensions rise, there is a level at which Watch Tower beliefs necessarily become a matter of individual privacy. Sandra proceeded to tell me that over a long period of time, Colin had become less hostile:

The Watch Tower Society and the Unification Church are only two examples of world- renouncing religious communities, but it would appear that once unbelieving relatives begin to understand the movement’s worldview and/or get to know other devotees, the doctrines appear less strange and bewilderment begins to subside. Indeed, a great many religious converts even publish testimonies claiming that that their new found faith brought their families closer together (see Barker 1989:87).

 Mutual tolerance seems to be the key to survival when an individual becomes a Witness, but this takes time for all parties. Tolerating a secular worldview is a lot to ask of someone who has internalised Watch Tower doctrines, particularly in the initial stages of membership when enthusiasm for a new way of life is difficult to quell. None the less, Sandra’s efforts to undertake door-to-door ministry only when her husband was at work, keep discussions about her beliefs and activities to a minimum and prevent her Witness friends from ringing her unnecessary suggest that while the movement’s prescription for salvation is absolute, devotees are not always in a position to discuss their faith openly with their relatives. Sandra’s reticence of her religious convictions enabled her, to some extent, to appease her husband and to meet the demands of the movement.

There are dozens of domestic scenarios in which the Witnesses could find themselves having to balance religious principles with family obligations; and what might be an acceptable level of worldly contact to one member might not be acceptable to another. Conversely, what one unbelieving spouse might be willing to tolerate, another might consider unreasonable.  If there is one aspect of Watch Tower theology that could impinge heavily on family life, however, it is the celebration of Christmas. Christmas, more than birthdays and Easter, involves contact with close relatives and the exchange of gifts for those who celebrate it. I asked the congregational elder how devotees with unbelieving relatives should approach the festival. This was his reply:

If it’s a woman with an unbelieving husband and he wants a Christmas tree and his children to hang up stockings and turkey and Christmas pudding, then the wife should support him in providing what he needs, even though not celebrating it. In other words, if he says ‘I’m going to put a Christmas tree up and put flashing lights on it and I’m going to buy my kids some presents and I’m going to buy a turkey and a plum pudding and I want you to cook it’, then she will provide that meal and sit down and have it because he’s the head of the house. He wants it for his family and he has the right to it, so she will be supportive, although in her heart not celebrating Christmas because she knows that Christ wasn’t born on Christmas day. Now then, if it was the other way round and a woman wanted it all, the husband would say ‘Well, if you want to do that out of your housekeeping money, then that’s up to you but I won’t help you to prepare for it.’ She can get the tree, she can buy the turkey and she can cook it.

tension; and secondly, mixed marriages are, as the elder’s comments above suggest, another way of winning recruits. Ultimately, there is no knowing whether the Governing Body’s hunger for converts lies behind its advice, but what is clear is that devotees with unbelieving spouses do not always follow official teachings to the letter when negotiating marital relations. One Witness who was divorced from her husband told me of the problems her religious status had caused at Christmas some years earlier.  While I am uncertain about whether this played a significant part in the termination of the marriage, she informed me that during the last Christmas she and her husband spent together, she had refused to decorate the tree and trim the house. Margaret, on the other hand, managed to negotiate Christmas in ways she felt were not detrimental to her religious principles. Devotees who help their husbands with the Christmas preparations claim to eschew the celebratory aspects of the event such as going to parties and visiting friends. Sandra explained that Colin had reached the point where he had been prepared to sacrifice Christmas celebrations at home, though he always visited his family during the festive season. The evidence suggests that Christmas, while having the potential to cause conflict, can be managed by Witnesses in mixed marriages, so long as the time they spend with their unbelieving spouses allows them to retreat from the celebrations. To outsiders, this is an exercise fraught with difficulty.  Witnesses who help their non-Witness families prepare for Christmas and who partake in the meal along with other relatives (none of whom may themselves be members), are, to all intents and purposes, celebrating Christmas; yet, those who find themselves in this position insist that this is not the case.  These individuals claim they compensate for Christmas by buying their relatives gifts at other times

in the year.

Christmas or allowing their children to receive blood transfusions because of pressure from unbelieving relatives?  Douglas writes:

is not to say that Watch Tower theology does not have implications for domestic life, but in the absence of other members, there is no knowing what compromises devotees might make. Reliable methods of investigation would, I suspect, reveal some fascinating data.

Conclusion

with outsiders. Although there is no denying that the movement’s teachings have a significant impact on the private sphere, relationships in which there is an emotional bond between Witnesses and non-Witnesses expose all the incongruities of principles and practise. The data presented in this paper confirm that family relations vary according to circumstances and

to the personality of the individual. For some devotees, the freedom to allow one’s conscience to dictate one’s actions makes life easier, while for others, it causes anxiety.  I have argued that Watch Tower rhetoric cannot always override the individual’s sense of duty towards those with whom they have long been bonded or for whose welfare they are responsible. Where children are present, spouses are often dependent on each other for financial and practical support. It is here that peace and conflict hang in the balance. While there are no standard strategies employed by the Witnesses for dealing with situations in which their religious principles might be compromised, their membership of the Watch Tower community is usually source of distress for relatives, particularly when the individual joins the movement in later life. In all the conversion cases I have studied, reactions from loved ones have always been negative. The reason for this, it seems, is because Watch Tower heterodoxy is unsuited to modern western societies at the beginning of the twenty-first century. When people make the decision to become Jehovah’s Witnesses, it is not like converting to Roman Catholicism or the Church of England (or even orthodox Islam). Like Judaism, the appeal of the Watch Tower movement from the point of view of the convert is its exclusivity, and this places a considerable strain on mixed families. Whatever misgivings devotees of other faiths might air about the state of the modern world, few vilify it with as much passion as the Witnesses, and even fewer are prepared to sacrifice their rights of citizenship. Being a Witness involves studying literature, attending meetings, proselytizing

and, to a greater or lesser extent, the willingness to renounce one’s former life. At present, the movement shows few signs either of relaxing its quasi-totalitarian doctrines or of slowing

down its evangelistic mission. In the end, if devotees and their unbelieving relatives wish to live amicably together, they may be forced to do tolerance.

REFERENCES

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Barker, E. (ed.) 1982. New Religious Movements: A Perspective for Understanding Society,

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Barker, E. (ed.) 1983. Of Gods and Men: New Religious Movements in the West, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.

Barker, E. 1989. New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction, London: HMSO. Bauman, Z. 1988. Freedom, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Bauman, Z. 1991. Modernity and Ambivalence, Cambridge: Polity.

Beck, U. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, translated by Mark Ritter, London: Sage.

Beckford, J.A. (1972) ‘The embryonic stage of a religious sect’s development: the Jehovah’s Witnesses’, in Hill, M. (ed.) A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, London: SCM Press.

Beckford, J. 1973. ‘Religious organization’, Current Sociology 21, 2:7-170.

Beckford, J. 1975a The Trumpet of Prophecy: A Sociological Study of Jehovah’s Witnesses,

Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Beckford, J. 1975b. ‘Organization, ideology and recruitment: the structure of the Watch Tower

Movement’, Sociological Review 23, 4:893-909.

Beckford, J. 1976. ‘New wine in new bottles: a departure from church-sect conceptual tradition’, Social Compass 23, 1:71-85.

Beckford, J. 1978. ‘Accounting for conversion’, British Journal of Sociology 29:249-62. Beckford, J. 1985. Cult Controversies: The Societal Response to the New Religious Movements, London: Tavistock.

Beckford, J. (ed) 1986. New Religious Movements and Rapid Social Change, London: Sage. Beckford, J. 1989. Religion and Advanced Industrial Society, London: Unwin Hyman. Beckford, J.A. and Luckmann, T. (eds) 1989. The Changing Face of Religion, London: Sage. Berger, P.L. 1967. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, New York: Doubleday.

Berger, P.L. 1977. Facing Up to Modernity, New York: Basic Books.

Berger, T.R. 1981. Fragile Freedoms: Human Rights and Dissent in Canada, Toronto: Clarke

Irwin.

Bergman, J.R. 1984. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Kindred Groups: Historical Compendium and

Bibliography, New York: Garland.

Bergman, J.R. 1987. ‘Religious objections to the flag salute’, The Flag Bulletin 26, 4:178-93. Botting, H. and Botting, G. 1984. The Orwellian World of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Bram, J. 1956. ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses and the values of American culture’, Transactions of the

New York Academy of Sciences 2, 19:47-54.

Bruce, S. 1995. Religion in Modern Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bruce, S. 1996. Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults, Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Bruner, E.M. 1986. ‘Ethnography as narrative’, in Turner, V. and Bruner, E.M. (eds) The

Anthropology of Experience, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Dobbelaere, K. and Wilson, B.R. 1980. ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses in a Catholic country: a survey of nine Belgian congregations’, Archives de Sciences des Religions 25:89-110.

Douglas, M. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo,

London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Douglas, M. 1978. ‘Judgements on James Frazer’, Daedalus 107, 4:151-64. Douglas, M. 1992. Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory, London: Routledge.

Goffman, E. 1959.  The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Goffman, E. 1963. Behaviour in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings, New York: Free Press.

Goffman, E. 1967. Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face-to-face Behaviour, New York: Anchor

Books.

Goffman, E. 1971. Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order, New York: Basic

Books.

Luckmann, T. 1967. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society, New

York: Macmillan.

McGuire, M. 1987. Religion: The Social Context, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Macklin, R. 1988. ‘The inner workings of an ethics committee: latest battle over Jehovah’s

Witnesses’, Hastings Center Report 18, 1:15-20.

Maduro, O. 1982. Religion and Social Conflicts, translated by Robert R. Barr, New York: Orbis.

Montague, H. 1977. ‘The pessimistic sect’s influence on the mental health of its members: the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses’, Social Compass 24, 1:135-48.

Ritzer, G. 1996. Modern Sociological Theory, London: McGraw-Hill.

Robbins, T. 1988. Cults, Converts and Charisma: The Sociology of New Religious

Movements, London: Sage.

Rogerson, A. 1969. Millions Now Living Will Never Die: A Study of Jehovah’s Witnesses,

London: Constable.

Saliba, J.A. 1995. Perspectives on New Religious Movements, London: Geoffrey Chapman. Seggar, J. and Kunz, P. 1972. ‘Conversion: evaluation of a step-like process for problem solving’, Review of Religious Research 13, 3:178-84.

Singelenberg, R. 1988. ‘ “It separated the wheat from the chaff”: the “1975” prophecy and its impact among Dutch Jehovah’s Witnesses’, Sociological Analysis 50, 1:23-40. Singelenberg, R. 1990. ‘The blood transfusion taboo of Jehovah’s Witnesses: origin, development and function of a controversial doctrine’, Social Science Medical 31, 4:515-23.

Stark, R. and Bainbridge, W.A. 1985. The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival and Cult

Formation, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Thompson, K. 1986. Beliefs and Ideology, London: Tavistock. Turner, B. 1983. Religion and Social Theory, London: Heinemann.

Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 1997. The Watchtower, 1 January, New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.

Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 1998. The Watchtower, 1 January, New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.

Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 1999. The Watchtower, 1 January, New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.

Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 2000. The Watchtower, 1 January, New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.

Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 2001. The Watchtower, 1 January, New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.

Wilson, B.R. 1974. ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses in Kenya’, Journal of Religion in Africa 5:128-49. Wilson, B.R. 1978. ‘When prophecy failed’, New Society, 26 January pp. 183-4.

Wilson, B.R. 1990. The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism, Oxford: Clarendon. Wilson, B.R. (ed) 1992. Religion: Contemporary Issues, London: Bellow. Woodhead, L. and Heelas, P. (eds) 2000. Religion in Modern Times: An Interpretive Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell.

Endnotes

[ii] This represents the ‘peak’ figure. The ‘average’ figure for 2000 was 120,592.

[iii] This is based on a projected growth rate of 4 per cent.

[iv] The Witnesses use the term ‘unbeliever’ to refer to those who do not share their faith, be they atheists or people who hold alternative religious beliefs.

[vi] The Book Study comprises a small group of Witnesses who meet at a member’s home on a weekly basis. These meetings involve studying religious tracts and arranging door to door ministry.  These are usually much shorter meetings than those held at the Kingdom Hall.

[vii] The movement has also expressed concern in recent years about the increasing numbers of young Witnesses who are dating non-members and failing to attend Kingdom Hall meetings. Those who do this often fail to reach the point of baptism. But since the movement does not collect official data on young people who defect, it is impossible to comment on the extent to which this is happening.

[x] A state which anthropologist Victor Turner calls liminality.

[xi] For this reason, Douglas rejects binary distinctions as a useful tool of analysis (see

Douglas 1978).

Posted with permission of Andrew Holden
on Watchtower Information Service

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Andrew Holden
Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, UK

ABSTRACT

Jehovah’s Witnesses are members of a puritanical religious movement that claims to be in but not of the world.  The movement has expanded rapidly over the past 130 years and there are now more than 6 million devotees worldwide. This paper examines the major causes and consequences of defection.  Personal testimonies from unstructured interviews with former members reveal that leaving the movement is characterised by emotional trauma and existential insecurity.  The data also suggest that defectors often come to replace their Witness weltanschauung with a new religious identity that enables them to renegotiate their relationship with the modern world. The paper advances the argument, however, that these alternative systems of belief do not represent a fundamentally different reality and tend to affirm the basic view that modern secular society is soulless and hostile.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are members of a world-renouncing religious movement officially known as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.  The Society was founded by Charles Taze Russell in 1872 and claims to monopolise the word of God.  Since the foundation, of their movement, devotees have maintained that we are living in the Final Days.  Their eschatology is based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, and almost all their literature makes reference the New Kingdom which they believe will be inaugurated by Jehovah at Armageddon.[i] The Society boasts huge international success. Its worldwide membership rose from a mere

44,080 in 1928 to an impressive 6,035,564 in 2000, making an annual net growth of around 5 per cent (Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 2001).[ii] Although these are the movement’s own figures, there is no reason to doubt them. For one thing, they are consistent with government estimates as well as those of independent scholars and for another, the Society publishes losses as well as gains.[iii] Even the most conservative estimates indicate that by the year 2020, there will be something in the region of 12,475,115

Witness evangelists (Stark and Iannaccone 1997:153-4).[iv]  The Witnesses attribute their success to the fulfilment of the prophecy of Matthew 24 which states that the gospel of the Kingdom will be preached to the ends of the earth.

Despite its expansion, the movement has had a chequered evolution caused mainly (though by no means exclusively), by a series of embarrassing prophecy failures. The years of 1874,

1914, 1918, 1925 and 1975 were all earmarked, to a greater or lesser extent, as times for the Second Coming of Christ, yet all brought disappointment. But people who convert to the Watch Tower movement defer unquestioningly to the authority of its Governing Body (a small number of presidential officials in Brooklyn) and every member must continue to contribute to the recruitment effort.  The Witnesses espouse an exclusive message which declares that while a great multitude of righteous people (including those who do not necessarily share their faith), will be granted eternal life on earth, only 144,000 members of their own community (the figure mentioned in Revelation 14:3) will enter heaven. Moreover, their heterodox purity code which prohibits among other things blood transfusions, Christmas celebrations and all political activities means that they are highly unlikely, despite their worldwide ministry, to recruit anything other than a small number of enthusiasts. The movement rejects all other religious creeds as heresy and uses biblical texts and Watch Tower publications to substantiate its narrative of past, present and future.  Devotees make extensive use of these textual aids when delivering their doorstep sermons on the Last Days. By attributing world events to biblical prophecy, they aim to persuade all those to whom they minister of Satan’s wickedness and to make them a promise of an imminent utopia.

The Society (to which devotees refer as the truth) is fundamentally a rational, rather than a mystical one.  It is a religion of disenchantment and serious study of the Bible and Watch Tower publications of which prospective members must demonstrate their knowledge before they can be baptised.  Spiritual activities comprise a series of weekly meetings at the local Kingdom Hall (the official name for the Witnesses’ place of worship) and aggressive door-to- door evangelism.  Though they do not detach themselves completely from the outside world, devotees are discouraged from associating unnecessary with non-members.  In so doing, they are able to offer those who are willing to accept their millenarian message a plausible weltanschauung and the security of a tightly knit community.  In a modern secular world in which all manner of life options are available, the Witnesses stand out as calculating,

conservative and authoritarian.  The movement’s demand of unquestioning loyalty means that those who violate its moral or doctrinal code risk disfellowship.  To the sceptical outsider, this is a movement that bears all the hallmarks of a totalitarian regime.

Within any religious movement of this size, there will always be a percentage of people who decide, for one reason or another, to terminate their membership. From the Society’s own perspective, however, there is never any valid reason for defection.  Its monopoly over truth does not allow devotees to claim that their search for salvation is causing them to seek new pastures or that their spiritual hunger has not been satisfied.  Defection is the ultimate betrayal since it signifies the individual voluntarily entering the world of Satan. This paper offers an examination of why some members leave the movement of their own accord – an issue that has been neglected by scholars.  While there are a small number of empirical studies on the movement (Beckford 1975a, 1975b, 1976, Wilson 1974, 1978, 1990 and Dobbelaere and Wilson 1980), most academic researchers have focussed their attention on the issues of conversion, recruitment and tension between devotees and secular authorities. Search as I may in the sociological and anthropological literature, I find nothing other than scant reference to defection. There is no shortage, however, of autobiographies of former members who lament the years of personal turmoil they claim they felt when they realised they could no longer accept the movement’s teachings, or that the conflicts that arose between everyday life and the Witnesses’ theology became overwhelming.[v]  It is also worth noting that at the time of writing, several websites have been established both by lapsed members who seek the support of those who claim to be equally traumatised, and by those still in practise who fear the consequences of defection.  Needless to say, data of this nature need handling with caution.  Like new converts, defectors ‘rehearse’ their confessions and testify to anyone who is willing to listen. More seriously (at least as far as validity is concerned), these accounts often contain the kind of rhetoric adopted by anti-cultists who are on a mission to protect so-called vulnerable people from the seductive powers of religious extremists.  Notwithstanding these caveats, sociologists of religion cannot afford to ignore defectors’ testimonies.  For one thing, these accounts contain rich data that convey first hand the poignant experiences of the disaffected devotee, and for another, they represent the main primary source on which academics are dependent in the pursuit of objective research.

There is little doubt that the Witnesses have many defectors. This is clear from the movement’s own annual statistics which indicate year on year that the ‘peak’ number of active devotees outweighs the ‘average’ number. Moreover, the aggregate number of baptisms over a given period soon surpasses the reported increase in the number of members. But a high drop-out rate does not mean that the movement is dwindling or that its beliefs are weakening. An annual growth rate of 5 per cent is impressive by anyone’s standards and can be seen as evidence of a community that is successful in replacing apathetic members with committed ones. None the less, the figures also suggest that people leave of their own accord. Close examination of autobiographical testimonies reveals that defection comes in various forms. For example, there are those who undertake Bible studies with the Witnesses and attend their meetings for several months, but never reach the point of baptism. Others are baptised members who, for one reason or another, stop attending meetings and lapse for while, only to return at a later stage. Some of these may even have been disfellowshipped several years earlier. Then there is a third group comprising fully baptised Witnesses who have been active in the movement a considerable period of time and leave never to return. It is to these defectors that most of this paper applies. What follows is an analysis of the testimonies of six former Jehovah’s Witnesses who were contacted through an advertisement in the local press. The fieldwork was carried out as part of a recent ethnographic study of the movement in the North West of England.

Suppressing ambivalence

The Society has an extensive history of prophecy failure that has played no small part in defection. Devotees expected the invisible return of Christ in 1874 (which was later changed to 1914 – the original date for Armageddon), the destruction of Christendom in 1918 and the

return of the Old Testament prophets Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in 1925 (Barnes 1984, Quick

1989 and Reed 1989a, 1989b). But it was the failure of the arrival of Armageddon in 1975 that caused over 1 million members to abandon their faith between 1976 and 1981.  The anticipation of this event had featured in the movement’s publications since the mid-1960s:

This seventh day, God’s rest day, has progressed nearly 6,000 years, and there is still the 1,000-year reign of Christ to go before its end (Rev. 20:3, 7). This seventh

1,000-year period of human existence could well be likened to a great sabbath day … In what year, then, would the first 6,000 years of man’s existence and also the first

6,000 years of God’s rest day come to an end? The year 1975. (Awake! October 8

1966:19)

One man who had been in the movement since the early 1970s, explained how the 1975 prophecy failure made it impossible for him to remain an active member.[vi]  In a detailed testimony of how the prophecy governed his life in his former years as an active member, he told me:

Our main teaching book was called The Truth Book and there was a little graph in there which ended in 1975. I said it from the platform! We told everyone the end was near. When I became a Witness I gave up my insurance policies, I cancelled all my insurance endowments, I never bought a house because I knew I wouldn’t need one, we didn’t even want to put the kids’ names down for school.

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Andrew Holden
Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, UK

ABSTRACT

Jehovah’s Witnesses are members of a puritanical religious movement that claims to be in but not of the world.  The movement has expanded rapidly over the past 130 years and there are now more than 6 million devotees worldwide.  This paper examines the ways in which the Witnesses conceptualise the modern world and how they resist the secular forces that threaten their religious identity. Close analysis of the testimonies of current members reveals that the movement’s millenarian weltanschauung is a reaction to a world that is perceived as hostile and ambiguous. The paper concludes that the Witnesses’ allegiance to this quasi-totalitarian movement signifies an escape from a modern age that hedonistically celebrates individual freedom.

There could be no period more appropriate than the beginning of a new millennium in which to consider the activities of those who hold beliefs about the end of the world. In 1872, Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), a Pittsburgh draper, founded what became known as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society – the official name for the organisation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Russell had a fascination for biblical eschatology – a fascination that would play a significant part in the expansion of what is now a huge international corporation with over six million members. The Witnesses are members of a world-renouncing puritanical movement which claims to be the sole guardian of truth and refuses ecumenical relations with all other religious denominations. In a modern age in which people are free to construct their own aesthetic identities, the Witnesses stand out as authoritarian, calculating and aloof, and this makes their organisation distinctive from other social movements.  This paper examines the appeal of movement and its strategies for averting the ‘risks’ posed by the modern world.  For the Witnesses, the outside world is one in which dangers of all kind loom large and this calls for a system of prescriptive boundaries.  Despite their belief in Satan’s earthly presence, however, the Witnesses do not go as far as members of religious organisations such as the Plymouth Brethren in isolating themselves from outsiders.  They do, in fact, live in ordinary neighbourhoods and are employed in most mainstream occupations.  None the less, their persistent refusal to engage in many cultural and political activities including voting in elections, joining trade unions and partaking in annual celebrations is indicative of their disdain for secular society.  An empirical analysis of the testimonies of practising members provides rich insight into their perception of the cosmos and uncovers the ways in which they are able to fend off what they see as dangerous forces.  This kind of analysis is essential if we are to understand the movement’s success.

The movement boasts huge international expansion.  Its worldwide membership increased from a mere 44,080 in 1928 to an extraordinary 6,035,564 in 2000 making an annual net growth of around 5 per cent.  The 1 January 2001 issue of The Watchtower recorded 126,297 Witnesses in Britain alone in 2000 (Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 2001).1  Although these are the movement’s own figures, there is no reason to doubt them. For one thing, they are consistent with government estimates as well as those of independent scholars and for another, the Society publishes losses as well as gains.2 Moreover, the Witnesses are loath to include anyone other than active evangelists. Even the most conservative estimates indicate that by the year 2020, there will be something in the region of 12,475,115 members (Stark and Iannaccone 1997:153-4).3  The Witnesses attribute their worldwide growth to the fulfilment of Matthew 24 which states that the gospel of the Kingdom will be preached to the ends of the earth. For the last 130 years, the Witnesses have maintained that we are living in the Final Days.  Their eschatology is based on the texts of the New Testament and almost all their literature makes reference to the annihilation of evil at Armageddon; hence, they are on a mission to proselytise to as many prospective converts as possible.

The Watch Tower Society has had a chequered evolution. From the moment of its foundation, devotees have lived in anticipation of a new Messianic Kingdom in which all earthly wickedness would be destroyed and Paradise be inaugurated by Jehovah.4  The years of 1874, 1914, 1918, 1925 and 1975 were all earmarked, to a greater or lesser extent, as times for the Second Coming of Christ, yet all brought disappointment. It is all the more surprising, therefore, that the Witnesses have continued to recruit and expand with remarkable success. The movement espouses an exclusive message which declares that although a great multitude of righteous people, including those who do not necessarily share their faith, will be granted eternal life on earth, only 144,000 members of the Watch Tower community (the figure mentioned in Revelation 14:3) will enter heaven. Moreover, the Witnesses’ heterodox purity code prohibiting among other things blood transfusions, Christmas celebrations and unnecessary association with non-members means that they are highly unlikely, despite their worldwide ministry, to recruit anything other than a small number of zealous members.  When people convert to the Watch Tower, they defer unquestioningly to the authority of those who are appointed to enforce its doctrines and the individual becomes the property of whole community. This tightly bound movement provides new recruits not only with a ready-made explanation of their life experiences, but also an opportunity to contribute to a worldwide spiritual mission.

Over the years, reactions towards the movement (to which devotees refer as the truth) include fascination, compassion, anger and hatred. Although the available literature confirms that their world-renouncing theology and adherence to millenarianism have been the sources of strain in terms of their liaison with secular bodies (particularly the legal system), the Witnesses have still managed to gain converts at a time when other movements have collapsed. The passing of several years of turbulent disruption and military catastrophe both in Europe and the United States in the late-nineteenth century seemed for Russell to point towards the prophecies of Revelation. His strong disagreements with orthodox Christian explanations of the ills of American society provided the context for his new movement. The escalating international arms race, the spread of famine and the outbreak of war were all events for which Russell’s prescription for cure (that is, the consignment of the wicked at Armageddon) differed from many of his Christian contemporaries; hence, the appeal of world- renouncing religion during this period lay in the hope it gave for social justice. But the Witnesses were by no means the only heterodox movement, nor the earliest, to be founded during this period. The Mormons had entered and settled in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in the late 1840s and early 1850s, by which time the Seventh-day Adventists had begun their missionary outreach and in the 1870s, Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science. While immigration was significant in the expansion of the Mormon church, the renunciation of the world appealed largely to those for whom social and political agitation were signs of the end. To this day, the Witnesses see themselves not just as members of a religious movement, but one that monopolises the word of God. For this reason, they feel they are called upon to proselytise.  Non-conformist ideas that were widespread during the period in which the movement was founded provided the basis for some of its teachings. The one imperative belief, however, is that the Bible, from beginning to end, is the inspired word of God. This means that all Watch Tower teachings are scripturally supported and most, but not all, the Bible is interpreted literally. The exceptions are the recorded visions in the Books of Daniel and Revelation. The rest, the Witnesses regard as historically accurate, including the stories in the book of Genesis.  Scriptural texts are used by the Witnesses to substantiate their narrative of past, present and future.  World catastrophes such as war, famine, murder, environmental pollution, genocide and terrorism provide them with empirical evidence with

which to support their theology. By attributing these events to biblical prophecies, devotees are able to support their promise of eternal bliss in a way that is missing in the esoteric doctrines of Christendom and thus validate their monosemic worldview.

The movement forbids its members to participate in annual events such as Christmas, Easter, birthdays and national festivals. It teaches that Jehovah does not acknowledge these events since, wherever they are cited in the scriptures, they are always in the context of sin or apostasy. According to the Witnesses, the only two birthday celebrations mentioned in the Bible involve people who were not true believers. These are a Pharaoh of Egypt and the Roman ruler Herod Antipas (Genesis 40:18-22; and Mark 6:21-28), whose celebrations ended in misery. Though they recognise that the birth of Christ is presented as a joyful occasion by the synoptic writers, devotees refuse to partake in the celebration on the grounds that we do not know the precise date of an event that has, in any case, become tainted with secular images such as lights, trees, tinsel and mistletoe. As far as Easter is concerned, the egg is historically a pagan symbol for the celebration of the return of spring and the rabbit was an emblem of fertility, neither of which are connected with the resurrection of Christ (Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 1989b:179). Furthermore, the movement associates annual celebrations with immodest behaviour and excessive alcohol-consumption – which it claims are contrary to biblical principles.

The movement objects both to jury and military service (on the grounds of pacifism and neutrality), and refuses to support local or national charities. Although some Witnesses join social and leisure clubs and progress to post-compulsory education, Watch Tower officials encourage Kingdom interests and forbid activities that detract from the movement’s teachings. The Governing Body (that is, the board of elected officials based in Brooklyn) officially condemns behaviour that violates these teachings. This explains why, in addition to eschatological beliefs, devotees adopt a puritanical lifestyle. The dualistic nature of Watch Tower theology means that in principle, Witnesses everywhere are expected to adhere to a strict fundamentalist code. Rules about physical and moral cleanliness are used to establish lines of demarcation between good and evil and thus act as a powerful armoury for resisting those aspects of modern life which they regard as sinful.  When individuals undergo baptism, they are committing themselves to a way of life that has huge implications for how they will live and with whom they will spend their time in the future. The Witnesses’ allegiance to a puritanical creed strengthens their pride in their ascetic community and helps to attract people who see the modern world as permissive.

Watch Tower teachings on sexual conduct provide one of the best examples of the usage of purity to combat the risk of contamination posed by modern liberal society. The Witnesses have never been able to accept sexual freedom as a basic human right.  The belief that sex is a strictly heterosexual activity that should only be practised within marriage suggests that the Witnesses are heirs of an absolutist model of sexual morality rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition.  This approach regards sexual desire as morally dangerous and contrasts sharply with the libertarian position in which sexual gratification is regarded as benign and life enhancing. While the 1960s reforms concerning homosexuality, obscenity, family planning and theatre censorship were arguably little more than an attempt to regulate behaviour that had previously been subjected to unworkable laws, the appeal of the Watch Tower movement in Britain owes much to the Witnesses’ persistent condemnation of a world they revile.  Drug abuse, smoking and the excessive consumption of alcohol are also believed to be offensive to Jehovah.  Blood transfusions are condemned by the movement on the grounds that they are symbolically and physically polluting. Like many other religious communities, it imparts a theology that embraces a large number of complex issues and each member has at his or her disposal several tracts containing hundreds of biblical references substantiating beliefs. In the last analysis, the Witnesses’ loyalty is first and foremost to an organisation that secures their salvation.

Risk: the Watch Tower perspective

Despite their successful evangelistic mission, there is a dearth of academic literature on the Witnesses. Beckford (1975a, 1975b, 1976), Wilson (1974, 1978, 1990) and Dobbelaere and Wilson (1980) have carried out the most extensive research, although these studies are now rather dated.  Moreover, the movement seldom receives more than a brief mention in most of the key textbooks on the sociology of religion. Other than the small amount of literature that addresses Watch Tower conversion and recruitment, the best known works focus on tension of one form or another between the Witnesses and secular states. With the exception of the historical examples of persecution of Watch Tower evangelists (which was often a result of their own attacks on official authorities), this tension mainly derives from the Witnesses’ refusal to participate in activities pertaining to citizenship. There is, however, a larger number of published articles on the movement in journals such as Social Compass, Sociological Analysis, The Journal of Modern African Studies and The British Journal of Sociology, but even these tend to be written from a macro perspective and fail to give the Witnesses themselves a voice.  They also fail to examine the various ways in which devotees deal with the outside world in the various contexts of their daily lives.  Where academics have attempted to address agency, it is usually in relation to conversion and/or continuation of membership.

As far as major texts are concerned, the most comprehensive study of the Witnesses is undoubtedly James Beckford’s The Trumpet of Prophecy cited above (1975a). The first three chapters of this book are devoted to the historical development of the movement. These chapters tell us about the movement’s social composition and its post-war expansion in Britain and the USA . Beckford’s work contains both quantitative and qualitative data collected from ten congregations representing the geographical divisions of England , Wales and the Scottish Lowlands. Although the book is largely empirical, Beckford offers some theoretical analysis of conversion that aids our understanding of the Witnesses’ worldview.5 Whatever the strengths of Beckford’s work, however, the fact remains that it is now more than twenty- five years old. There is a serious shortage of current material on the Witnesses that makes anything other than scant reference to the ways in which they protect their members from what they see as the dangers of modern secular forces.  Search as I may in the sociological, anthropological and historical literature, I find no attempt to link the beliefs and activities of the Witnesses to the general characteristics of modern secular society. This is where I believe the concept of risk is useful.  Testimonies of converts reveal that the movement attracts individuals who have had little instrumental success and who hold a pessimistic worldview. The Watch Tower idiom of modern society as risky is, I would suggest, one of the main catalysts for the Witnesses’ international expansion.

Posted with permission of Andrew Holden
on Watchtower Information Service

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More than 100 police destroyed its door with trucks, before using tear gas and batons in a violent clash with his supporters in the building.

Some 20 people, including children, were injured, reports said.

Mr Mkalavishvili was excommunicated by the Georgian Orthodox Church in 1996 after he admitted his followers had – on his orders – ransacked Jehovah’s Witnesses premises.

They also burnt bibles belonging to the Baptist Evangelical Church, he said.

In July, a court issued an arrest warrant pending a trial.

Police tried to detain him, but Mr Mkalavishvili and the followers of his new church resisted.

According to AFP news agency, he gave a press conference on Thursday in which he strongly criticised Georgia’s new pro-Western government and its US-educated President, Mikhail Saakashvili.

Hunger strike
“Georgia does not exist right now,” he was quoted as saying.

“It is only another US state, whose governor is George Soros” – a reference to the US billionaire philanthropist.

He also criticised what he said were government plans to register the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

A police spokeswoman said Mr Mkalavishvili was arrested on charges of damaging property and staging riots.

Dozens of his supporters gathered outside the detention centre where he was being held.

They said they were launching a hunger strike.

Source: BBC

The Department of Public Information of the UN confirms in a press release (due to “receiving numerous inquiries regarding the association of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York ” with the UN) that Jehovah’s Witnesses shared the ideals of the UN Charter. This is not in line with the teachings of the Watchtower Society. Till this day they depict the United Nations as the “scarlet-colored wild beast” with “Babylon the Great ( the world empire of false religion)” as its rider.

Below you can read the 3/4/2004 press release of UN’s DPI:

Canadian Press

Montreal — A municipal bylaw restricting when Jehovah’s Witnesses can go door-to-door protects residents’ right to privacy and does not violate the group’s right to religious freedom and expression, a lawyer argued Tuesday.

The City of Blainville, which believes many of its residents don’t want Jehovah’s Witnesses at their door on weekends and in the evening, is appealing a lower-court ruling that declared its bylaw unconstitutional.

Lawyer Pierre Paquin, representing the city just north of Montreal, told three Quebec Court of Appeal justices that city officials are not restricting anyone’s religious freedoms by insisting people pay $100 for an annual permit for door-to-door visits of a non-commercial nature.

Permit holders can canvass for only two months each year. And the soliciting must be between 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The city believes it has the right to restrict how people express their religion in public in order to protect people’s rights to privacy in their own homes, Mr. Paquin said. “We’re not talking about a witch hunt.”

He argued that it’s reasonable to believe Witnesses could canvass the city within the two-month period covered by the permit. And the fact the permit applies to all groups, including charities, shows there is no discrimination.

But the three justices cautioned Mr. Paquin that it’s dangerous to distinguish between someone’s right to religious freedom and their right to express their religious beliefs.

“If these aren’t restrictions on religious freedoms, I don’t know what are,” said Justice Pierre Dalphond.

Judge Dalphond also said that the City of Blainville has been “paternalistic” in its treatment of residents by not allowing them the right to not answer the door, or the option of discussing their views with the Witnesses.

Lawyers representing the Witnesses argued that the 14 people fined under the bylaw since 1997 should be awarded damages of $2,000 each as a message to all publicly elected officials.

“To put it in simple English, you can not license freedom of expression,” said lawyer Glen How, who is also a Witness. “This is a scandalous abuse.”

Source: The Globe and Mail