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 relatives 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.

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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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