Doctors at the Pretoria Academic Hospital have obtained an urgent court order enabling them to give a month-old baby a blood transfusion. They felt the life of the infant – one of twins – was at stake.

But the baby’s family, who live in Sunnyside and are Jehovah’s Witnesses, are deeply distressed. Read more…

Disfellowshipped Dasun Allah, editor of the hip-hop magazine The Source and now member of the Islam-based Nation of Gods and Earths, “tagged” the assembly hall to expose the religion’s “hypocrisy.” Read more…

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 Witnesses are zealous proselytisers who have expanded rapidly over the past 130 years and there are now more than 6 million devotees worldwide.
This paper examines the socialisation of second and subsequent generation members and describes how the movement deals with those who refuse to comply with its regime. Extracts are presented from interviews with young members who recall their childhood memories of growing up in the movement and explain what happened when they rebelled against its quasi-totalitarian doctrines. The main argument advanced in the paper is that parents who socialise their children in accordance with this particular creed are protecting them from a modern world of relativism and uncertainty. Read more…

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 movement promotes its millenarian message to prospective recruits. It also considers how the Witnesses are able to hold futuristic beliefs and at the same time, lead active lives in the present. The methods of data collection include unstructured interviews with devotees and content analysis of the movement’s own literature. The paper concludes that while the Witnesses’ futuristic symbolism is a form of escape from the modern world, it is also part of their own pseudo-corporate ‘branding’ which has contributed to their international success. Read more…

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 movement has managed to retain a millenarian orientation in a world that is, for the most part, indifferent to its beliefs. The Witnesses reject many commonly recognised accoutrements of sacred practise such as mystical concepts, awesome rituals and transcendental symbolism in favour of a rationalised form of religion based on the study of published texts.  Ethnographic analysis reveals the dependency of this quasi-totalitarian movement on the very physical and cultural resources it condemns.  The paper concludes that the Witnesses’ anti-mystical faith is both an inverted form of corporate ‘branding’ and an anti-modern quest for certainty in a hostile world of relativism. The movement’s relationship with the modern world is, therefore, ambivalent and paradoxical. Read more…

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. Read more…

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. Read more…

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. Read more…

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania have initiated legal proceedings against Peter Mosier, who has been displaying “Quotes” from the Jehovah’s Witnesses publication on his website. The law suit seeks a reported $100,000 in damages and a court order to silence the website. Read more…

(I-Newswire) – For over 125 years the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society has been proclaiming the end of the world is nigh. It is to be replaced with a New Order where only those espousing their beliefs will live.

Yet the Watchtower Society continued to build in Brooklyn, expanding their smaller headquarters to contain several large properties in the exclusive Brooklyn Heights section next to the Brooklyn Bridge. Read more…