What Are the Jehovah's Witnesses Like?

“As faith grows in your heart, you will find it hard to keep what you have learned to yourself.” –A Jehovah’s Witnesses publication

What is Easter with the Jehovah’s Witnesses like? I wouldn’t know, because it’s not open to the public.

I had been looking forward to going to a Jehovah’s Witnesses’ service for a long time, but had been unable to figure out how. They are the only denomination that doesn’t post their worship times outside their churches (they call the buildings Kingdom Halls). They also do not post their worship times on their websites. I got handed a brochure once in the supermarket parking lot, and it also lacked any specific information about when or how to join them for a service. Frustrated and perplexed, I put them on hold, waiting for them to come to my door. Which they did, last week.

I did not have the courage to invite them in and tell them I am an unbeliever who is interested in a theological debate. Perhaps next time. But I did accept their “invitation” to join them for a “memorial of Jesus’s death.” It was held on what other Christians call Palm Sunday, one week before Easter.

Another blog entry will follow about the theology of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Today’s is dedicated to the closed-door nature of their organization. It’s ironic that for a group so famous for their evangelism, they are so difficult to visit. I showed up at the worship service indicated on my “invitation.” Dressed in my only suit, I entered a small building packed with perhaps 100 people. A few people greeted me, but mostly I went in uninterrupted. It looked like most of the seats had been reserved with coats and Bibles and things, so I looked a bit confused trying to find a place to sit. A young man about my age asked me if I was visiting and said I could sit next to him. Thanking him, I asked if there was a program or bulletin. Nope, only a songbook. Every other church I’ve been to has a bulletin which announces weekly events, names of church leaders, etc. Many have specific information just for visitors. The service had none of that information either. There were no announcements about the weekly youth group meeting, the Bible study session or mid-week prayer time. It was just a welcoming, the sermon (more on that later), contemplation of the bread and wine, a word for the visitors, and that’s it.

It all started to come together for me when the man next to me asked me what religion I was when I told him I was visiting. I said not really anything. He said, “Just, sort of Christian?” and I said, “No, not really anything. I just decided to come out of curiosity when the people came to my door.” He said, “That’s fine, this service is open to the public.”

Open to the public? What an odd thing to say. It implies that some meetings are not open to the public. My suspicions were reinforced when they had a “special announcement” towards the end for visitors. The speaker said that any visitors were invited back to another service in two weeks’ time to explore Biblical teachings. Two weeks? That means that on Easter, no visitors were allowed. How odd is it that a religious group would have some services open to the public and others only for those in the fold? Certainly it’s their right, but it’s strange, especially for a group so dedicated to attracting converts.

Their means of getting those converts is often referred to or mocked in the media. There’s a Seinfeld episode (“The Opposite”) in which Elaine gets kicked out of her apartment, and one of the reasons is that she buzzed Jehovah’s Witnesses into the building and it took hours to get them out. The door-to-door method seems intrusive, out-of-date, and ineffective. Yet, they persist with it. They must get 100 people who ignore or reject them for every one idiot like me who shows up. But their method relies on face time, which can be powerful. Their bread and butter is the individual Bible study session. I had 3 separate people offer to join me for a Bible study session between my chair and the door as I was leaving. Once you’ve expressed some interest, it seems they press you with a personal but very regimented system of teaching to draw you in. It must work, because they claim somewhere between 7 million and 18 million believers. Their official website, www.watchtower.org, has a prominent link on the homepage for an individual study session. More on the watchtower later as well.

Here’s another strange thing: the 3 people who offered to study the Bible with me were all young white men in their 20s or 30s. This was in a congregation comprised of all ages and colors. It was as though I were targeted by certain members because of my demographics. Coincidence? Perhaps. But I got the strong sense that there is heavy training involved in how to evangelize, because all 3 people said nearly the same thing, and matching demographics struck me as one of the tactics.

Upon leaving the service, I was, as always, full of mixed feelings. The people all seemed nice and normal, like any other churchgoing people I’ve encountered. I had no reason to criticize them any more than I’d criticize any set of believers. I didn’t want to come into this week with a prejudice, that I had to find something to mock in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. But I cannot get around the uncomfortable feeling of secrecy and cultishness that I left with. I’m sure their kindness and openness is genuine in their eyes. But it is in part false. It must be false if it is shaped by a centralized system, which indoctrinates and controls the thought of its members even more strongly than most other religious organizations. A more detailed blog entry about the content of the service and their beliefs will follow soon…

Catholics: What Century Are You Living In?

-I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful. –Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4

-Let no one deceive you with shallow arguments. –Ephesisans 5:6

Women can’t be priests? Really? Forgive me for beginning with such an obvious and tired old subject, but really?

Catholics are generally an educated bunch. So why do so many accept such an obviously discriminatory policy? I believe that no Catholic should accept the teachings of their church because it is officially a discriminatory organization. Only years of indoctrination can cause an educated person to overlook this outrageous fact.

I’ve heard some Catholic leaders explain why women can’t be priests. Their reasoning is wildly nonsensical. It should be offensive to anyone with a brain. In fact, I’ll refer to today’s passage from the scripture and encourage readers to take it to heart: “Let no one deceive you with shallow arguments…Learn to judge for yourselves what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:6-10). Each Catholic should judge for himself or herself whether they want to swallow the backwards teachings of a religious group mired in the past, blind to equality and reason. Just google “Why can’t women be priests” and read the insulting games of logic for yourself.

But none of this is actually what church this week was about. It’s just what I thought of as I sat in a crowded, downtown Catholic church waiting for the service to begin. I watched people genuflect before entering the pews. I watched them cross themselves. I listened to songs in Latin. And I began to wonder whether religious people place more value in things just because they have always been done than in their own ability to think.

The priest’s sermon had some really strong points that I agree with, but ultimately led me to ask the same question. What century are they in? He referenced a story from the Gospel of John, in which Jesus heals a blind man. The people asked what the blind man had done to deserve his blindness, and Jesus said nothing—he was blind so that God could reveal his glory by healing him.

OK, so that guy is pretty lucky. Jesus heals him, he can see, dances off down the street, whatever. Everyone’s amazed at God. Excuse me, but what about all the blind saps that Jesus didn’t heal? Why did God make them blind? Couldn’t he just show his power more effectively by miraculously making everyone able to see. No wait—why stop there. He could miraculously make everyone healthy. Oh, and make enough food for everyone to eat. Heck, he could throw in ice cream stands on every street corner in the deserts of Israel. Seems to me there are better ways for God to show his glory.

Ah, but I’m being unfair. The priest wasn’t interested in all these potentialities. He was merely trying to extract from this ancient and probably untrue story a reasonable lesson for today’s listeners. And it is here that I must admit he had some good things to say. He was addressing some real and serious issues that we all think about. Why is there suffering? Why is there illness? How are we to respond to pain? He told a story about a person with Downs Syndrome and how she brought much joy to the lives of people she touched. He suggested that all people have gifts to bring, that all people can make life better for others. He made the beautiful point that we should not measure quality of life by physical ability. The disabled, sick, and elderly are equally human, and we should not as a culture be afraid of physical diminishment. What does it mean to be fully alive?

I’m glad I went to this church and heard this lesson. Indeed, I am better off for hearing and pondering this message.

At the same time, I am deeply angry. He suggests that we should explain away suffering as something that God wants. Suffering as we think of it—well, that’s not actually suffering. If you think that blindness is bad, you’re just not getting it. If you think that a child dying of cancer is bad, well, you’re just missing the point. If you think that someone being born without legs and consequently being forced to beg for pennies next to a trash heap in Nepal is bad, then you’re not realizing God’s true purpose.

If it is for the glory of God that these people suffer, as Jesus suggests in John 9:3, nobody should worship that God. They should reject him.

Thankfully, it is not for the glory of any god that people suffer. If it were, that would be a cosmic cruelty without reason for hope. Rather, suffering has reasons that we can understand and do something about. We might not be able to cure blindness or cancer yet, but perhaps someday. We might not be able to give people legs, but perhaps someday. And until that day, we can organize human civilization in intelligent ways that respect the dignity of all and ease suffering everywhere. Pie in the sky? Unrealistic? Cheesy? Yes, all of the above, but certainly better than worshipping the imaginary being who caused the suffering for his own glorification. We should be beyond that in the 21^st century.

Jesus ends the story of the blind man with this observation: “It is for judgement that I have come into this world—to give sight to the sightless and to make blind those who see…If you were blind you would not be guilty, but because you claim to see, your guilt remains” (John 9:39-41). The Catholic Church would do well to heed Jesus’s words. They claim to see. Jesus himself says that those people who claim to have all the answers are the most ignorant. But wait, churchgoingatheist, wouldn’t that apply to arrogant bloggers like yourself? To anyone? Yes, I suppose it would. Jesus’s words create a paradox, by which nobody can ever speak to anything with authority. Another logical trap, causing people to remain in perpetual ignorance rather than thinking for themselves.