Sheep and Goats

Category: Countries/States

  • Exploring Themes of Ecclesiastes in the Poconos

    The Book of Ecclesiastes examines themes as the vicissitudes of life, that the swift do not always have the race, nor the strong the battle. This implies a certain “vanity” should one gloat too much over one’s accomplishments, as well as a certain “futility” brought on by the relative brevity of life. On a trip to the Pocono hills of Pennsylvania, I explored these themes in connection with some power players of long ago. It also appears in a book I wrote, Go Where Tom Goes. (billed as a travelogue for those who aren’t fussy):

    Down where the widened street and its narrow companion end in two tees onto route 209, beyond is the train station, the tracks, the Lehigh River, the walkway, and another steep mountain. You are in the town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. An odd name for a town, don’t you think? But when you consider the original name, Mauch Chunk, perhaps you will think Jim Thorpe an improvement.  Mauch Chunk is the Lenni Lenape word for sleeping bear; a native American term that no one except the Lenni Lenape will understand. Jim Thorpe is a native American term that everyone will understand. Descendant of a chief of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe attended the nearby Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he mastered every sport he attempted:  basketball, lacrosse, tennis, handball, bowling, swimming, hockey, boxing, and gymnastics. “Show them what an Indian can do,” his father charged him when he went off to represent the United States at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. There, he won so many metals in such a variety of events that Sweden’s King Gustav V gushed, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world!” “Thanks, King,” the unassuming man replied. For years thereafter, he played major league baseball and football concurrently. ABC’s Wide World of Sports, in 2001, named him the greatest athlete of the 20th century.

    Just behind and well above that aforementioned train station, up the steep hill, is the 1860 home built for Asa Packer. It is an ornate, three-story mansion open for tours, so of course, Mrs. Harley and I took one. Asa Packer came from Connecticut (on foot) in 1833 and made his fortune, first as a canal boat operator, and then as the founder of the Lehigh railroad. The idea was to transport the area’s coal to the great cities on the East Coast. It made him the third wealthiest man in the country. From his front porch, peer over the inn to see the courthouse he built, where he served as a judge, the church he built where he served as a vestryman, and the sandstone buildings where he housed his employees. Today, those sandstone buildings contain eateries, studios, and trendy stores. At one time, nineteen of the country’s twenty-six millionaires maintained seasonal homes in Mauch Chunk. Asa Packer’s words are on display just in front of his house: “There is no distinction to which any young man may not aspire, and with energy, diligence, intelligence, and virtue, obtain.”

    The Asa Packer mansion at Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

    Mrs. Harley and I didn’t stay in his town during our Poconos trip, however. We stayed twenty miles upstream in Stoddartsville, the town of a would-be industrialist to whom fortune was not so kind. Stoddartsville appears on the map but if you go there you will find only the foundations of a few 200-year-old buildings—and simple signs erected by the Stoddartsville Historical Society labeling what once stood on each foundation. And a graveyard whose worn tombstones reveal that several Stoddarts are buried there. And a few private residences were built on some of those ancient foundations. And a small rustic cabin overlooking the Lehigh—that is where we stayed.

    John Stoddart was ambitious, too, just like Asa Packer. He also sought to harness the Lehigh, to ship grain downstream to Philadelphia, hoping to divert commerce from a neighboring system that sent it to Baltimore—this was to be a “win-lose” situation, not a “win-win,” with him the winner. He built a community straddling the Lehigh along the Wilkes-Barre Turnpike (which he controlled) with a grist mill, sawmill, and boat-building capacity. It flourished in the early 1800s, a bit before Packer’s time, but alas, Stoddart was too far upstream. The best he could do with his river was provide one-way traffic, utilizing a series of dams that held back waters until they reached flood stage, and then, releasing them all at once, his barges could ride the crest downstream to the next dam! Boats were constructed in Stoddartsville and dismantled at the destination; the timber sold along with the cargo. It was not cost-effective enough to compete with later two-way systems. John Stoddart eventually went bankrupt and his town faded from prominence. He spent the final thirty years of his life as a clerk in Philadelphia.

    There is a third character, a Quaker businessman by the name of Josiah White, who touches on the fortunes of both Packer and Stoddart. To Packer, he brought success, but to Stoddart, ruin. Stoddart might have gone under in any case, but White sealed his fate. White’s endeavor was canal-building, and it was canal piloting that enabled Asa Packer to amass capital sufficient to build his railroad. Back in Mauch Chunk, just before the railroad station (which is now a tourist information center) lies a town square named after Josiah White. It was he who founded the town before Packer ever traipsed in from Connecticut.

    Ironically, Josiah White’s canal ventures owe a lot to John Stoddart’s initial support. In the early days of the Lehigh Navigation Company, White tried in vain to raise money from comfortable, conservative, downstream Philadelphia merchants. They were loath to part with it. White realized he needed the backing of one man, John Stoddart, who (per White’s memoirs)

    “was then a leading man among the Mound characters, being esteemed Luckey [sic] and to never mis’d in his Speculations, carried a strong influence with his actions, he being of an open and accessible habit, gave us frequent opportunities with him, & his large Estates at the head of our Navigation, authorized our beseaging [sic] him, which we did frequently.”

    Sure enough, as soon as word got out that Stoddart had invested $5000.00 (with the stipulation that the navigation system begin in Stoddartsville) everyone jumped on board, and the entire hoped-for sum of $100,000 was raised in 24 hours! White began building two-way locks on the Lehigh, but that summer (1819) was unusually dry, and the river proved too shallow for transport. The following winter, ice damaged the locks to the point that White replaced them with the aforementioned one-way bear-trap locks—the locks in no way resembled bear traps, but White’s workmen named them such to dispose of pesky, “Whatcha building?” passerby—the economics of which ultimately sealed John Stoddart’s doom, not to mention, destroying the fishing upon which various Native Americans and missionaries depended.

    Roaming the Pennsylvania hills where these long-dead men once maneuvered, it is hard to escape the feeling that had you switched them, put Stoddart where Packer was and vice versa, the results would have been the same. Both were subject to time and unforeseen circumstances, which might have easily gone the other way. If the Lehigh had behaved that first year of Stoddart’s transport system, or if Packer, who went way out on a limb financially building his railroad, had been subject to a clobbering winter or two, it might be Stoddart’s name that is remembered instead of Packer’s—that is, as much as any person is remembered. For, successful as he was, I knew nothing about Packer before stumbling upon his hometown. Did you? Even though he was the third richest man in the country. Doesn’t matter. We all end up in the grave, where the memory of us quickly fades.

    For whatever reason, I vividly remember Brother Benner, the District Overseer, playing devil’s advocate with his own argument, an argument drawn from Ecclesiastes about the brevity of life, and its consequent “futility.” Build as you may, you are not around to reap too much benefit from your work. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon reflects upon “all that I had worked so hard for under the sun because I must leave it behind for the man coming after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? Yet he will take control over all the things I spent great effort and wisdom to acquire under the sun.” (2:18-19)

    This nearly happened in the case of Packer’s enormous wealth after the untimely deaths of his sons. Business associates threatened to squander it all, so Asa’s daughter Mary maneuvered to gain control of the family fortune. To that end, she had to marry, since unmarried women from that era were never left the estate. The fact that Mary had nursed both parents through their deaths did not matter. She married some obliging business fellow, secured the fortune, and the marriage ended soon thereafter. Was that the plan from the start? At any rate, as we toured the Packer mansion, the guide pointed to a prominently displayed plaque of Saint Fabiola, the patron saint of divorced women. (No, I didn’t know there was such a saint, either.)

    Anyhow, back to Benner, he was discussing verse eleven of chapter 1, a recurring theme of Ecclesiastes: No one remembers people of former times; Nor will anyone remember those who come later; Nor will they be remembered by those who come still later. We, who were initially created to live forever on earth, are now subject to that sad reality. He spoke of how someone might attempt to counter the verse, for example, pointing to some musician or other: “Yes, so-and-so may have died,” people would gush, “but his music lives on and on.” “Give me a break!” Benner responded. “Who was the most famous singer in George Washington’s day?” Exactly.

    Same thing with Mauch Chunk. Who were the other eighteen millionaires who made their home there? Or, for that matter, what about Jim Thorpe, the town’s later namesake? What became of him after his athletic days? (Alas, for all his fame, he fell upon very hard times.) You will remember imperfectly a few of the generation before you and perhaps even a handful of the generation before that, but everyone else is, at best, a name in a statistics book, like Packer or Stoddart. Some won. Some lost. But you don’t know anything about them.

    The brevity of our life is what defines it. You do not get too many shots. There is a built-in frustration since every door we open represents several we have closed. Pathways take time to trod. The more ambitious the pathway, the longer it will take, and the fewer you will tread. Each pathway we go down represents a multitude we do not go down. And yet, we want to go down them all. Is this what Solomon meant about life being “calamity?” Today’s age of specialization makes the calamity even more pronounced. Increase your wisdom or wealth, as Solomon did, and you increase the pathways you can pursue. But, alas, you increase your perception of the many more you will not pursue before the clock runs out.

    It was not meant to be so and it will not be so one day in the future. Humans, created to live forever but now relegated to a few scores of years, are yet to have the opportunity for everlasting life. And all these characters of the past, not to mention our own family members, are they to be among the “righteous and the unrighteous” who come out of the memorial tombs, per Acts 24:15 and John 5:28? It is the Bible’s hope. It intrigued me from the beginning. It still does, though one must stoke the hope occasionally so that static from this present system of things does not drown it out. As Jesus said: “When the Son of man arrives, will he really find the faith on the earth?” 

    From: Go Where Tom Goes: https://mybook.to/GoWhereTomGoes

  • Joseph Kempler

    After the war, concentration camp Joseph Kempler was invited to a hearing in Germany for the purpose of identifying war criminals. There, he struck up an acquaintance with some Jehovah’s Witnesses who had also been incarcerated. He knew nothing of their beliefs but he had previously encountered them, as a camp within a camp, at the Melk labor prison. He sat with them throughout the days of the hearings.

    The case of one former S.S. guard came up for review. He was the guard whose abuse had resulted in the complete loss of use of one arm and restricted use of the other for one of Kempler’s Witness companions. Kempler was both dumbfounded and furious when the latter sat quietly, puffing away at his pipe, and would not speak up. Here was his chance to exact payback! The man wouldn’t do it. “‘Vengeance in mine; I will repay,’ says Jehovah”—he cited the Bible verse at Romans 12:19

    Kempler’s imprisonment through six Nazi camps had broken him, both spiritually and emotionally. He was very explicit on that point in testimony for the USHMM archives, and he didn’t have to be. Even after he became a Witness in 1953, healing would take many years, during which time he credited his wife for raising his children. He had always been there, but not emotionally available. Like the Ethiopian eunuch of the sixth chapter of Acts, his background knowledge had allowed him to put the pieces together quickly. He soon could explain the complete Bible backward and forward. But, he would zone out under emotional stress, a mechanism that had enabled his survival in the camps.

    He was also explicit in that USHMM testimony that the Witnesses had not been broken. Physically, sometimes they had been, but spiritually and emotionally they had come through intact. Probably, that is why he invited the Witnesses into his home when they called back in 1953. He had previously accepted from them a book because a book, any book, for only fifty cents was a great bargain; he had always been a voracious reader. He had been surprised to see them, imagining they were a German religion. But his visitors showed him a map inside one of their books to indicate they were earthwide. ‘It’s a wonderful hope,’ he said, when they described promises of a paradise earth, ‘but it’s not something I could ever have.’ He was proved wrong.

    Mauthassen was the camp in which guards loaded crushingly heavy boulders on the shoulder of inmates and made them ascend uneven quarry steps to transport them elsewhere. (Kempler was angry when the government later replaced them with smooth steps for the sake of modern tourists.) One might easily topple over the edge to one’s death, or even be deliberately pushed off. Having survived a horrific stint in Mauthassen, Kempler was transferred by cattle car to the Melk labor camp, as though the culmination of a survival-of-the-fittest experiment. On that car, prisoners were packed in so tightly that if one raised his arms, he or she might not get them down again. People relieved themselves where they stood.

    At Melk, people died through overwork and mistreatment, but no one was shot—it was a labor camp for things the Germans needed. Kempler later described for the USC Shoah Foundation his first encounter with the Witnesses at that camp. It was “a barrack in the camp, which was surrounded by its own wire, so the people who were in there, they couldn’t go out and mix with the others, and nobody could go in. So I asked ‘Who are these people? Must be very dangerous if they had a camp within a camp. . . . They said, ‘They are Jehovah’s Witnesses. they were all Germans, mostly, and they were locked up because they wouldn’t go along with Hitler, they wouldn’t serve in the army.’

    So I said, ‘Why do they lock them up? They said, ‘Because otherwise they will go out and preach to others.’ They’re considered too dangerous for that. But what they told me was, these people were the only ones who were not victims because they were told that by signing a statement denouncing their religion was enough to set them free. And they wouldn’t go.

    This was something that was totally unusual because any one of us would si—(laughs) ah, can you imagine signing a piece of paper and you can get out? So, I mean, it was the talk of the camp and they were there, most of them, going back to 1933-34. . . . the Germans trusted them for  babysitters or maybe its barbers—they wouldn't cut their throats, so as a result they had good positions. And these people were known to always support, would rather help one another . . . this made a powerful impression.”

    Even in camp the Witnesses were too thought dangerous to mix with the general population. Nazis who would inflict Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar guards upon the imprisoned populace, to persuade them they were subhuman, would not inflict these ones. [&&&FN Kempler’s video testimony is, at time of writing, readily found on the internet. A three-hour segment is found in the collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, at https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn508850.

    “It is difficult to speak with Jews,” he relates in the Engardio-Shephard 2006 documentary, Knocking. “They say I became a traitor. Six million Jews died and I joined the other side. I was among those survivors who felt that God was really responsible and guilty. He was the one who permitted the Holocaust. So we didn’t fail him, we didn’t do anything wrong. He failed us. And this is a very common belief.”

    “God is being maligned and misunderstood and in many different ways looked down upon as being uncaring or dead or whatever, and there are all kinds of distortions as to what God is and who he is. To be able to speak up in his defense . . . what a powerful turnaround from somebody where I was to become a defender of God . . . what a wonderful privilege this is.”

    Mr. Kempler saw, in the Holocaust aftermath, an opportunity to defend God. Though barbaric treatment turned millions away from God, millions who could not fathom how God could possibly permit such a monstrous thing—and he was among them—he was, in time, fortified by knowledge of why the world was as it is, what hope there was for change, and how to best live in the meantime. Armed with such knowledge, he was drawn to the people who, with faith and dignity intact, survived what was likely the greatest evil in history.

    Doubtless, he many times pondered the Book of Job—not in real time, of course—at the time of Holocaust, he and fellow inmates thought only of survival. Most became, in his words, “like animals, just out to survive, and being an animal is as close as you can describe such persons.” Belief in God turned to disappointment, then anger, then disappeared entirely. “They died before they died,” said he of his fellow captives. Nobody grieved at another’s death, even of family. He shut down emotionally. He later credited his faith as a Witness for the supportive atmosphere it bestowed in which renewal could take place. That, and a renewed Bible understanding that consistently likens spiritual things to water, which is healthy when it moves and stagnant when it does not.

    Jehovah’s Witnesses weathered the storm, with faith and dignity intact, They had read the Book of Job. They had gotten the greater sense of it. Victor Frankl, a Jew who would later go on to write several books, relates what a gut-punch it was for him, after his camp experience, to encounter members of the general populace who said, ‘We didn’t know.’ In some cases it was a conscience-salving dodge, but in most cases they actually didn’t know. It wasn’t even one of those lawyerly ‘knew or should have known’ scenarios; in most cases there was no reason they ‘should have known.’ How could anyone be expected to imagine such atrocities?

    It was a gut-punch for him. It meant his suffering went unnoticed. Wasn’t that nearly the same as it being in vain? Witnesses were not undercut by that perception. At the very least, they knew their suffering was observed by God, as Job’s had been. They knew they had been given opportunity to display loyalty to God under suffering, again like Job. They had not felt their lives purposeless even in confinement. They had been given opportunity to build up others, when not physically separated from them, with their kingdom hope. They had even smuggled out detailed diagrams of the camps, as early as the 1930s, to be forwarded to Western media sources. Those sources disbelieved them, since it was from the Witnesses, but their spiritual brothers came to know. And, of course, they had been given opportunity to help each other. That gives purpose to anyone.

    Kempler died in 2021, at 93 years of age. He did not outlive Leopold Engleitner, another Witness Holocaust survivor, for a time the oldest one, who with the assistance of his publisher, toured the globe at 103. “I’ll be back,” he had said in California, imitating the then-governor’s movie days. He would visit classrooms, and the kids, as with Kempler, couldn’t get enough of him. He described himself as “a busy boy, with no time to die.” Somehow, he later found the time, at 107 years of age. Kempler did not outlive him. But, 93 certainly qualifies as being ‘old and satisfied with days.’ And, just a few years prior to his death, his daughter-in-law published his memoirs. The book is entitled The Altered I: Memoirs of Holocaust Survivor Joseph Kempler. It is a good title, for he was altered—twice.

    (From my upcoming book, tentatively titled 'Job and the Workman's Theodicy: Why Bad Thing Happen'–perhaps verbatim, perhaps in modified form.)

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Vomodog Demands Public Auditing

    There has never been a financial scandal among Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yet, to their enemies, a gargantuan one is always looming on the horizon. Pushing back at similar charges leveled in Russia by popular media, journalist Katerina Chernova [as related in I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses: Searching for the Why] pushes back at “money-pumping” allegations. Yes, they are heard all the time, she acknowledges, but “when [people] are asked to name just one victim from whom money, apartments, or something else was taken by the Witnesses, NOBODY was able to remember A SINGLE case in fact!” [Caps hers]

    Vic Vomodog pummels me regularly that he wants to see SEC-style detailed public accounting laid out for him, such as is habitual with publicly-owned companies, but not private. He just wants a line-item list that he can attach a line-item veto to each one—with bellyaching! Believe me, he knows how to do it. “Honest men entrusted with large sums of money give an accounting to those who entrusted them, as a matter of courtesy, appreciation, respect and honor!” he fires at me.

    Apparently, he shouldn’t have. From the weekly Bible reading when it was centered on Josiah:

    “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, and let him collect all the money that is being brought into the house of Jehovah, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. Have them give it to those appointed over the work in the house of Jehovah who, in turn, will give it to the workers in the house of Jehovah who are to repair the damage to the house, that is, to the craftsmen, the builders, and the masons; and they are to use it to buy timbers and hewn stones to repair the house. But no accounting should be required of them for the money that they are given, because they are trustworthy.” [bolding mine, of course] (2 Kings 22:4-7)

    I had no idea that was there. I was surprised to see it. I have never heard the verse used as justification for not submitting detailed stock-market like quarterly financial reports. I don’t expect an appeal to it. Hitting on the Research Guide brings up nothing. Apparently, the verse has never been cited.

    But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that a group of people whose mission statement is to follow Bible principles come heck or high water is not going to be shoved into ‘Trust—but verify’ public accounting by ever-accusing or suspicious people when the Bible says it is not to be done.

    The round-figure reports that we do get as to how much was spent here and there—this much for disaster relief, that much for missionaries, this much for a Branch build, appear to be in excess of what is scripturally required.

    Every so often I come across some unexpected thing to buttress my high level of confidence in the Governing Body. Every so often I come across some unexpected thing to withstand all these Vomodog-like critics who complain they are “arrogant.” If they were arrogant they would make this scripture their year text. They would say, ‘We don’t have to answer to no one. The Bible says so.’ They have divine authorization to say just that. They have never made use of it. 

    Probably humility enters into it, as well as a desire not to expose themselves to temptation. Obviously, they know of the scripture. Even though they can use it, they may feel it comes across as just too cocky to put it out there. They may feel it presents too much of a ‘Let he who thinks he is standing beware he does not fall’ challenge. It may even represent a rare sense of being PR sensitive.

    And don’t bellyache over this, you mutt! You know I am but inches away from discovering hidden manuscripts detailing the interaction between Josiah and the unusual Israelite named Vomodogiah.

    ****Burns me up, he does—even if we were once BFFs.

    And Truetom said to Vomodog, “Where you been?”

    ‘Oh, from roaming around the earth and going anywhere I please,’ Vomodog replied. ‘What’s it to you?’

    At that Truetom said, ‘Have you beheld the servants at Bethel? How they fear God and turn away from dishonest gain?’

    Vomodog shot back, “Is it for nothing they turn away? Do not we mollycoddle them all (except for the ones we gave walking papers to on Rightsize Day)? But just lean into them a little and see if they don’t steal you blind!”

    At this Truetom threw away his new personality to kingdom come, wondered whatever became of his Bethel application, and replied:

    25AE4E01-01CD-4907-A8A9-A9D1B4D9455E

    (Photo from IMBd of Jack Luden—an American actor of 1930-40 Westerns, nephew of the Luden’s Cough Drops inventor)

    *** Back to Katerina Chernova, as related in Don’t Know Why:

    “She goes on to relate a small fact that is actually huge and that says it all: with Jehovah’s Witnesses, baptisms and weddings and funerals are conducted ‘on a cost-free basis.’ With the Orthodox Church? “We have heard many complaints against it regarding the impossibility of performing any ritual in the event that a person does not have money. That is, you want to be ‘baptized,’—some ‘donation;’ you want to be ‘married,’—it takes so much cash; a ‘funeral,’—it is also not for free.”

    An avaricious organization is not going to cut off these most dependable of all generators of cash.”

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Jehovah’s Witnesses: an American Religion? I Don’t Think So: An Exploration of Psalm 33

    Most Russians think Jehovah’s Witnesses are an American religion. In this age of poisoned East/West relations, that’s not good.

    That’s not the main reason the Witness organization was banned in that country in 2017, but it’s a sabotaging corollary. Obviously, their HQ is in America. Everyone has to be somewhere. But do they pick up on and push the nationalistic policies of the country? They do not. They just exist there.

    So how to fix that misconception that they are an American religion?

    1A5C7823-40C7-484F-B578-099BCA0F1447A) You can’t. If the tract ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses: Christians or Communists?’ designed to fix just the opposite impression, doesn’t do the trick, nothing will. First published in 1951, it was used into the early 1970s. I remember carrying it myself at that tail end of that period, though I rarely used it. By then, everyone knew Witnesses weren’t communist. Imagine. Russians are saying Witnesses are American, and just a few decades ago Americans were saying Jehovah’s Witnesses were Russian [Soviet]! The 70-year-old tract has become a collectible. And to think you used to be able to pick up a handful of them for free!

    1BA3D765-5DD0-4917-923E-502998D6511AB) There is also a second, more complicated solution (said 1974 Murder on the Orient Express Hercule Poirot, before opting for the simpler one even though he knew the second one was right).

    The more complicated solution presents when Dwight D. Eisenhower, at his swearing in as president, suggested either that his country was or would be the country identified with Psalm 33:12: “Happy is the nation whose God is Jehovah, The people he has chosen as his own possession.”

    ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ the Watchtower said in effect. ‘That verse is referring to something else—the Israelite nation of antiquity whose God really was Jehovah* and the modern day spiritual descendant of it, which is NOT the country in which HQ is located, nor is it any other earthly nation.

    *(“Now if you will strictly obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will certainly become my special property out of all peoples, for the whole earth belongs to me. You [ancient Israel] will become to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites.” Exodus 19:5-6)

    How’s that for evidence Jehovah’s Witnesses is not an American religion, Mr. Putin? [whose leadership is being considerably undermined by some ‘anti-cult’ loons] Eisenhower says his country is “the nation whose God is Jehovah.” Oh, no it isn’t, says HQ.

    It’s from a two-paragraph segment wedged in to the Watchtower Study article of November 15, 1968. The entire congregation would have considered it. It reads downright strange today. It would have read downright strange to non-Witnesses even then, most likely. But active Witnesses would have picked up on it instantly. It would have been ‘food at the proper time’ for them.

    What few of the general public knew then, and none of them do today, is that the 34th president of the United States had been raised a Witness. Back then it was called ‘the International Bible Students’—the name ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ was adopted in 1931. Eisenhower was raised as one. He left his Witness background behind upon reaching adulthood (and his family to this day does all it can to obscure that former connection), but he was raised that way.

    My question is—did any Witnesses of his era come to regard him as ‘our guy’ who became deliverer—almost like a Moses? If so, I’ve never heard it before, but it makes sense that some might. He liberated the Nazi concentration camps where many of them were imprisoned. He won World War II—it was he who was appointed Supreme Military Commander of Allied troops. Even today’s Watchtower, without naming names, necessarily include him in the earth that swallows up the waters of persecution emitting from rivers, the more stable elements of this world vanquishing the more unstable.

    Eisenhower followed a familiar path: the victorious general gets elected president. It worked for Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Grant—it worked for Eisenhower. The prestige of the United States rode very high immediately after World War II. Learning a lesson from World War I, it was magnanimous towards its beaten enemies, and worked to rebuild their economies. True, it had to dump that megalomaniac McArthur, who in time wanted to pepper North Korea with 50 of those new-fangled atomic bombs (if that country is unhinged today, it is not as though someone didn’t seed their paranoia). But he was most magnanimous in rebuilding Japan. (Historians attribute the reason to his desire to be adored, but that still does not mean he was not that way.) Moreover, under the Marshall plan, Germany too was rebuilt.

    President Eisenhower would have overseen all this—he, the one raised a Jehovah’s Witness, though never baptized. Some training would have stuck, though. I’ve gone so far as to suggest his warnings of a coming “military-industrial complex” (it was going to be “military-industrial-congressional” complex, but he didn’t want to offend that prickly body) is patterned after those one-time continual Witness characterizations of a big business, big government, big religion deleterious triumvirate—a characterization you never hear today but used to be heard frequently.

    So were there some Witnesses then who regarded him as a deliverer? I guess he was in the sense that Cyrus was also a deliverer. But Cyrus has no background in Jehovah’s worship. Eisenhower did. Did Witnesses regard his as one of ‘theirs’—the hometown boy that turned out incredibly good, swatting a grand slam, not just for them, but for the whole wide world?

    Any such notion is tamped down firmly in that November 15th Watchtower. Two paragraphs of the 22 paragraphs are devoted to it. ‘The Happiness of the Nation Whose God is Jehovah’ is the title of that article, and the remaining 20 paragraphs identify just what is that nation. It is neither Eisenhower’s country nor any other earthly one today.

    “No, it is not the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth today,” said that Watchtower in paragraph 3. It wasn’t the one whose “thirty-fourth president was being inaugurated for his second term in office. Following the custom, he was being sworn in with his right hand resting upon an open Bible. This Bible was not the British King James or Authorized Version Bible, but was the American Standard Version of the Bible as published in the year 1901 C.E. This particular copy had been given him by his God-fearing mother when he was about to graduate from the national Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1915 . . .”

    Good old mom, who, like moms everywhere, never gives up hope that junior will return to the fold.

    During that inauguration, Eisenhower’s hand “purposely rested at Psalm 33:12, which, in the American Standard Version, reads as follows: ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah, the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.’”

    ‘Don’t even think it,’ is the thrust of the next paragraph (4):

    “By this gesture the reinaugurated president may have been suggesting that the United States of America was that blessed or happy nation or that he would serve in the presidency to make it such. But during his two terms in the presidency did he lead his nation into the blessedness or happiness spoken of in Psalm 33:12?” then the article goes on to document a litany of unhappy woes, such as we are good at doing—though by today’s standards those woes seem downright cheery.

    So if there is some historical context to think that the victorious U.S really is that Ps 33:12 nation in which all is hunky-dory, the Watchtower does not let that notion stand. Does it anticipate or acknowledge that some brothers did?

    On the JW Library app, if equipped with research notes, pressing the number of any particular Bible verse will bring up, in the adjacent column, a host of previous articles that have commented on the verse. Pressing ‘12’ for the 12th verse brings up that November 15th Watchtower, but not as the first offering. Pressing ‘10’ does bring it up as the first offering. What is verse 10?

    “Jehovah has frustrated the schemes of the nations; He has thwarted the plans of the peoples.” as though one of the “schemes of the nations” is to claim that one of them is the happy nation whose God is Jehovah! As though Eisenhower himself is trying to pull a fast one, but the Watchtower won’t let him get away with it!

    There’s two other locations (verse 16 and 17) which also pull up that November 15th Watchtower, though not as the first item. “No king is saved by a large army; A mighty man is not saved by his great power. The horse is a false hope for salvation; Its great strength does not ensure escape,” they read. Okay? Just because you have a large army—horses being the ancient equivalent of tanks, don’t think you get Psalm 33:12 status from it. U.S. has huge military might these days. So does Russia, for that matter. So does China. Doesn’t make them the happy nation.

    See what projects you can get into when you supplement Bible reading with the Research Guide?

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Anti-cultists: Adding a New Level of Craziness to an Already Unstable World

    Russian anti-cult lawyer Alexander Korelov spins the latest sinister plot against Jehovah’s Witnesses. They’re scheming to overthrow the Putin government! he charges. From their “Brooklyn headquarters” they’re so scheming! So reports this BitterWinter article.

    Sheesh. They moved out of Brooklyn five years ago. Now, Ivan Q Public might not know it. It’s not his special interest. But it is that of Korelov, who  bills himself as an expert. If he doesn’t know where Witnesses are, he probably doesn’t know anything else. When a medical doctor probes for my amygdala in my great toe, it’s time for me to get a second opinion.

    Do the Russian anti-cultists not speak at all to their Western anti-cult brethren? The Western anti-cultists will lambaste Jehovah’s Witnesses for just the opposite reason—for taking absolutely no interest in politics or any other aspect of “normal” life. It is due to the Witnesses’ take on remaining “no part of the world.” They barely know who prominent politicians are, and almost never know of the interplay between them. When I mentioned Eliot Spitzer to a good Witness friend of mine, he replied that, yes, he had heard the name, but he couldn’t quite place him. Spitzer was governor of the state he lived in at the time.

    Jehovah’s Witnesses lack of interest in political affairs is exactly that of Christians of the first century who were roundly derided for having just as much interest in civic affairs—namely, none, as they pursue their worship of God and announce his incoming kingdom, that of the ‘Lord’s Prayer,’ When that kingdom comes—brought about entirely by God; all humans can do is announce and support it—then and only then will “God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

    Theirs is strictly a religious message. It has nothing to do with human political regimes—let alone trying to interfere with one. They are watching the drama play out of human government vs the divine—‘God’s Kingdom.’ You don’t have to know the names of the actors to follow the play. It can even be a distraction if you do.

    Read Watchtower publications and you will almost never see political leaders mentioned by name. Here is one current as I write: “Politicians Warn of Armegeddon: What Does the Bible Say?” See how light it is on specific individuals? It’s even frustrating to those who want to keep up with “current events.” But to the vast majority of people who don’t have time for the machinations of politicians but only want insight on where the world is heading—and why—it is useful indeed.

    Russian anti-cultists sound the paranoid mantra just as do their Western anti-cultist allies—only the mantras are opposite. Say a peaceful word about Russia here and it can only be due to cult influence. No reasonable person thinks this way, but the anti-cultists buy into it wholesale. In the US is the anti-cultist founder of the BITE model denoting the behavioral, informational, thought, and emotional control that are the bread and butter of ‘cults.’ To me, he therefore becomes the BITEman.

    The BITEman thinks half the U.S. citizenry has fallen victim cult manipulation—strong evidence, methinks, of having drunk too much of the KoolAid himself. Moreover, the half that has fallen victim to cult manipulation is the half that supports the former president who spoke of it being nice if “we actually got along with Russia.” Outside interests intervened at that point to virtually ensure that “we” would not.

    And now here in Russia is this Alexander Korelov, an anti-cultist of opposite persuasion, who blames all opposition to Russia, particularly with regard to Ukraine, on cults! The unity of the FECRIS anti-cult organization instantly blows up upon worldwide conflict. The organization in the main stays pro-Western over Ukraine. It’s vice-president, Alexander Dvorkin, thoroughly backs the Russian side. Not to worry, his ally Korelov says: Russia will react and “destroy the United States, the spiritual garbage dump of humanity.”

    94E1ECA3-523C-42C0-9178-D08961897D35Back to the US: two sharply polarized forces, the woke left and the neoconservative right, have made common cause to war on Russia, oblivious to talk on nuclear war, convinced it is but empty bluster. Both of them might regard each other as a cult, but only the woke would say it—the neocons (to my knowledge) are not given to that vocabulary. See how the notion is explored in this Newsweek opinion piece.

    Does it not remind one of the “unclean inspired expressions [that looked] like frogs [from] the mouth” of the dragon, the wild beast, the mouth of the false prophet designed to gather people up for the final war? (Revelation 16:13-14)

    The world was already unstable. Anti-cultists on both sides take it to a new level of craziness—wildly accusing each other of being cults. Somehow, the people who take no interest in politics get caught in the crossfire. And to think that during the 1970s, this Witness born in America used to work with the tract “Jehovah’s Witnesses—Christians or Communists,” designed to counter exactly the opposite impression of Korelov: that Jehovah’s Witnesses were tools of the Russian government.

    (photo:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nuclear_artillery_test_Grable_Event_-_Part_of_Operation_Upshot-Knothole.jpg—public domain)

    (see succeeding BitterWinter article: https://bitterwinter.org/korelov-insists-jehovahs-witnesses-and-other-cults-ready-to-overthrow-the-putin-regime/)

     

    See: I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why

     

  • It’s War!

    It’s war! we’re told, 5EE87FB1-08DA-4CF1-BA9D-6AC0C5F03C31What kind of war is it? Is it the kind of war where one dresses in the forest in bright red like the Revolutionary War British and nothing could be easier than to pick them off?

    Is it the kind of war where you hunker down in the trenches and lob letters that you know by faith will find their targets?

    Is it the kind of war where you send out some Hushais to thwart the counsel of conniving Ahithophel, such that when he saw that his counsel was thwarted he went out and strangled himself as a forerunner of Judas? Yeah—that’s what I’m talking about! (2 Samuel 15:34, 17:7, 23)

    Whatever kind of war Jehovah’s Witnesses fight, it’s a war where you don’t speak ill even of those who speak ill of you. In overturning the verdict of the Russian Supreme Court (and the next day Russia withdrew from the European Union rather than abide by the decision), the European Court of Human rights noted, “…it is significant that the texts [used to assert that JWs were “extremists”] did not insult, hold up to ridicule or slander non-Witnesses; nor did they use abusive terms in respect of them or of matters regarded as sacred by them.”

    Enemies foment ‘trouble by decree,’ says Psalm 94:20. But sometimes the decrees are overruled—like this one of a lower court that said Witnesses couldn’t disfellowship as a last-ditch attempt at discipline and then the high court of the land (Belgium) said they could. No Witnesses had been consulted in that first trial, the High Court found, only their critics. Without internal discipline, it is impossible for a faith to be not swayed by shifting societal norms. That is the war—between those who want such swaying to occur and those who want the faith to stay true to its biblical charter.

    There was also a rebuke of that country’s ‘anti-cult watchdog’ for issuing a report based on allegations, press clippings, and television offerings—the distinguishing feature being that any allegation that could be checked turned out to be false. Again, no Witnesses had been consulted. For a land that claims to be democratic, you’d almost think they’d allow people to defend themselves.  “The judgment will surely become a key precedent.  . . that scholars of religion are a more reliable source on these matters than journalists and anti-cultists, and that governmental agencies dealing with the alleged “danger of the cults” are not above the law and can be legally prosecuted when they spread false information and slander.” wrote BitterWinter.

    Then there was Special Secret Agent Jack Ryan—yes, ‘JackRyan’ was his handle. Witnesses don’t have anyone who corresponds to this, nor even a Hushai. Special Agent Ryan, who issued a ‘Special Report’ of an ‘agent down’ at Bethel. Seems they recruited a young woman already there, who they knew or should have known, had some instability to her personality, and they sent her rifling through the Bethel files! She was found out.

    Jack appears flabbergasted that HQ is not cool with this, as though any other organization would be. They 'interrogated her' for two days, he reports. The 'interrogation' was so grueling that she reported for a second day, when it was discovered that her pilfering was not for some innocuous cause or some misunderstanding, but to spirit whatever she found to Jack’s friends who have dedicated their lives to working against kingdom interests. Bethel showed her the door. 

    "It was reported that when she arrived home, her Jehovah's Witness family and friends treated her terribly," Jack’s SPECIAL REPORT says, as though any other family would be bursting with pride to see their offspring attempting sabotage on what they held dear. He doesn’t clarify “treating her terribly,” which you think he would have done if it was truly that terrible. Doubtless she didn’t receive a hero’s welcome.

    The story then takes a tragic turn. She took her life, triggering Jack’s ‘Special Report.’

    I told him that if it had really happened, he killed her himself—maybe not he personally but his ‘team.’ They recruited an inexperienced and vulnerable young woman, and filled her head with nonsense of how she was a guerrilla freedom fighter liberating the oppressed, that her people would thank her like the flying monkeys of Oz thanked Dorothy for dousing the wicked witch, etc, oblivious and uncaring to the certain trouble that would befall her when she was found out. These people are crazy.

    It’s fine for JackRyan (aka a Tom Clancy CIA spy character) to fantasize like an adolescent, but to manipulate others into his world of paranoia—well, he presents the consequences. And then he thinks issuing a Special Report will cover the damage. 

    Sheesh! It’s as though he tries to recruit Tom Cruise on his mission to take out Witness HQ. Tom Cruise turns him down, not because the mission is impossible, but because it is ridiculous. He knows Jack and his are mostly hacks trying to settle old scores and work off grudges who should have moved on in life ages ago.

    If Jack’s team must assign blame for the young woman's death, surely it is themselves they should point to. Recruiting someone once a fine servant of God, perhaps someone dismayed upon finding life was not Santa and the elves, but that there are real people doing their flawed best—and using her to further their own ends. I'm tired of their hate. Many of these ones have turned to atheism, so they are beyond all question "fighters against God." (Acts 5:37-18)

    No war is fought without plenty of espionage but with Jehovah’s Witnesses there really doesn’t seem to be any. They do with their critics as Jesus did with his critics: “Do you know that the Pharisees stumbled at hearing what you said?” he was asked. “Let them be,” Jesus replied. “Blind guides is what they are. If, then, a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15: 12-14) Start to tussle with him and maybe you’ll fall in, too. As Nietzsche put it: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

    ******  The bookstore

  • Things That Drive You Crazy About the Faith—and How to View Them: Part 7

    This is a multi-part series. For best results, start here.

    Other downsides of taking current knowledge by revelation? The perennially blaming of Babylon the Great for modern times of persecution, even when Babylon the Great had little to do with it. Often it is the work of secular anticultists. Religionists are largely licking their wounds these days. But Scripture says it is false religion, and so guys like me have to content themselves with statements like: “Well, if religion had done it’s job in teaching the truth about God, maybe those atheist anticultists wouldn’t be proliferating like weeds the way the are.”

    10B731BA-4D7E-4D32-96A3-FB9FD053EB2DRussia’s ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2017–just declared illegal by the European Court of Human Rights, 5 years later. Let no one say justice is quick, nor is it necessarily justice. Few are holding their breath for a quick cessation of persecution. At the time branch headquarters was seized in St Petersburg, Denis Korotkov wrote for fontanka.ru* that it was crazy. Russia would certainly have to give it back when the ECHR ruled against them, which it surely would, he said, and the legal costs, coupled with fines, would exceed the cost of the complex. Who could have foreseen that Russia would simply thumb its nose at the Court and withdraw from the European Union? Not Korotkov. Warring with Ukraine at the moment, the JW matter is relatively small potatoes anyway from the world’s point of view. [photo—Wikipedia Commons]

    Did the Russian Orthodox Church originate the ban? Surprisingly, it did not. Not to say its clergy is not delighted (squealing like kids on Christmas morning, some of them), not to say they didn’t collaborate, but they did not originate it. We think they did because the Bible indicates religion makes mischief, but in this case it is a secular anti-religious movement that presses the attack.

    ‘Present knowledge via revelation’ guides how the Witness organization looks at government too. Scripture indicates that the superior authorities are “God’s minister to you for your good,” only a cause for concern “if you are doing what is bad,” since “it is not without purpose that it bears the sword.” (1 Corinthians 13:7) Therefore anything hinting at a more sinister role of government toward those governed can only be “conspiracy theory” and is dismissed out of hand.

    When government declares a Covid 19 crisis that makes door-to-door infeasible, revelation determines how the ministry is carried out thereafter. Revelation indicates letter writing is good. Paul wrote letters. Peter wrote letters. John wrote letters. Face to face communication is obviously good, as was done back then. In times of emergency, telephone witnessing preserves the one on one aspect of face to face. But revelation has nothing to say about the internet. Isn’t that the “outside” where “the dogs and those who practice spiritism and those who are sexually immoral and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices lying” hang out? (Revelation 15:22) Revelation says “bad associations spoil useful habits,” (1 Corinthians 15:33) and it is not swayed by ‘empirical’ evidence that if  you have something to advertise the very first thing you do is plan a campaign of interaction on social media.

    Revelation indicates that the “things that were written beforehand were written for our instruction, so that through our endurance and through the comfort from the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4) Ignore the elephant in the room, therefore—the elephant that everyone else will see right away—as you cover passages like 1 Samuel 27:9, lauding David’s clever deception of the enemy: “When David would attack [the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites], he preserved neither man nor woman alive . . . Achish would ask: “Where did you make a raid today?” David would reply: “Against the south of Judah” or “Against the south of the Jerahmeelites” or “Against the south of the Kenites.” Okay. Got it. Valid point. You don’t have to tell every little bit of truth to those who want your head on a platter. But there are a lot of people in this passage whose deaths are presented as though dodgeball casualties—THAT is what most people will zero in on.

    “Consider the example of Dan and Sheila,” another paragraph begins, serving up empirical evidence for something revelation says is true. They applied the Bible counsel under consideration and it turned out just hunky dory for them. What about Joe and Melanie who applied that same counsel and it blew up in their faces? someone thinks. That example remains unmentioned; they must have done it wrong, they must have built their house on sand somehow. It is a presentation of ‘knowledge by revelation.’

    Not to be critical of earthly organization. Don’t misunderstand. Rather, the goal is to realize why some things are done the way they are done, that can otherwise drive a person crazy. ‘Oh, that’s why they reason this way,’ you can say. Overall the revelatory approach works well. Overall it is acceptable even in the short term. But it does have limitations. Even God, the originator of revelation, sometimes goes down to earth to take a look-see. How else can one account for Genesis 18: 20-21? “Then Jehovah said: ‘The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is very heavy. I will go down to see whether they are acting according to the outcry that has reached me. And if not, I can get to know it.’”

    Oh—and one notable excerpt of the ECHR ruling: “Even accepting that the texts [used to prove that Jehovah’s Witnesses were “extremists”] promoted the idea that the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses was superior to others or that it was better to be a Jehovah’s Witness than a member of another Christian denomination, it is significant that the texts did not insult, hold up to ridicule or slander non-Witnesses; nor did they use abusive terms in respect of them or of matters regarded as sacred by them.” [bolding mine]

    That certainly is a result of present knowledge [of how to conduct oneself] via revelation. Jesus says that’s how you treat people, even those who scheme against you. I mean, it clearly is guided by revelation. This is the age of road rage. Normal human conduct when under assault is to do all those unsavory things—insult, ridicule, slander, and abuse. Often those means are used even when not under assault.

    *Included in I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses: Searching for the Why

    To be continued: here.

    ******  The bookstore

  • No People Ever Lost their Liberties who had a Waterfall one Hundred and Fifty Feet High

    If it is up to me, these words of Daniel Webster from a long ago visit to Rochester will grace a plaque at the [hopefully] upcoming High Falls State Park:

    “Men of Rochester, I am glad to see you, and I am glad to see your noble city. Gentlemen, I saw your Falls, which I am told are one hundred and fifty feet high. That is a very interesting fact. Gentlemen , Rome had her Cæsar, her Scipio, her Brutus, but Rome in her proudest days never had a waterfall one hundred and fifty feet high! Gentlemen, Greece had her Pericles, her Demosthenes, and her Socrates, but Greece in her palmiest days never had a waterfall one hundred and fifty feet high! Men of Rochester, go on. No people ever lost their liberties who had a water fall one hundred and fifty feet high!”  (From the book “Rochester—a City Historical,” 1894)

    Truncate it a little if need be. I mean, the guy’s a bit of a windbag. But that is what orators did back then in the days before microphones. Yes, and apparently he was told wrong. The falls today are 96 feet high.

    A city should always make maximum use of its river area and Rochester doesn’t. This new park of 40 acres would change that. It is a long haul ahead, though. Lands involved “have been used for generations now, primarily for utility generation and they’re contaminated. So, we have to not only acquire them, but make sure the areas are clean and safe for public use.”

    B704C8DC-7389-4807-A8A4-ADB63A57DEBD

    (photo: New York Park, Recreation and Historic Preservation Department)

    While a college student, I worked three summers for that utility, Rochester Gas and Electric. A summer job and I was happy to have it. One year I worked on the paint crew, one year in the gatehouse, and one year as a welder’s assistant. Some of the guys would mutter all day long about a certain boss known to spy from atop the Platt Street bridge with binoculars to make sure everyone was working.

    Funding for the new park is murky. The governor pledges six million to kickstart it. It would be one great way to showcase the city.

  • Relief in Russia? Part 2

    Appeals to governmental powers do not always fall on deaf ears. The JW archives tell of a slandered Witness in danger of losing her son: “The brothers and sisters in Anna’s congregation composed a letter attesting to her good example as a mother. A brother carried the letter to Moscow and delivered it to then-leader Nikita Khrushchev. Remarkably, Khrushchev ordered an inquiry into the matter. Anna was exonerated, and her son was not taken by the authorities.”

    Something similar has happened with Putin. [See prior post.] Today “the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia must be fully restored…..The Russian Supreme Court has taken the first step in this direction, …[ruling that] recognition of a religious organization as extremist does not prohibit its followers from exercising their right to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.” In other words, do you want to arrest them? You first have to establish they have done something illegal. It is not enough that they exist.

    (Copy and paste all Russian language articles into https://www.deepl.com/translator for translation.)

    Maybe it just became too outrageous. Letters of support for Timothy Zhukov painted Russian “justice” as too much a word belonging in quotes. He had appealed his arrest based upon the constitution that guarantees freedom of worship. For that he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. It prompted these published letters:

    “A citizen of the Russian Federation wanted to use the article of the Constitution and this is his right. However, the law enforcement agencies decided to condemn the citizen for this, and even recognize him as mentally ill. Where is the Law? Where is the justice? Night arrest, interrogation – continuous violations of the law. As it recalls the events of the first century: "Then Jesus said to them: as if you went out against a robber with swords and stakes to take Me" (Bible, Gospel of Mark chapter 14 verse 48). I would like to praise Timothy, in such a terrible situation he remains a faithful Christian, he endures everything courageously!” Miroslava, November 11, 2021

    and

    “Marvelous! A person shows respect for the highest law of the state, using the 51st article of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and the investigating authorities themselves see this as a reason to doubt his sanity. It is as if a mirror image of the events of bygone days described in the Bible: “When he defended himself in this way, Festus interrupted him.“ You are out of your mind, Paul, ”he shouted,“ great learning drove you to madness! ”(Acts of the Apostles 26: 24, New Russian translation) …Victor, November 12, 2021.

    Zhukov himself is a lawyer—thus, even from the secular perspective, the “great learning” works. He has recently been compensated for his confinement. One thing the Witness organization can be depended upon: They will not allow villainies to be “done in a corner.” (Acts 26:26) 

    Did continual denunciations, each time highlighting the absurdity and thus painting the country itself as absurd, finally trigger a tipping point? Such as this recent item in the Washington Post?

    A few days after the November 2021 Supreme Court reinterpretation, a Witness was acquitted of extremism—the first Witness to be acquitted of that charge.

    The ultimate results of the High Court’s decision wait to be seen. “Few believe this is a signal to an end to mass repression against Jehovah's Witnesses,” one source says. 

    Another speaks of theologian Andrei Kuraev, who is asked to interpret just what the Court’s ruling will mean in practical terms. He is hopeful—guardedly—“that this document of the whole Supreme Court may be evidence of some serious changes in approach.” Kuraev is included in I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses: Searching for the Why, as is Timothy Zhukov.  He is no friend of Jehovah’s Witnsees, but he is a friend of common sense.

    He has maintained all along that the original 2017 declaration equating Jehovah’s Witness with extremism is ridiculous. That decision “is far-fetched and very unconscionable. Because the Jehovists are radical in only one respect: they are radical pacifists.” Of the current decision that you can’t just beat up on them if they aren’t doing anything wrong, he agrees. But he knows where he lives. “The Supreme Court's decision is one thing and policy may be something entirely different. I am afraid that in Russia when there is a conflict between a legislative document and the order of an immediate superior, the latter will win." So time will tell.

    Kuraev’s forces of common sense are up against some truly bizarre thinking. Graniru.org* reports (November 23, 2021) that the charge of "eschatological extremism," for which prosecutors were seeking a 9 year prison term before the latest Court decision thwarted them, must be upheld “since the end of the world, which these political prisoners [Jehovah’s Witnesses] expect, will result in mass disturbances and violations of Russia's territorial integrity.”

    The prosecution’s “independent experts objected in all seriousness: ‘Violent acts committed by Jehovah, who is not a subject of law and cannot, due to his divine nature, be influenced by the texts presented for examination, can in no way be prevented by applying anti-extremist legislation. Moreover, any acts committed by Jehovah, even if they are violent, cannot be unlawful.’"

    *https://graniru.org,   (https://www.facebook.com/achivchalov, Nov 23rd entry)

    It recalls to mind a cartoon I once saw of God preparing to hurl a lightning bolt. He is stopped when an angel tugs at his sleeve: “Not America! Think of the lawsuits.”

    Seems the angel should have said it of Russia.

    See: I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why

     

  • Relief in Russia? Part 1

    From The Moscow Times (November 17, 2021):

    Russia’s Supreme Court has banned the criminal prosecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses for joint worship, potentially putting an end to the law enforcement practice of jailing believers for prayer sessions. The ruling could also affect the 152 convictions that have not yet entered into force or are being appealed, the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia organization said in a statement on its website Tuesday.

    Does this mean that persecution in that land has turned a corner? If so, it will be be as Mark Sanderson spoke, in both English and Russian, to the Russian brothers back in 2017—that a time of testing was about to commence, but it would be a Revelation 2:10 time, during which “the Devil will keep on throwing some of you into prison so that you may be fully put to the test, and you will have tribulation for ten days.” Ten days is not forever. It seems like it at the time, but it is not.

    An end, or even a lull, in an intense time of persecution is a very good thing. The earthly organization is still banned, of course, as is even the preferred Bible. But if the words of the Supreme Court count for anything, authorities won’t be able to beat up on people anymore simply because they are Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

    And how have the brothers comported themselves? “There are almost no instances of renunciation of the faith among them,” says Credo Press, Nov 8, 2021, as translated here: When all is done (it is not yet) will this be another instance in which, upon passing trial, the brothers go on to gain more members than going in? People take note when plainly innocent persons remain true to their conviction despite trial. There’s not too much in this world that is stable, that can be depended upon in good times and bad, and here plainly is one.

    How bad has it become? Says the same CredoPress source of a sentence only days before this Court opinion: “Eight years! In Russia a criminal may receive even less time for murder or rape. Innocent conversations about the Bible are equated with horrible crimes.” It is only the most unhinged crazies that would punish a Bible conversation more severely than murder. People take note when ones stand fast despite it.

    Remember three years ago when Putin said he really didn’t understand why Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted? It became the title of a book. Not only had he been puzzled when asked of it, but he said, “This must be looked into. This must be done.” The brothers were cautiously optimistic, but only cautiously. Don’t Know Why stated: “After all, if you were a Russian cop, would you beat up on one of them after what the President just said?” followed by a later edit reading: “It turns out they would.”

    Most things from government move at a snail’s pace. “Two years later, at a meeting of the Human Rights Council, human rights defender Alexander Verkhovsky again pointed out to the Head of State the absurdity of prosecuting believers whose organizations had been banned; as a result, the President issued new instructions to the Supreme Court to prepare explanations regarding the generalization of court practice in cases related to violations of legislation on religious associations.”

    That President Putin should be puzzled over the Witnesses in the first place suggests that he read a few of that flood of letters sent him. The Governing Body listed three goals when inviting all members in the world to write:

    1. drawing international attention to the situation.

    2. giving evidence of one's love for their brothers in Russsia

    3. support fellow Christians who face persecution.

    Had the persecution not taken place that would have been icing on the cake, but meddling with what the government would do was not one of the stated goals. Everyone who did write, though—well, it sure beats sitting on one’s hands and doing nothing. Maybe they’ve contributed to this tiny squeak that over time annoys the president enough that he picks up his WD-40 to fix it.

    Always prior to a conviction, defense lawyers would ask the prosecutor to identify an injured party—you would think that would be a necessary ingredient of any crime. Always the prosecutor would decline to identify anyone. That’s because there is no one. Now there must be, says the Supreme Court opinion. You have to identify someone who has been harmed. At last, the contradiction has become too blatant to ignore.

    The Credo article already cited really presses its luck.: “The state should recognize its mistake and …should issue an apology to believers, as was done by Russian President Boris Yeltsin,” for years of repression under the old USSR. Those years were bad, but Bro Sivulsky says in some respects the present ones have been worse. Rarely were people beaten under the old regime. Today it is common.

    Does Credo [it is a human rights publication] think it will be like when Paul and Barnabas were arrested with much violence and then the next day the authorities wanted to release them quietly? “Paul said to them: ‘They flogged us publicly, uncondemned, though we are Romans, and threw us into prison. Are they now throwing us out secretly? No, indeed! Let them come themselves and escort us out.’” (Acts 16:37)

    I don’t think so, Paul said, They’ll release us with as much fanfare as they arrested us. 

    Edit: Relief appears to be taking hold: On November 22, 2021, the Pervorechenskiy District Court of Vladivostok in the Primorye Territory found Brother Dmitriy Barmakin not guilty and acquitted him of all criminal charges. This is the first time a Russian court has issued a not-guilty verdict for one of Jehovah’s Witnesses charged under Article 282.2(1) of Russia’s Criminal Code (regarding organizing the activities of an extremist organization). The court will remove the restrictions on his activities. The verdict will enter into force on December 3, 2021, if the prosecutor's office does not file an appeal.

    See: I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why___