Sheep and Goats

Category: Evil and Suffering

  • Is It Time For Jehovah’s Witnesses to Apologize? Part 1

    Elizabeth Chuck wrote an article about Jehovah’s Witnesses and I would have preferred she write one instead about the PTA meeting in her town. It is a normal reaction, for it was news of a huge-dollar verdict against a religious organization I hold dear [later reversed] Of course I hate to see it; that’s only natural. When you find yourself on the gallows you do not angle for a selfie with the hangman.

    Still, if you must hear bad news, hear it from Ms. Chuck, for her news in this case is straight reporting, not one of the hatchet jobs Jehovah’s Witnesses often get. The topic is the most white-hot topic of all, child sexual abuse, and temptations to whip it into fever pitch are not resisted by all. She does resist it. That’s not to say I might not write it up differently. With every story, it is a matter of which facts you put where. But she doesn’t make any up or deliberately misrepresent them. Having said that, it is not to suggest that even those who do misrepresent do so on purpose. Well—I guess it is to suggest that, but only to suggest. It is not proof positive. When your own people merely say that they “abhor child abuse and strive to protect children,” but otherwise do not comment, what’s a reporter to do?

    Here’s what I like about the Elizabeth Chuck story: First of all, it is not like the AP article, picked up by many sources, that expressed seeming bewilderment that “the Jehovah’s Witness cases haven’t received the same national attention” [as the Roman Catholic Church]. Is not the reason a big ‘Duh’? The Montana case abuse under trial was all within a family and church leaders were accused of botching the handling of it, though blameless themselves. It’s a little different than church leaders actually committing the abuse, something which is very rare with Witnesses.

    Ms. Chuck correctly (and atypically) makes clear that a “two-witness rule” used by Witnesses “is only for internal modes of discipline and does not prevent a victim from going to the police.” She correctly points out that “there are very strict internal modes of discipline within Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Yes. It is not an anything-goes religion. She correctly observes that being disfellowshipped is often a painful experience and serves as a negative incentive to do what might trigger it. So far so good. It might not be as I would phrase it, but it is certainly acceptable reporting.

    She stumbles briefly, though not seriously, when she says: “Jehovah’s Witnesses are a misunderstood and very self-enclosed group, despite counting some celebrities among its ranks—including Venus and Serena Williams.” She is right that they are misunderstood. The only footnote I would add is about her seeming acquiescence to the common wisdom that groups are validated by having celebrities in their camp, some of whom are the most silly people on earth, living fundamentally different lives than anyone else. However, the miscue is minor. And, after all, I have made use of poor Serena Williams, too, in chapter 4.

    Ms. Chuck does her homework. She consults experts on religion, such as “Mark Silk, a professor and the director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn [who says of Witnesses]: ‘They don’t vote. They don’t celebrate birthdays and holidays. They don’t say the pledge [of allegiance]. They are not just another Christian denomination.’” It is not her fault if she does not know that the guy (likely) has it in for Jehovah’s Witnesses, spinning his facts negatively, and the reason is revealed in his very job title: he is a professor at Trinity College. If you do not accept the Trinity teaching, you are toast in the eyes of many of these people. Nonetheless, what the professor says about voting and not pledging allegiance is true enough. He does not mention that if nobody pledged allegiance to human institutions maybe the national king could not pit them so easily against each other in times of war, but that is beyond the scope of his information request. At least he doesn’t inaccurately charge that Jehovah’s Witnesses are disrespectful to country, for there are few people as scrupulous about “rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s” (taxes) than they. Reporter Chuck relates the words of another expert: “Whatever belief they have or mode of internal discipline they have, they have a biblical justification for it.” I’ll take it. It’s true. We don’t apologize for it. I prefer it infinitely over church reporters saying we are not Christian because we do not accept the Trinity. The reason we do not accept it is that its scriptural support is based almost entirely upon taking literally certain passages which, if they were read in any other context, would be instantly dismissed as figure of speech.

    She relates dutifully the sparse words of the Watchtower organization that they “abhor child abuse and strive to protect children from such acts,” attributing the sparseness to “a penchant for privacy.” She takes it at face value. She does not imply that they are lying through their teeth, like the reporter in the Philadelphia Inquirer, dismissing the words as ‘boiler plate,’ and even ending his article with an anecdote of spying artwork at the JW headquarters captioned “Jehovah loves children,” and using it as a pretext to wink at his readers as though to say: “Yes, I guess we know just how they love them,” before returning to his Witness-hating base on a Reddit thread, where he is hailed as a hero.

    However, eclipsing her skill at side-stepping all these potential landmines is that she puts her finger on the real problem in the very first paragraph of her article: Jehovah’s Witnesses are “insular.” She doesn’t even try to spin that into a crime, as do some. Most Witnesses would not agree to the label “insular,” but that is primarily because they are unfamiliar with it and unsure just what attachments might come with it. They will instantly, even proudly, acknowledge two closely related phrases: they are “separate from the world” and “no part of” it. It is a scriptural imperative, they will say, because if you want to lend a helping hand, you must be in a place of safety yourself. Not all will agree that life today is constantly-improving. Some will say the overall picture more closely resembles a ship floundering. Did I not just read that generalized anxiety has replaced depression as the number one mental health malady? Can that be because there is nothing to worry about in life today? I think not. These interplay of two views—that society is ever-improving vs ever-floundering—causes most of the “misunderstanding” that opponents of Witnesses speak about.

    Witnesses are “insular,” by design. “Insularity” is biblically mandated, but here is an instance in which that insularity has contributed to a significant tragedy. Witness leaders find themselves in a situation parallel to that of certain vehicles being exempt from normal traffic laws—say, police and fire emergency vehicles. Yet, in making use of that exemption, a terrible accident results and the public outcry is so great that they are convicted even though following the law. Or, to apply it more accurately, public anger is so great that the law is reinterpreted so that it can be established that they did break it.

    This writer is not a lawyer. He can step out of his depth. Yet most persons reading the following pertinent section of the Montana child abuse reporting laws would, I suspect, agree that the Witness organization followed the letter of them. They make every effort to do that. The prompt appeal of any Witness judicial committee to their Branch organization legal department is not to see how they can evade child abuse laws, as their opponents often spin it, but how they can be sure their actions are in harmony with them. I can think of no other situation on earth in which consulting one’s own attorney, upon presentation of matters with likely legal ramifications, would be spun as an evil, as this one frequently is.

    On the very bottom of the document ‘Montana Mandatory Reporting Requirements Regarding Children’ is a section labeled “Members of the clergy or priests are not required to report when the following condition is met…if the communication is required to be confidential by cannon law, church doctrine, or established church practice.”

    Even “established church practice?” It seems extraordinarily loose, and yet there it is. It is a part of a doctrine called “ecclesiastical privilege.” It has long been encapsulated into law, as has the privileged nature of the doctor-patient relationship and the attorney-client relationship, on the recognition that these relationships cannot function without the expectation of confidentiality.

    If such is the law, why is the Witness organization found culpable despite stringent efforts to follow it? Because the war today is against child sexual abuse, deemed the most critical crusade of our time, and they were expected to “go beyond the law” so as to facilitate that end. Thus, the law was reinterpreted so as to allow that they did violate it. The child wronged though sexual abuse has proven to be among the most powerful forces on earth, affording ample occasion for other scores to be settled.

    The Witness organization finds itself in a situation similar to that of Joe Paterno, the Penn State coach who was universally praised throughout his tenure as an excellent role model but then was excoriated beyond redemption when he merely obeyed the law regarding an unspecific allegation that he heard of child sexual abuse but did not “go beyond it.” He reported the allegation to his superiors. When the allegation turned out to be true, however, it was later deemed in the media to be not enough—he should have “gone beyond the law” to report it directly to police. His career was over, and even his life, for he died two years later.

    If it is so crucial to go beyond the law, then make that the law. This is exactly what Geoffrey Jackson of the Witnesses’ Governing Body pleaded for three times before an Australian Royal Commission. Isn’t that the purpose of law: to codify what is right? Make the law clear, unambiguous, and allow for no exceptions. Jehovah’s Witnesses are universally recognized for meticulously following secular law even as they are primarily guided by biblical law. Make universal mandating the law, with no exceptions. Requiring parties to “go beyond the law” only enables Monday-morning quarterbacking to assign motives, invariably bad ones, to unpopular parties that have failed in this regard.

    An article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle dated November 20th, 2011, observed that “it’s a mistake to think that the failure…to report the abuse is a rarity….Studies over the past two decades nationally have consistently shown that nearly two-thirds of professionals who are required to report all cases of suspected abuse fail to do so….”I think that we fail miserably in mandated reporting,” said Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Kristina Karle…” Is it not haphazard to excoriate those who did their best to follow the law when two thirds of all professionals, for a variety of reasons, do not? Does anyone charge that two thirds of all professionals do not give a hoot about children? Plainly there are other factors at work. Yet when the crusade against child sexual abuse reaches fever pitch, only one factor is deemed to have any significance.

     

     

    ******  The bookstore00

  • Time to Apologize? Part 4

    The Old Testament tells some very strange tales and one of them is told at 2 Samuel. David, the Israelite king, under duress because he is facing an armed insurrection from his own son, enters a town where loyalty is not assured. He and his men are received hospitably, but there is one man decidedly not hospitable. The account reads:

    “…a man…came out shouting curses as he approached. He was throwing stones at David and at all the servants of King David, as well as at all the people and the mighty men on his right and on his left. Shimei said as he cursed: “Get out, get out, you bloodguilty man! You worthless man!”

    “…Then Abishai the son of Zeruiahm said to the king: “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, please, and take off his head.” But the king said: “…Let him curse me, for Jehovah has said to him, ‘Curse David!’ …Here my own son, who came from my own body, is seeking my life… Leave him alone so that he may curse me, for Jehovah told him to! …With that David and his men kept going down the road while Shimei was walking alongside the mountain abreast of him, shouting curses and throwing stones and a lot of dust.” (16:5-19)

    Imagine! David is not too hung up on himself, is he? The fellow curses him, throws stones at him, shouting he is bloodguilty and worthless. And David as much as says: “Well, maybe he has a point. I mean, if God is letting it happen, who am I to smash in his head?”

    The passage is included in the midweek meeting study material for October 15, 2018. That program also incorporated a passage at Matthew chapter 11, in which Jesus said of his detractors that they criticize you no matter what you do, so the best recourse is to go full speed ahead and let “wisdom be proved righteous by its works.” Meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses are essentially Bible studies that one can prepare for, organized around themes suggested by current needs and the pre-determined schedule of Bible reading that members have observed for 100 years—work your way through Revelation and start in again at Genesis.

    Nothing gets in the program without the okay, if not the direct insertion, of Witness governing members, who serve on various supervisory committees. The Matthew verse demonstrates how they respond to public criticism. They like Psalm 38:13 as well, another verse of David, about how he determined to muzzle his mouth as his adversaries kept “muttering all day long” unsavory things about him. Luke 9:62 is also a favorite. That one records Jesus saying: “No man that has put his hand to a plow and looks at the things behind is well fitted for the Kingdom of God.” They press ever forward. They content themselves with a Newsroom tab on their public website that does not get into specific complaints, much as one would not expect to find a citing from the building inspector on the restaurant menu.

    It was a program that October week on how Jesus set the pattern for those who would follow him, not specifically concerned with how to answer criticism, but also not avoiding the topic, particularly in the final half-hour segment. And Shimei’s tirade was right in there, with David conscious of the abuse he is receiving, and acquiescing to receiving it, as though it were discipline of sorts, as though he says “Well, maybe I had it coming,” even as he expresses hope that perhaps “Jehovah will see…and will actually restore me to goodness instead of his malediction this day.” (vs 12)

    Do not think that the Witness Governing Body, as they are teaching others by means of the scriptures, do not also teach themselves. “If David was subjected to it, I guess we will be too,” they seem to say. One should not think that they will not reflect on just how they got into this predicament in the first place, as David surely must have, with stones bouncing off his helmet. They will remedy it to the extent they can, but it will not be at the expense of betraying their prime directive of leading through Bible principles. They have been loath to pull rank on family heads, reporting abuse which is sometimes entirely within a family, usually a step-family as was the case in Montana, and assume their responsibility or prerogative.

    Likely they will say of these courtroom battles, as they did of Russia banning the entire organization within its borders, that it is an area of “concern” but not “worry.” They don’t get overly attached to things, even things of their own construction. They put it all on the line routinely as they do their best to advance kingdom interests, not cowering before their enemies. They plow where they plow as they apply their view of the Bible, unconcerned, sometimes unaware, of the quicksand that may get them into, confident that, should that happen, God will somehow get them out of it.

    They do not deliberately court opposition, but they do expect it. The king makes a law and Daniel is thrown into the lion’s den. He makes another law and his friends are thrown into the furnace. Another king makes another law and the entire nation of Jews faces extermination until Esther the queen opens his eyes to the murderous scheme he has been maneuvered into. It happens to their spiritual descendants to this day. The modern Witness organization expects no less. They are “insular,” separate from the world, and the latter finds no end of reasons to oppose them for it.

    They have really stepped in it this time, or at least it has been painted that way. It is not like last year, when Russia banned them, declared the Bible they favor illegal, and confiscated their property, doing so for completely separate reasons that never even mentioned child sexual abuse. It is not like Jehovah’s Witnesses of decades past, trying issue before first amendment issue before the U.S. Supreme Court, nobody engaging more frequently other than the government itself, so that Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote: “The Jehovah’s Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties.” No. This time it is the unsavory subject of child sexual abuse, and the question that cannot be answered: If they did not go “beyond the law,” why didn’t they?

    Is it to be included as among the “wicked things that they will lyingly say against you” that Jesus speaks of? (Matthew 5:11) Nobody can ever say that the charge is not wicked, on the same level as first-century charges that Christians practiced cannibalism and that they burned down Rome. Just possibly it takes their breath away, as it is a legitimate bad that they never saw coming. Just possibly they are dumbfounded at enemy attempts to negate the clergy-penitent clause on the basis that elders are unpaid volunteers. The insistence that Witness elders can count as “clergy” only if paid is an attack on the purest form of religion. One could even uncharitably call those of the paid variety “mercenary ministers,” whose motives are ever clouded. “You received free, give free,” Jesus said. The world has swung to recognition of only the mercenary model.

    With Shimei’s stones knocking on their helmet, just possibly they drop to their knees like Hezekiah besieged by an enraged enemy. Just possibly they appear to outsiders as deer caught in the headlights while they are doing so. Just possibly they are like Adrian Monk, insular among his many hang-ups, who finds himself both outside of his normal element and in a pickle because he cannot choose which chair in which to sit until Natalie gently pushes him down on whatever one he hovers over at the moment.

    At a supposedly confidential 2017 meeting of elders, leaked for Internet perusal by a self-styled freedom fighter—a meeting dealing with the ramifications of child sexual abuse litigation, a Witness representative stated: “Well, we know that the scene of this world is changing, and we know Satan’s coming after us, and he’s going to go for us legally. We can see by the way things are shaping up.” It is not hard to imagine what certain ones are doing with the explanation that “Satan’s coming after us.”

    How could he say it? With religion in general, it is the misconduct of leaders that has come home to haunt them. With Jehovah’s Witnesses, it is misconduct of members whose cases allegedly were mishandled. God help us if the members of other faiths are put under the magnifying glass, as with Jehovah’s Witnesses. On the other side of the world, Jehovah’s Witness are banned in Russia for reasons having nothing to do with child sexual abuse—the topic was entirely absent, as government and media partnered to whip the public into a froth, hurling many virulent accusations against the faith—but never that one.

    There, it is “professing the superiority of one’s religion.” There it is being Western spies disguised as a religion. There it is blood transfusions, and should a Witness refuse one and thereafter die, the death is invariably attributed to the refusal, with leaders of the faith likened to murderers. Surely, somewhere along the line it should be acknowledged that Jehovah’s Witnesses have absolutely no deaths at all attributed to illicit drug abuse, overdrinking, and tobacco use, save only for when someone is slipping into old habits. All things considered, they are, far and away, the ‘safest’ religion out there. Yet they are said to be the murderers.

    Keep in mind that we are speaking of the faith whose members are universally recognized as ‘pacifist,’ who will on no account resort to violence or support war efforts. It is highly unusual for a large group of people to have absolutely no blood on their hands in this regard, but they do not. Is it so crazy for the Witness spokesman to say: “Satan is coming after us?” Given the foregoing, it would be crazy for him not to. One thing that we know about opposers: they will always overplay their hand.

    Drive this matter of child sexual abuse to the Supreme Court, if need be. If they decide to hear it, it will be case number 50-something that Witnesses have tried before that body. Let it be resolved once and for all when the time is right. Many groups are driven to the edge these days over child sexual abuse, as it becomes almost the only issue that matters to some. Over such matters, the Boy Scouts are exploring bankruptcy proceedings. The Boy Scouts! who have long fought the evil but did not succeed in eliminating it. The Boy Scouts! who taught generations of boys to be responsible. The Boy Scouts! who I can’t walk the area trails without coming across historical kiosks or other amenities constructed as someone’s Eagle Scout project. The Boy Scouts! who when they were successfully sued on behalf of a single plaintiff in 2010 for $18.5 million, one of that person’s legal team stated his belief that they “have undertaken a truly noble and important task in mentoring young boys, for which they are to be commended,” and it was his sincere hope that the $18 million judgment “will impress upon them the need to do it better.” Now that he has driven them clear to insolvency, it will be a little hard for his dream to come true. Though groups as the Boy Scouts manifestly benefit children in ways not readily duplicated, their deep pockets permit a pummeling such as cannot be visited on unorganized segments of society, though it be every bit as accommodating to child sexual abuse—and without providing any benefit. It will be so with groups that instill religious values into youth as well.

    Don’t be put off by the sordid backdrop. The world wallows in sordidness these days. It is accustomed to everyone being accused of everything. The Week Magazine reports (September 3, 2018) that referrals of child abuse online images have increased seven-fold over five years. On average, one child in every primary school classroom has received nude or semi-nude pictures from an adult. They quickly adjust to this new normal: “A girl from my primary [was] sending half-naked pictures because it’s what everyone does,” said one. Don’t let this be painted as a Witness pandemic or even a pandemic of any religion. What! It is only where there are deep pockets that child sexual abuse occurs? It is only taxpayer-funded schools, scouting organizations, or faith groups that suffer child sexual abuse? In any such lawsuit, it is actually the customers, the members, or the taxpayers, who pay out the award, as massive transfers of wealth occur in every direction, with barristers netting a third.

    The roots of the evil fail to line up. Christianity, where it remains true to its roots, is an offshoot of Judaism, where pedophilia in Bible times was exceedingly uncommon, and even now one seldom hears of it. A verse from the ancient Sibylline oracles, a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters, ascribed to the prophetesses Sibyls, claims that only the Jews were free from this impurity. They were “mindful of holy wedlock, and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children, as do Phoenicians, Egyptians and Romans, spacious Greece and many nations of other, Persians and Galatians and all Asia, transgressing the holy law of immortal God, which they transgressed.”

    In contrast, where does the mainstream educated world of today find its underpinnings? Is it not the world of ancient Greece, known as the cradle of democracy? It is also the cradle of accustomed pedophilia, a societally accepted practice nowhere condemned in that society. The only condemnation to be found is from Christians who withdrew and became “insular” as regards that world. It is found at 1 Corinthians 6:9: “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (NABRE) A footnote to the New American Bible – Revised Edition on ‘boy prostitutes’ and ‘sodomites’ reads: “The Greek word translated as boy prostitutes may refer to catamites, i.e., boys or young men who were kept for purposes of prostitution, a practice not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world. In Greek mythology this was the function of Ganymede, the “cupbearer of the gods,” whose Latin name was Catamitus. The term translated sodomites refers to adult males who indulged in homosexual practices with such boys.” They even had a god for it!

    Montana law being what it appears to be, it is hard to imagine that the present case could not be appealed successfully. The Court’s greatest mistake may have been the excessive punitive damages imposed, clearing indicating that they felt the Witness organization was trying to violate law. If it can be shown that they made every conscientious effort to follow law, everything might reverse. Whether they are insular or not should not factor in. Separateness from the overall world is not yet a crime. It may factor into public opinion, but not yet that of law.

    What would be the repercussions in the event of a higher court reversal? They would be not necessarily favorable for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who always sought, perhaps to a fault, not to “sully God’s name.” It’s a little late to worry about that now. Or maybe it is not. A higher court reversal of the Montana verdict could cause the average person who learns of it, particularly as spun by opponents, to say: “It’s unbelievable! The Court says it’s okay for Jehovah’s Witnesses to abuse children!” There is no question that their vociferous opponents would spin matters that way. But if there was a sincere expression of regret in the interim—for children truly have been harmed—they might say, “Oh. I understand. They did bollox things up but now I see how it happened.”

    People, by and large, are fair, even when they don’t especially care for Witnesses. They don’t buy for a minute that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter Day Saints, Methodists, Boy Scouts, and taxpayer-backed institutions are the only settings in which child sexual abuse occurs. They understand that these parties have deep pockets, and there is no sense in going after anyone who does not. Vary the facts to be prioritized before all others and there is nobody that cannot be damned. A higher court victory giving opportunity to ‘come clean’ as to how the whole mess began may well clean up that Name that Witnesses are so concerned about.

    Any movement suffers when the haters get on board to misrepresent things, capitalizing on complaints to go for the jugular. It is acknowledged here that children did suffer sexual abuse on the watch of the Witness governing organization. It is acknowledged that some of the abusers came to the attention of outside authorities later than they would have otherwise, and some likely not at all, exacerbated by a concern over reputation. What is not acknowledged is that laws were broken, for Jehovah’s Witnesses are very good at ferreting them out and obeying them. It is also acknowledged, however, that laws are being reinterpreted after the fact to make it appear that they were violated, Witnesses being unpopular and the subject being hot. These are general observations. In any group numbering several million, there will be countless contrasting examples of anything, and it is the task of the court system to ferret out what is valid and what is invalid.

    Let it be framed as it is. It is an attack on separate religion, in which child abuse matters are employed as a righteous smokescreen. It is not merely Jehovah’s Witnesses under the gun. It is religion in general, and the more determined a given religion is to resist mainstream thinking the more of a target it becomes. Prejudice against the Jehovah’s Witness faith runs deeper than most and it is a very real child abuse tragedy that enables it to be disguised as justifiable outrage. Nonetheless, the attack on the right to worship undefined by the State ought to be the subject of focus.

    From the book TrueTom vs the Apostates!

    00

  • A Developing World at the Mercy of Rationalism

    At first, following the financial markets crash of 2008, it appeared that the countries suffering the most would be the “guilty” countries: the ones whose banks invented the super leveraged credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations—the ones whose governments and citizens were head over heels in debt—the ones whose people had replaced the Bible with Consumer Reports. “Responsible” countries, those operating a surplus, whose citizens were frugal, such as China, Japan, and Germany, would emerge relatively unscathed. Ah, but it was not to be! The latter countries have suffered as much or more. Their strong balance sheet comes from exports, and now who remains to buy their goods?

    But the really innocent countries, countries of the developing world, fare the worst by far. There, the downturn doesn’t mean tarnished golden years. It means lives lost. Seldom are cause and effect linked so clearly. Most often there is sufficient disconnect so that the connivers on top can remain oblivious to the havoc they wreak below. But not this time.

    Economist this week considers the plight of Africa, (The Toxins Trickle Downward, March 14, 2009) where in recent years, millions have inched their way above the poverty line, only to be shoved firmly beneath it again. Such countries are impacted in three ways: 1) credit market are closed to them, as they are riskier borrowers, and financial aid from wealthier countries wither, 2) commodity prices have collapsed, and commodities are usually their primary exports, and 3) remittances from citizens working abroad have dried up. The World Bank reckons these three factors will account for 200,000 – 400,000 lives lost, all children.

    It is rare that the failure of human rule is shown in such stark relief, with consequences so directly traceable. How damnnable that people nonetheless prefer it to God’s rulership as outlined in the Bible, as advertised by his Witnesses, and as practiced by the Christian organization. Here is an excerpt from someone who has left God—our God, no less, Jehovah, to embrace atheism. He gushes effusively about his new “rational worldview:”

    “Rationalism for me means a life of pure freedom…But this means that this life that you’re living now is the most precious thing you’ll ever have….Because there is no Big Daddy to appease or suck up to, or be afraid of, you should be nice to people because it’s nice! You should treat people like you want to be treated! You should not steal or murder because it hurts people, and hurting people is wrong. Always. No one needs a god to tell them this…

    “Being a rationalist…if you say something irrational or realize the error in your own thoughts, a red flag immediately raises….rationalism is a worldview with no drawbacks, and only positives. It encourages honesty and truth…It promotes interest in the common good…”

    How lofty and soaring the words sound! How much rubbish they are in reality! As the example of developing countries shows, people use their “pure freedom,” to grind others into the dirt, and not to “treat people like you want to be treated!” (an exclamation mark, no less—oh, the joys of rationalism!) They are not “nice to people.” They “hurt people,” two to four hundred thousand of them, even though “hurting people is wrong.” Plainly, we do need a “big Daddy to appease” and a “god to tell” us how to live.

    If you had had a son or daughter high up in the banking world, who was devising the complex financial instruments that would ultimately ruin us all, you would have carried on about how well junior was doing for himself, how respected he was in the business world, and so forth. Even experts in the field had not a clue they were playing with dynamite; if they had, they would have cashed out their investments before the markets plunged.

    The fact is that humans were not designed to rule themselves. It’s an ability they do not have. Whether through greed, ignorance, pride, or some mix of the three, the record of human rule aptly illustrates Jeremiah’s words: “I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.”   (Jeremiah 10:23)

    Today, the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses govern its affairs in accord with Bible principles, which provides a hopeful foregleam of life under God’s kingdom rule. It is well known that racial and tribal divisions—the ones tearing apart the world—utterly fail to divide Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is well known that when natural disaster strikes, teams of volunteers promptly care for their own, rebuilding homes while governments are yet ascertaining the damage. It’s well known that Kingdom Halls in the developing world are often the most impressive building in town, far more than what the locals could afford on their own—due to a sharing of resources and building talent from wealthier countries.

    All this provided through an organization which counsels, which directs, which disciplines its own, which insists on members living by Bible principles. Malcontents, such as one may find online, launch blistering attacks at this, for it seems to impede their freedom, and this they will not tolerate, even in trivial matters. But Witnesses’s “economy” works to the good of developing countries, rather than trampling them underfoot. (March 2009)

    From the book TrueTom vs the Apostates!

    00

     

     

  • A Jungian Answer to Job

    I’ve said nice things about Carl Jung on my blog before. For example: “The next time I need my head examined, that’s the kind of guy I’ll seek out, rather than some modern-day critical type who declares: ‘First thing we have to do is get rid of this nutcake religion!’” I’m not sure how many do that—most recognize that value of faith—if only for the community that often comes with it, but it seemed a good line.

    Not only does Jung acknowledge that there is a spiritual side of things, but he maintains that the spiritual side is the more genuine, the more real, the more true. The “statements of the conscious mind,” he says, “may easily be snares and delusions, lies, or arbitrary opinions, but this is certainly not true of statements of the soul.” However, these latter statements “always go over our heads because they point to realities that transcend consciousness.”

    The “inferior” statements of the conscious mind, which initially seem persuasive, but in reality may prove to be “snares. delusions, lies, or arbitrary opinions,” are not limited to the conscious mind of the individual, but include entire populations, movements, nations, and eras. Doesn’t history continually bear this out? Nor do I think for one second that the modern day “age of science” will remedy this woe. Science gives us iPods and iPads but doesn’t teach us how to get along with each other.

    I like Jung. I like his writings on extroversion and introversion. I like his analogy on how the perspective of the rising sun differs from that of the setting sun. I like his work on personality types. His insights are the driving force behind those ubiquitous vocational tests that counselors foist upon us, in which you answer nosy-type personal questions, and they tell you what you ought to do for a living. Moreover, you have to be careful critiquing Jung, since he is a Great Man, and you are not. If he writes something spiritual with which you disagree, upon what basis do you disagree? “The Bible “says what it means and means what it says?” Be careful. You don’t want to come across as some Bible-thumping redneck.

    But sometimes, even with Jung, a guy has to stand up and say: “The emperor has no clothes!” Such is the case when Jung starts analyzing the Book of Job, which he does in ‘Answer to Job,’ published in 1952.

    Now, one has to know going in that, if Jung believes in spiritual things, that does not mean he is believes in any given set of scriptures. Rather, he maintains that certain spiritual legends and myths are universal; they are to be found in our “collective unconscious.” Furthermore, they pop up continually as wisps and ghosts and hints in various places, the Bible being but one.

    To briefly set the stage for the story of Job:  he is set up as an example—a test case, as it were, to settle the question of whether man can keep integrity to God under adversity. Satan, who appears only in the first two chapters of the book, charges that he will not: “Skin in behalf of skin, and everything that a man has he will give in behalf of his soul. For a change, thrust out your hand, please, and touch as far as his bone and his flesh [and see] whether he will not curse you to your very face.”

    God takes him up on this challenge and gives Satan permission to raise all manner of chaos. In short order, Job loses all he has, including even children. Too, he is struck by a painful sickness; chapter after chapter describes his suffering. Job’s three seeming-friends come to visit, supposedly, to comfort him. As time goes on, though, the comfort turns into accusation. ‘You know,’ they point out, ‘God doesn’t punish people for nothing. If you’ve fallen on hard times, it must be your own fault. Yes, you may have seemed upright outwardly, but God knows a scoundrel when he sees one! He knows your true worthlessness and so he’s settled the score.’ They merely hint this at first, but as Job protests his innocence, they become more and more strident, till toward the end, they’re fairly hurling epithets at the poor fellow.

    Now, Job is unaware of the Satanic challenge. He hasn’t the least notion as to why he is suffering, nor does he have any indication that it will end. But he does know that he’s done nothing to “deserve” it. Goaded on by these false friends, he gets increasingly heated declaring his innocence, hinting at first, then hinting more strongly, finally outright accusing God of villainy. Yes, if he could confront God face to face, he’d show Him who was in the right and who was moral! He’d argue his case—it was irrefutable—and God would have no choice but to back down! Job lets fly under his intense suffering and the provocation of his pals. Who hasn’t been there before: doing something we would never do otherwise but for the goading of others?

    Toward the end of the book, he gets his wish! God does speak to him! But not to be reproved by him. Rather, God poses a long series of questions to Job that serve to readjust his thinking. Afterwards, health and possessions are restored. Job has successfully answered Satan’s challenge—a challenge he never knew existed in the first place!

    Now, there are many things that annoy me about Jung’s commentary on the book of Job. In fact, almost all of it does. Why does Jung have to put the worst possible spin on everything? For example, with regard to when God manifests himself to Job, Jung writes: “For seventy-one verses he proclaims his world-creating power to his miserable victim, who sits in ashes and scratches his sores with potsherds, and who by now has had more than enough of superhuman violence. Job has absolutely no need of being impressed by further exhibitions of this power….Altogether, he pays so little attention to Job’s real situation that one suspects him of having an ulterior motive….His thunderings at Job so completely miss the point that one cannot help but see how much he is occupied with himself.”

    But isn’t it Jung who completely misses the point? Why not phrase matters as the Watchtower does (October 15, 2010, pg. 4)? “During his time of suffering, Job struggled with despair and became somewhat self-centered. He lost sight of the bigger issues. But Jehovah lovingly helped him to broaden his viewpoint. By asking Job over 70 different questions, none of which Job could answer, Jehovah emphasized the limitations of Job’s understanding. Job reacted in a humble way, adjusting his viewpoint.”

    There! Isn’t that better? I mean, before you go telling God how to run the universe, ought you not be able to answer at least one of the seventy questions? Issues were swirling about which Job knew nothing. Isn’t that always the case with humans on earth? “For the true God is in the heavens, but you are on the earth. That is why your words should prove to be few,” is a verse one is wise not to contest. (Ecclesiastes 5:2)

    And do not carry on about God bullying Job while he is in abject misery as though holding a captive tortured audience through a boring speech. An appearance by God will always make your day. It overrides all else.

    Furthermore, Carl Jung presents the entire matter as though it were a friendly wager between God and the Devil, serving no purpose other than their amusement, treating as nothing the intense suffering Job goes through. Why does he do that? It’s Jung who completely misses the point that Job is a test case to establish that man can keep integrity to God under the most extreme conditions.

    For, the fact is, people do suffer intensely at times. And when that occurs, some are inclined to blame God. Should they? In its opening chapters, the Bible spells out how mankind came to be in it’s present sorry state. In its closing chapters, it spells out how matters will ultimately resolve. (Abundant) supporting details are in between. Make a search of these things, and you’ll find why God is not to blame for human suffering.

    Now, drawing conclusions from his own ‘Answer to Job’ analysis, Carl Jung observes regarding evil: “We have experienced things so unheard of and so staggering that the question of whether such things are in any way reconcilable with the idea of a good God has become burningly topical. It is no longer a problem for experts in theological seminaries, but a universal religious nightmare…” Jung wrote this book in 1952. What unheard of and staggering evil do you think he had foremost in his mind? Take a guess. Hint: the Nuremberg trials, which brought justice to some Holocaust Nazi criminals, took place in 1945-46.

    Perhaps the most sadistic example of mass suffering in history occurred in Nazi Germany a mere decade before Jung wrote his book. Entire populations were herded into concentration camps, where many were gassed, starved, beaten, or otherwise worked to death. Twelve million died. The ones who survived left as walking skeletons. When General Dwight Eisenhower liberated Germany at the close of World War II, the mayor of a certain German town pleaded ignorance. Enraged, Eisenhower forced him to tour the nearest camp, he and the entire town’s population. Next day, the mayor hung himself.

    Among those imprisoned were Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were unlike all other groups in that they alone had power to free themselves. All they had to do was renounce their faith and pledge cooperation with the Nazis. Only a handful complied, a fact which, 70 years later, I still find staggering.

    From the Watchtower of February 1, 1992:

    “In concentration camps, the Witnesses were identified by small purple triangles on their sleeves and were singled out for special brutality. Did this break them? Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim noted that they ‘not only showed unusual heights of human dignity and moral behavior but seemed protected against the same camp experience that soon destroyed persons considered very well integrated by my psychoanalytic friends and myself.’”

    Why didn’t the well-integrated psychoanalytic-approved prisoners hold up? Probably because they read too much Jung and not enough Watchtower. Not Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were not hamstrung by having been nourished on Jungian theology. Job meant something to them. It wasn’t there simply to generate wordy theories and earn university degrees. A correct appreciation of it afforded them power and enabled them to bear up under the greatest evil of our time, a mass evil entirely analogous to the trials of Job. They applied the Book! And in doing so, they proved the Book’s premise: that man can maintain integrity to God under the most severe provocation. Indeed, some are on record as saying they would not have traded the experience for anything, since it afforded them just that opportunity

    So Carl Jung, in the Holocaust’s aftermath, stumbled about trying to explain how such evil could possibly occur, and could do no better than endorse the view already prevailing among intellectuals that the God of the Old Testament is mean whereas the God of the New Testament is nice. He ought to have spoken to Jehovah’s Witnesses. The latter didn’t experience the Holocaust from the comfort of their armchairs. Those in Nazi lands lived through it, due in large part to their accurate appreciation for the Book of Job. (February 2011)

    ******  The bookstore

    00

  • Standing Up to Hitler

    There are any number of serial gripers on the Internet who are alarmed at any favorable mention of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and who immediately attempt to negate such praise. Some of these characters strive with all their might to denigrate Jehovah’s Witnesses’ stand during the Holocaust. Of course, this is not easy to do, because the stand is among the most courageous actions of the past century. But they try. Generally, they feign applause for the astounding courage and faith of individual Witnesses, but then take shots at their organization, as though it were entirely separate. Yes, those Witnesses were amazing, they say. Too bad they were sold out by an oppressive, self-serving, uncaring Watchtower central machine.

    Any Witness of the time would say that it was because, not despite, the support and direction of their organization, that they withstood Hitler. Nazi troops overran Watchtower branch offices in lands they controlled; their occupants were arrested and imprisoned alike with the rank and file. The mainline churches refrained from criticizing the Nazis, lest there be reprisals. “Why should we quarrel?” Hitler (correctly) boasted. “The parsons…will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable little jobs and incomes.”* The major churches received large state subsidies throughout the war.

    Not so with Jehovah’s Witnesses. After the war, Genevieve de Gaulle, niece of latter French President General Charles de Gaule wrote: “I have true admiration for them. They…have endured very great sufferings for their beliefs….All of them showed very great courage and their attitude commanded eventually even the respect of the S.S. They could have been immediately freed if they had renounced their faith. But, on the contrary, they did not cease resistance, even succeeding in introducing books and tracts into the camp.” Would that Catholics and Lutherans, who comprised 95% of the German population, were similarly “sold out” by their respective churches. The Hitler movement would have collapsed.

    After the war, Catholic scholar and educator Gordon Zahn examined the records and found just one among 32 million German Catholics who conscientiously refused to serve in Hitler’s armies. He found another 6 in Austria. Why so few? He reports that his extensive interviews with people who knew these men produced the “flat assurance voiced by almost every informant that any Catholic who decided to refuse military service would have received no support whatsoever from his spiritual leaders.” Instead, Pope Pius XII, in 1939, directed chaplains on both sides of the war to have confidence in their respective military bishops, viewing the war as “a manifestation of the will of a heavenly Father who always turns evil into good,” and “as fighters under the flags of their country to fight also for the Church.”** No, it was not Jehovah’s Witnesses who were sold out by their organization.

     

    Now, seventy years later, along comes Ragoth, good old analytical Ragoth, who can always be depended upon for substantial comments—Ragoth, meaning no harm whatsoever, who “would also point out the Confessing Church during World War II, a la Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Granted, most of them were put to death, Bonhoeffer for spying for England and being involved with the plot to assassinate Hitler, but they stood their ground in opposition to the Nazi take-over of the German church. Now, also granted, they didn’t take a pacifist stance. Bonhoeffer and Barth originally started that way, but Bonhoeffer became convinced that as evil a thing as it would be, he would have to suffer the consequences in the afterlife to help the Brits, and, eventually, to become involved in the assassination plot…they were a relatively small group, but, I just wanted to throw in there were some other religious groups openly and constantly opposed to Hitler and the Nazi party, even in the face of death threats and directly against the rest of the churches out of which they came from.”

    Ragoth has a point. Not everyone in the German churches supported Hitler. Perhaps 10% of German Protestants took a stand against the Nazis. Doubtless Catholics as well. The point is, though, that they had to defy their church to do it. They were an embarrassment to their respective churches, from whom they received “no support whatsoever.” So some of them banded together into schisms of their own—such as the Confessing Church. Others acted independently as renegades. These were the “political prisoners” mentioned before, no doubt. I have nothing but admiration for these persons. Ragoth is absolutely right to recognize and honor them. They were extraordinary people.

    But not everyone is extraordinary. Most people are quite ordinary. It’s true with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some are extraordinary, but most are just regular folk. Jehovah’s Witnesses did not have to stand against their own religious organization or form a new one because theirs had betrayed its values. They stood against Hitler largely because of their religious organization. Those others stood against Hitler despite theirs.

    People benefit from organization, even though “organization” has become practically a dirty word today. You should hear how often the terms “brain-washing” and “mind control” are applied to us. But without leadership from a genuine principled organization, only 10% of Germans were able to resist the greatest atrocity of all time. With leadership from a principled organization, virtually all were able to resist. If there really is a God, why would he not be able to provide some sort of organization so that believers are not tossed about like seaweed on the surf?

    After the fall of France in 1940, the Vatican’s Cardinal Eugène Tisserant wrote to a friend that “Fascist ideology and Hitlerism have transformed the consciences of the young, and those under thirty-five are willing to commit any crime for any purpose ordered by their leader.” It’s an extreme case, but it illustrates how people are. They run in herds, overwhelmed by national, economic, social or class concerns of the day. The then-current generation ever imagines they are the first to break the trend. When the dust settles, though, they’re seen to be subject to the same laws of human nature as everyone else. It takes a loyal God-centered organization to stem the popular tide, and keep moral principles ever before its people, as happened in WWII and as happens today.

     

    *Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, 1940, pp. 50, 53.

    **quoted from the December 8, 1939 pastoral letter, Asperis Commoti Anxietatibus, and published in Seelsorge und kirchliche Verwaltung im Krieg, Konrad Hoffmann, editor, 1940, p. 144. (December 2009)

    From the book TrueTom vs the Apostates!

    00

     

  • Two Darwin Things That Might Have Changed History

    Two spiritual events can be traced in the life of Charles Darwin. Had those events turned out differently, one wonders what effect it might have had on his scientific contributions.

    The first came with the death of his favorite child, his daughter Annie. At age 10, the child contracted scarlet fever. She agonized for six weeks before dying. Also a casualty was Darwin’s faith in a beneficent Creator. The book Evolution: Triumph of an Idea, by Carl Zimmer, tells us that Darwin “lost faith in angels.” That is an odd expression. Why would it be used? They probably told him that God was picking flowers.

    Is there any analogy more slanderous to God than the one in which God is picking flowers? Up there in heaven he has the most beautiful garden imaginable. But it is not enough! He is always on the watch for pretty flowers, the very best, and if he spots one in your garden, he helps himself, even though it may be your only one. Yes, he needs more angels, and if your child is the most pure, the most beautiful, happy, innocent child that can be, well—watch out! He or she may become next new angel. Sappy preachers give this illustration all the time, apparently thinking it gives comfort.

    Not surprisingly, the ‘picking flowers’ analogy is nowhere found in the Bible. However, a parallel analogy is found in 2nd Samuel, where it is used to make exactly the opposite point: the flower picker should be executed. The setting is when King David took for himself the attractive wife of one of his subjects and, upon impregnating her, had that subject killed to cover his tracks:

    “The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

    “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

    “David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!  He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:1-7, NIV)

    Now, this analogy appeals to us. This is just. The man is not expected to take comfort that the king stole his wife. No, he deserves execution! So how is it that when we are told God has done the same, we’re expected to feel all warm and fuzzy?

    Isn’t this like Abraham Lincoln saying that he was not smart enough to lie? His meaning was that if you lie, you have to adjust every subsequent statement to be consistent with that lie, otherwise you will get caught. Telling the truth presents no such challenge.

    The picking flowers analogy is an attempt to cover a lie, and as we have seen, it doesn’t satisfy. The lie is that, when we die, we don’t really die because the soul lives on, going straight to heaven if we’ve been good. Thus, death is a friend. It is a chance for promotion, and we are all happy to see good people promoted. In this context, the Bible’s hope of a resurrection is meaningless. (Acts 24:15) How can someone be resurrected if they never actually died?

    Better to tell the truth from the start, and then you don’t have to invent ridiculous stories to cover your tracks. Death is not a friend, it is an enemy. Nor is it God’s purpose for humans; it came upon us due to rebellion. Nor does it bring us into a new state of consciousness; instead we become nonexistent, a state that can be likened to unconsciousness or sleep. Nor does God purpose to leave us in this sad predicament, but he’s taken steps to eliminate death.

    “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned,” says Romans 5:12. “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1 Cor 15:25) “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten….Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave,  where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5,10)

    “After he had said this, he went on to tell them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.’ His disciples replied, ‘Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.’ Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead…’” (John 11:11-14)

    How different history might have been had Darwin known the truth about death. Not just Darwin, of course, but everyone of his time, as well as before and after. Instead, fed a diet of phony pieties—junk food, really—he and others of inquisitive minds searched elsewhere in an attempt to make sense of life.

    The second spiritual event revealing another crisis of faith, is to be seen in a letter of Darwin’s to American colleague Asa Gray. Darwin stated: “…I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world.”

    Plainly, this statement concerns, not science, but God. His question was spiritual, or at least philosophical: ‘Why is there so much misery? How does that square with a God who is supposed to be all-loving and all-powerful?’

    Bear in mind that, in younger days, Darwin trained to become a clergyman. This is not to say that he was unusually devout. Rather, he was undecided as a youth; he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. Most go through such a phase. Many never emerge. At the time, the clergy represented a respectable calling for educated people who didn’t find a place anywhere else.

    Why didn’t he know why God permitted suffering? It’s not as though an answer does not exist. It is outlined in chapter 44. If Charles Darwin had been familiar with the answer, yet rejected it, that would be one thing. But it seems clear that he had no clue. The fault is not his. It is that of the church, which was charged to make certain truths, or teachings, known, but which failed to discharge that commission, choosing paths more self-serving. You might say that Darwin was spiritually starved.

    Had he known the Bible’s answer regarding misery and suffering, it may be that he, and other active minds of his day, might have put a different spin on discoveries of rocks, fossils, and finches. It is why Jehovah’s Witnesses are so enthusiastic over Scripture, sometimes to the point of being pests. The Bible’s explanation of the causes of suffering and death is tremendously liberating. It affects powerfully one’s outlook on life. (July 2006)

    ******  The bookstore

    00

  • Enemies

    As though it happened yesterday, this gem appears on a recent Australian jurisprudence questionnaire:

    “Some Jehovah’s Witnesses approach people in a predominantly Roman Catholic neighbourhood and play a CD entitled ‘Enemies’ to them. The CD describes all organized religions as ‘instruments of Satan’ and then viciously attacks Catholicism in particular. Do you think that the law ought to prohibit conduct of this kind? Discuss with reference to rights and the public/private distinction.”

    So a certain blogger assumes that it did happen yesterday—why would she not? and fires off a response:

    “Oh I really believe this scenario. It’s exactly what they’d do. Not what I ever would have done. I never had that sort of conviction. Oh how embarrassing! No wonder other churches call them “weirdo religious strangers.” They call other churches “enemies” and “instruments of Satan,” for goodness sake!”

    Well, for goodness sake, it does seem mean-spirited, doesn’t it? But it didn’t happen yesterday. It happened eighty years ago. And it was a phonograph record, not a CD. Enemies was published in 1937 and was distributed for less than ten years. Someone’s doing a hatchet job here, hoping to embarrass me. But both the book and record were entirely appropriate for their time. In fact, given the same circumstances, I believe Jehovah’s Witnesses would do it again.

    In the aftermath of World War I, had not the mainline churches effectively proven themselves enemies of God, of Christ, and of man? They had, on both sides, stoked and cheered the conflict which would claim 16 million lives, with an additional 21 million wounded. With another world war approaching, they showed every sign of resuming that role. Yet in the interim, they had presumed to slide right back into that cozy seat of representing the Prince of Peace, claiming to speak in his name.

    Eighty years later, it is hard to appreciate how enthusiastic church leaders were for the war, how they worked as cheerleaders for both sides. It hardly seems believable. Surely, there must be an exaggeration. But, reflecting back, we find numerous statements validating the unbelievable. For example, British brigadier general Frank Crozier stated: “The Christian Churches are the finest blood-lust creators which we have and of them we made free use.” A few more quotes of the day follow, in all cases made by high-ranking clergymen, not lone renegades:

    Bishop of London A. F. Winnington-Ingram urged the English people: “Kill Germans—do kill them; not for the sake of killing, but to save the world, to kill the good as well as the bad, to kill the young as well as the old, to kill those who have shown kindness to our wounded as well as those fiends….As I have said a thousand times, I look upon it as a war for purity, I look upon everyone who died in it as a martyr.” (Perspective (a Journal of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary), Vol. X, No. 1, Spring 1969, p. 78) He said it a thousand times!

    And from the other side? The archbishop of Cologne, Germany, said the following to German soldiers: “Beloved people of our Fatherland, God is with us in this fight for righteousness where we have been drawn in against our wish. We command you in the name of God, to fight to the last drop of your blood for the honor and glory of the country. In his wisdom and justice, God knows that we are on the side of righteousness and he will give us the victory.” (La Dernière Heure, January 7, 1967).

    In America? An editorial in the Christian Register says it all: “As Christians, of course, we say Christ approves [of the war]. But would he fight and kill?…There is not an opportunity to deal death to the enemy that he would shirk from or delay in seizing! He would take bayonet and grenade and bomb and rifle and do the work of deadliness against that which is the most deadly enemy of his Father’s kingdom in a thousand years.” (The Christian Register, Vol. 97, No. 33 (Aug. 15, 1918), p. 775. quotation taken from the book Preachers Present Arms, by Ray H Abrams)

    Sure, such fighting words might come from a general. And in the midst of war fever, from a statesman, or a patriot, or a businessman, or the average citizen. But from the Church, the institution claiming Christian leadership, asserting that they and they alone speak for Christ? Is it not a tad at odds with Christ’s own words? “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.” (John 13:35) If you don’t prove discipleship when it counts, during wartime, just when do you prove it? And after the war, should those clergy sweep their bloodthirsty record under the rug, and once again presume to speak in Jesus’ name? Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t think so. If Enemies seems mean-spirited today, it wasn’t a fraction as mean-spirited as the catalyst that prompted it.

    Now, you must admit, it would take guts to distribute that book and play that record. Nowadays, every wussy milquetoast of an atheist takes swipes at religion on his anonymous website, but Jehovah’s Witnesses went eyeball to eyeball with those enemies, in person, and what’s more, they went to members of their flocks. Introducing Enemies to a convention audience in Columbus Ohio, Watchtower President Rutherford declared: “You will notice that its cover is tan, and we will tan the old lady’s hide with it!” It gives the lie to Sam Harris’s one-time complaint as to how the moderate “good” churches failed to condemn their more belligerent brethren, reining them in, refusing to “call a spade a spade.” We did it before he was in diapers and did it with a courage that he would be unable to match.

    From the 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses: “The phonograph work was not carried on without opposition. Ernest Jansma tells us: ‘There were cases of some having their phonographs literally and viciously smashed right before their eyes. Others had them ruthlessly thrown off porches. One brother in the Middle West stood by and watched an angry farmer blow his machine into oblivion with a shotgun, then heard pellets whine past his auto as he left the scene. They were vicious and religiously fanatical in those days.’ Amelia and Elizabeth Losch tell of an occasion when the recording “Enemies” was played for a crowd on the porch of a certain home. After the talk ended, one woman took the record off the machine and broke it, saying, ‘You can’t talk about my pope like that!’”

    Today, the influence of the clergy is insignificant compared to what it was then.  I mean, they’re respected so long as they stay in their place, but their place is much reduced from what it once was. In the days of Enemies, their place was anywhere they wanted it to be. They maintained a stranglehold upon popular thought. Catholics, in particular, as one may have heard great-grandparents say, were not allowed to read the Bible. That’s what the priest was for, and he would explain it as he saw fit, in accordance with church doctrine. In town after town, Jehovah’s Witnesses would place literature with interested persons, and clergy would follow and demand it back. Such was the command they enjoyed, that they often got it.

    Frankly, if Christendom’s influence is a ghost of what it once was, Jehovah’s Witnesses get the “credit,” in my view. The Enemies campaign was but one of many back in those days. Look, Wilbur and Orville Wright are credited with inventing the airplane. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t have planes had they never been born. Someone else would have invented them. But they were the first. They had the foresight and guts to persevere with a notion that everyone else thought was impossible.

    Some, taking the opposite view of the blogger quoted in the third paragraph, mutter that Jehovah’s Witnesses have become too cordial with other religions, that they have made their peace, that they have wimped out. But there’s no point in kicking the ‘old lady’ while she’s down. We kicked her while she was up. Nowadays, everybody kicks her. So why should we? Whatever account she must render is with God, not us. All we ever wanted to do was loosen her hold on people, so they would not be afraid to listen to new ideas. That was accomplished decades ago. (May 2009)

    From the book TrueTom vs the Apostates!

    Aa

     

  • Why Do Bad Things Happen? Updated for Atheists, Sort of

    When Moristotle the Atheist read my post ‘Why Bad Things Happen,’ he almost threw up. He declared it a “fantasy,” aspects of which were “utterly repulsive,” and the rest “not only not nice at all, nor even adolescent, but simply infantile.” If we could only get this fellow to say what he really thinks and stop pussyfooting around, he might amount to something!

    Still, I took his concerns to heart. It’s not pleasant throwing up—it just isn’t. Was there a way to write essentially the same thing in a way that he and his would find more palatable? After all, he declared a related post of mine “profound.” True, he was just being nice, he later pointed out, but at least there was no gag reflex, or at least he overcame it.

    It may not be possible to make this stuff more palatable for a certain type of person. Any discussion as to why God tolerates evil must necessarily link to Adam and Eve, and link to them rather substantially. They simply are that key of a building block. And so you have to overcome the ‘We are wise and learned adults, far too clever to be sold Adam and Eve. What’s next, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck?’ syndrome. It occurred to me only much later that you could invite such persons to consider it as a symbolism that need not be taken literally. That almost works better. Certain types love being thought perceptive enough to be entrusted with such an interpretive task—leave it on the shelf till later whether it actually happened or not. Still, I did not realize this at the time. My job was not going to be easy.

    Let’s start with some common ground, just like Paul did at the Areopagus. Moristotle had recently trotted out a Greek named Diagoras, who is apparently the world’s first recorded atheist. There was a little quibbling over that, but I eventually conceded the point. Okay. Here goes. Wish me luck.

     

    ***~~~***

     

    Was Diagoras the world’s first atheist? He is credited that way. Read up on him and you will find that he is remembered as Diagoras the Atheist. Isn’t he the fellow who used a wooden statue of Hercules as fuel to cook his turnips? If Hercules didn’t like it—well, let him do something about it. And how did Diagoras end up an atheist? Wikipedia tells us: “He became an atheist after an [unspecified] incident that happened against him went unpunished by the gods”

    Why wasn’t it punished? Why didn’t God fix it? He’s God, after all. Isn’t he supposed to be all-powerful? We hear this all the time from atheists, agnostics and even believers. Why didn’t he solve Diagoras’s problem and stop the man from going atheist?

    It’s because he’d never be able to do anything else. He’d be sticking band-aid after never-ending band-aid on a system of things that is inherently unjust, even designedly so. Instead, in keeping with his original purpose, he purposes to replace this system of things with one of his own design. Injustice in that system of things will be a memory only.

    After all, what is the injustice that caused Diagoras such soul-searching? Only the one that touched him personally! Had he not witnessed hundreds of injustices in his lifetime? To say nothing of ones his society was built upon. We positively slobber over Greeks as cradle of wisdom, birthplace of democracy, mecca of free thinkers, and so forth, yet they enjoyed their privileged status only on the backs of others. That society embraced slavery. It treated women abominably. And weren’t Greeks the original pedophiles? The same sexual molestation of children so roundly condemned today was enshrined in respectable Greek society. Are these among the injustices Diagoras was concerned with? Did he even recognize them as injustices? Possibly, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

    Let’s face it, few situations of this world today are win-win. Generally, someone pays the price when we win. Hopefully, for politicians and Pollyannas, it is someone we don’t see in another land or another class. But there is somebody most often and we usually don’t even know about it. The system is designed that way. Get the sufferer as far away from the privileged one as possible so that the latter does not see the link and declares any such talk as but crybaby whining. Don’t think that any political party owns the problem. It is inherent with human self-rule. A new system of things is in keeping with the Bible’s premise that humans were not designed to be independent of God.

    Things might have turned out differently. The Adam and Eve and Garden of Eden account, brief though it is, demonstrates God’s original intent. “Further, God blessed them and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it,’” says Genesis 1:28. The very name Eden means “pleasure;” garden of Eden becomes, when translated into Greek, “paradise of pleasure,” and “subduing the earth” is code for spreading those conditions earth wide. Had humans, starting with the first pair, remained content to live under God’s direction, life today would be a far cry from what it is today. But almost from the start, they balked.

    Consider Genesis chapter 3: “Now the serpent proved to be the most cautious of all the wild beasts of the field that Jehovah God had made. So it began to say to the woman: ‘Is it really so that God said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?’ At this the woman said to the serpent: ‘Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But as for [eating] of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God has said, “you must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it that you do not die.”’

    “At this the serpent said to the woman: ‘You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.’ Consequently the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was something to be longed for to the eyes, yes, the tree was desirable to look upon.”

    Jehovah’s Witnesses understand the “knowing good and bad” of verse five to be a matter of declaring independence. “You don’t need God telling you what is good and what is bad. You can decide such things yourself and thus be “like God.” The serpent even portrays God as having selfish motive, as though trying to stifle the first couple—a sure way to engender discontent. The ploy was successful. Those first humans chose a course of independence, with far-ranging consequences that have cascaded down to our day.

    After a lengthy time interval allowed by God so that all can see the end course of a world run independent of him, he purposes to bring it again under his oversight. This is what the prophet Daniel refers to: “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite.” (Daniel 2:44)

    Jesus refers to it, too, in The Lord’s Prayer: “…Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth.” (Matthew 6:10) Does anybody seriously expect God’s will to be done on earth under the present system? Here and there, one can see a glimmer, of course, but to predominate? The time for God’s will to be done is when his kingdom comes.

    Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that God’s permission of injustice, even evil, is bound up with this trial period of human rule, soon to end. In a sense, the modern-day atheist counterparts of Diagoras have voted for the wrong party. They voted Republicans out of office in favor of Democrats (or vice versa) and they are now incensed that Republicans aren’t delivering on their promises! God’s kingdom is the arrangement that will end injustice. But they continue to vote for human rule. Does anyone think that humans will end injustice?

    What the upset ones really want is, not so much an end of injustice, but an end to the symptoms of injustice, mostly the ones that affect them personally, just like with Diagoras. But human rule itself is the source of injustice. We’re simply not designed with the ability to “rule” ourselves. Is it “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?” God’s Kingdom will not treat the symptoms of injustice; it will uproot the source. (February 2008)

    From the book TrueTom vs the Apostates!

    Injustice

  • Is It Time for Jehovah’s Witnesses to Apologize? Part 4

    See this series' beginning here.

    The Old Testament tells some very strange tales and one of them is told at 2 Samuel. David, the Israelite king, on the ropes because he is facing an armed insurrection from his own son, enters a town where loyalty is not assured. He and his men are received hospitably, but there is one man decidedly not hospitable. The account reads:

    “…a man…came out shouting curses as he approached. He was throwing stones at David and at all the servants of King David, as well as at all the people and the mighty men on his right and on his left. Shimei said as he cursed: “Get out, get out, you bloodguilty man! You worthless man!”

    “…Then Abishai the son of Zeruiahm said to the king: “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, please, and take off his head.” But the king said: “…Let him curse me, for Jehovah has said to him, ‘Curse David!’ …Here my own son, who came from my own body, is seeking my life… Leave him alone so that he may curse me, for Jehovah told him to! …With that David and his men kept going down the road while Shimei was walking alongside the mountain abreast of him, shouting curses and throwing stones and a lot of dust.”  (16:5-19)

    Imagine! David is not too hung up on himself, is he? The fellow curses him, throws stones at him, shouting he is bloodguilty and worthless. And David as much as says: ‘Well, maybe he has a point. I mean, if God is letting it happen, who am I to smash in his head?’

    The passage is included in the midweek meeting study material for October 15, 2018. That program also incorporated a passage at Matthew chapter 11, in which Jesus said of his detractors that they criticize you no matter what you do, so the best recourse is to go full speed ahead and let 'wisdom be proved righteous by its works.’ Meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses are essentially Bible studies that one can prepare for, organized around themes suggested by current needs and the pre-determined schedule of Bible reading that members have observed for 100 years—work your way through Revelation, and start in again at Genesis.

    Nothing gets in the program without the okay, if not the direct insertion, of Witness governing members, who serve on various supervisory committees. The Matthew verse demonstrates how they respond to public criticism. They like Psalm 38:13 as well, another verse of David, about how he determined to muzzle his mouth as his adversaries kept “muttering all day long” about him. Luke 9:62 is also a favorite. That one records Jesus saying: “No man that has put his hand to a plow and looks at the things behind is well fitted for the Kingdom of God.” They press ever forward. They content themselves with a Newsroom tab on their public website that does not get into specific complaints, much as one would not expect to find a citing from the building inspector on the restaurant menu.

    It is a program that October week on how Jesus set the pattern for those who would follow him, not specifically concerned with how to answer criticism, but also not avoiding the topic, particularly in the final half-hour segment. And Shimei’s tirade is right in there, with David conscious of the abuse he is receiving, and acquiescing to receiving it, as though it were discipline of sorts, as though he says “Well, maybe I had it coming,” even as he expresses hope that perhaps “Jehovah will see…and will actually restore me to goodness instead of his malediction this day.” (vs 12)

    Do not think that the Witness Governing Body, as they are teaching others by means of the scriptures, do not also teach themselves. ‘If David was subjected to it, I guess we will be too,’ they seem to say. One should not think that they will not reflect on just how they got into this predicament in the first place, as David surely must have, with stones bouncing off his helmet. They will remedy it to the extent they can, but it will not be at the expense of betraying their prime directive of leading through Bible principles, and they have been loath to pull rank on family heads, reporting abuse which is sometimes entirely within a family, usually a step-family as was the case in Montana, and assume their responsibility or prerogative.

    Likely they will say of these courtroom battles as they did of Russia banning the entire organization within its borders, that it is an area of “concern,” but not “worry.” They don’t get overly attached to things, even things of their own devising. They put it all on the line routinely as they do their best to advance kingdom interests, not cowering before their enemies. They plow where they plow as they apply their view of the Bible, unconcerned, sometimes unaware of the quicksand that may get them into, confident that, should that happen, God will somehow get them out of it. They do not deliberately court opposition, but they do expect it. The king makes a law and Daniel is thrown into the lion’s den. Another king makes another law and his friends are thrown into the furnace. Still another king makes another law and the entire nation of Jews faces extermination until Esther the queen opens his eyes to the sinister scheme he has been maneuvered into. It happens to their spiritual descendants to this day and the Witness organization expects no less. They are ‘insular,’ separate from the world, and the latter finds no end of reasons to oppose them for it.

    They have really stepped in it this time, or at least it has been made to appear that way. It is not like last year, when Russia banned them, declared the Bible they favor illegal, and confiscated their property, doing so for completely separate reasons that never even mentioned child sexual abuse. It is not like Jehovah’s Witnesses of decades past, trying issue before first amendment issue before the U.S. Supreme Court, nobody engaging more frequently other than the government itself, so that Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote: “The Jehovah’s Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties.” No. This time it is the unsavory subject of child sexual abuse, and the question that cannot be answered: If they did not go ‘beyond the law,’ why didn’t they?

    Is it to be included as among the “wicked things that they will lyingly say against you?” that Jesus speaks of? (Matthew 5:11) Nobody can ever say that the charge is not wicked, on the same level as first-century charges that Christians were cannibals who burned down Rome. Just possibly it takes their breath away, as it is a legitimate bad that they never saw coming. With Shimei’s stones knocking on their helmet, just possibly the drop to their knees like Hezekiah besieged by an enraged enemy. Just possibly they look to outsiders like deer caught in the headlights while they are doing so. Just possibly they are like Adrian Monk, a good and upright man who nonetheless finds himself both outside of his normal element and in a pickle because he cannot choose which chair in which to sit until Natalie gently pushes him down on whatever one he hovers over at the moment.

    Drive this sucker to the Supreme Court, if need be. If they decide to hear it, it will be case number 50-something that Witnesses have tried before that body, more than any other group besides the government itself. Let it be resolved once and for all when the time is right. Many person are being sued over child sexual abuse these days, and it is generally the same scenario. Though groups as the Boy Scouts manifestly benefit children in ways not readily duplicated, their deep pockets permit a pummeling such as cannot be visited on unorganized society, though it be every bit as accommodating to child sexual abuse, only minus the benefits. It will be so with groups that instill religious values into youth, as well.

    Don’t be put off by the sordid backdrop. The world wallows in sordidness these days and is accustomed to everyone being accused of everything. The Week Magazine reports (09/03/2018) that referrals of child abuse online images have increased seven-fold over five years. On average, one child in every primary school classroom has received nude or semi-nude pictures from an adult. They respond not always well: “A girl from my primary [was] sending half-naked pictures because it’s what everyone does,” said one. Don’t let this be painted as a Witness pandemic or even a pandemic of any religion. What! It is only where there are deep pockets that child sexual abuse occurs? It is only taxpayer-funded schools, scouting organizations, or faith groups that suffer child sexual abuse? The origins don’t line up. Christianity, where it remains true to its roots, is an offshoot of Judaism, where pedophilia was exceedingly uncommon in Bible times A verse from the Sibylline oracles, a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the [prophetesses] Sibyls, claims that only the Jews were free from this impurity. They were “mindful of holy wedlock, and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children, as do Phoenicians, Egyptians and Romans, spacious Greece and many nations of other, Persians and Galatians and all Asia, transgressing the holy law of immortal God, which they transgressed.” 

    And where does the mainstream educated world find its underpinnings? Is it not the world of ancient Greece, the cradle of democracy? It is also the cradle of pedophilia, a societally accepted practice no where condemned. The only condemnation to be found is from Christians who withdrew and became insular as regards that world, and it is found in 1 Corinthians 6:9: “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (NABRE) A footnote to the New American Bible – Revised Edition on ‘boy prostitutes’ and ‘sodomites’ reads: “The Greek word translated as boy prostitutes may refer to catamites, i.e., boys or young men who were kept for purposes of prostitution, a practice not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world. In Greek mythology this was the function of Ganymede, the “cupbearer of the gods,” whose Latin name was Catamitus. The term translated sodomites refers to adult males who indulged in homosexual practices with such boys.” They even had a god for it! 

    Montana law being what it appears to be, it is hard to imagine this could not be appealed successfully. The Montana court’s greatest mistake may have been the excessive punitive damages, clearing indicating they felt the Witness organization was trying to violate law. If it can be shown that they made every conscientious effort to follow law, everything might reverse. Whether they are insular or not should not factor in. Separateness from the overall world is not yet a crime. It may factor into public opinion, but not yet that of law.

    What would be the repercussions in the event of a higher court reversal? Not necessarily positive for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who always sought, perhaps to a fault, not to ‘sully God’s name.’ It’s a little late to worry about that now. Or maybe it is not. A higher court reversal of the Montana verdict may cause the average person who learns of it to say: “It’s unbelievable! The Court says it’s okay for Jehovah’s Witnesses to abuse children!” But if there was a sincere expression of regret in the interim, for children truly have been harmed, they might say, “Oh. I understand. They did bollox things but now I see how it happened.”

    People, by and large, are fair, even when they don’t especially care for Witnesses. They don’t buy for a minute that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter Day Saints, Boy Scouts, and taxpayer-backed institutions are the only settings in which child sexual abuse occurs. They understand that these parties have deep pockets, and there is no sense in going after anyone who does not. Yes. A higher court victory giving opportunity to ‘come clean’ as to how the whole mess began may well clean up that Name Witnesses are so concerned about.

    Let it be framed as it is. An attack on separate religion, in which child abuse matters are employed as a righteous smokescreen. It is not merely Jehovah’s Witnesses under the gun. It is religion in general and the more determined it is to resist mainstream thinking the more of a target it becomes. Prejudice against the Jehovah’s Witness faith runs deeper than most, and it is a very real child abuse tragedy that enables it to be disguised as justifiable outrage. But the attack on religious freedom ought be the subject of focus.

  • Is it Time for Jehovah’s Witnesses to Apologize? Part 2

     

    First, it may be well to catch up with Part 1.

    Jehovah’s Witnesses did fail in this regard. Let us admit it. They failed to ‘go beyond the law.’ The stakes are so high that law is thereafter reinterpreted to mean that they did violate it. Why did they fail? Ms. Chuck accurately states that any Witness victim or family of victim was always free to report child sexual abuse and that congregation justice did not preclude outside secular justice. Arguably, then, they failed because they were insular, as she says, and she may not realize just how firmly she has put her finger on the reason. They were not inclined to air their dirty laundry before the public.

    It is not hard to understand. In some cultures, the concept of ‘saving face’ is so firmly entrenched that your efforts to communicate are doomed to failure if you ignore it. The very reason there is an expression ‘skeletons in the closet’ is the universal human instinct to keep them there. It is even found in the scriptures that Ms. Chuck acknowledges underlie everything Witnesses do. Decrying the spectacle of early Christians taking one another into court over personal disputes, the apostle Paul writes: “I am speaking to move you to shame. Is there not one wise man among you who is able to judge between his brothers? Instead, brother goes to court against brother, and before unbelievers at that!” If Jehovah’s Witnesses today are ‘insular,’ it is because Christians back then were ‘insular.’

    In this case, however, insularity, and the failure to ‘go beyond the law’ has resulted in child abusers who did not take their turn in the police lineup, as well as victims thereby deprived of justice. Whether they would have received justice otherwise is arguable, for no end of persons manage to evade the wrath of the law. But that is not the point. They should have been turned over to police, the argument goes, for the latter to either nail them to the wall or let them beat the rap. The victims want justice. Like victims anywhere, they don’t always get it. But don’t get in the way of their quest for it. Since the Witness organization is perceived to have gotten in the way, with law being reinterpreted so as to more damningly point to that conclusion, should they apologize to victims or issue a public statement of regret? You could certainly build a case for it.

    When the cop speeds in hot pursuit and a horrific accident results, pointing out that he had permission to speed only goes so far. There are times when only a sincere expression of regret stems the tide of outrage, for who is going to dismiss a run-over pedestrian as ‘just one of those things’?  At such times legal matters become technicalities and you look tone-deaf if you harp on them. Best to say that, in pursuing one’s mission, even within existing rules, a terrible tragedy has resulted for which there is sincere regret.

    Were the Witness organization to ever do that, it would cut them no slack with the Reddit group. They would merely drop down a notch on their list to highlight the next reason they hate their former religion before surfacing briefly again to declare the statement insincere. Were the entire Governing Body membership to resign, or even hang themselves, it would not make them happy. They know that their successors would be cut from the same cloth.

    No, there will be no placating these folks. But it might very well clear the air for all other persons, who know very well, simply through personal experience, that Jehovah’s Witnesses are very fine people. Even arch-enemy Barbara Anderson concedes this, as she somehow manages to insinuate that this is despite their evil governing body, rather than the much more reasonable ‘because of it. Not because of it solely, of course, for Witnesses’ decency stems from the God they worship. But in the sense that the Witnesses’ governing body keeps them clearly focused on the Bible, the source they signed on for, they surely deserve credit, not condemnation. Almost all other faiths have swayed with the changing winds of contemporary culture. Witnesses have not. They merely update now and then, as they have with their procedures of child sexual abuse investigations. Is it intimidating for a victim of child sexual abuse to appear before the three men of a investigatory committee? Well, they never thought of that. Maybe they should have. So now it is that a child’s recorded testimony can serve itself as the witness and he or she does not have to appear personally. If he or she does, it can be with any congregation member of choice, whether male or female. The religion’s fiercest critics say they will never stop opposing until Witnesses fix their child abuse policies. Arguably, they already have, since almost all cases tried are from 20-30 years ago.

    Not everyone likes Jehovah’s Witnesses. Probably more do not than do. But people are mostly fair. A statement of regret would go a long way for them to say: “Oh, I see. They did screw it up, but now I can see why. They really do abhor child sexual abuse over there.”  Otherwise, their enemies find it a cakewalk to portray those in leadership positions among Jehovah’s Witnesses as ‘arrogant,’ and in some cases, careful cultivators of child sexual abusers. They are probably the least arrogant people on earth, but that does not mean they cannot be painted that way.

    They do Bible education work. They do it extensively and effectively. In the developing world, a person is stuck with some 200-year old turkey of a Bible translation that he can neither afford nor understand because nobody other than Jehovah’s Witnesses thinks it is inappropriate for Big Business to handle distribution of the Word of God. The Witness Governing Body does think it is inappropriate and they have invented an entirely new production and distribution channel so that the person can obtain a modern Bible at minimal cost, or even free. That accomplishment is not nothing.

    They do not do all of this personally, of course. Detractors routinely spin it that Witnesses are ‘controlled’ by ‘eight men in New York.’ It makes no sense. They are modest persons. Many of them cut their teeth performing their trademark door-to-door ministry in the developing world, carrying out a work more lowly than that of the ones they would ultimately lead. They have a certain knack at administration, as with any effective organization, but other than that, they have little expertise in anything. But they know where to find it when they need it. From a field of eight million members, where there are neither paywalls nor turf battles, they can quickly assemble whatever they deem necessary.

    Their latest offering in the field of Bible education consists of an online, self-guided, and anonymous course of Bible study offered on the front page of their website, JW.org. The Bible offers convincing answers to important questions of life, Jehovah's Witnesses feel, questions not readily answered anywhere else. Of course, it is free and presented without any mention of money. After each lesson there is the option to 1) go deeper, for the presentation is necessarily simple, 2) attend a group study at the Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall, 3) request a personal instructor, or 4) say ‘none of the above’ and proceed to the next lesson. It is a relatively new feature. I don’t know how it will be incorporated. But with only some exaggeration, I am looking forward to saying: “I don’t want to study the Bible with you. Do it yourself. If you have any questions or want to go a level more, I’ll be around.” With only slightly more exaggeration, the new feature illustrates that, if need be, the main Bible teaching component of the Witnesses’ work could be run out of a server in someone’s dorm room.

    They always will be ‘insular,’ or to put in their terminology, ‘no part of the world.’ Surely, they must be permitted to be, for the alternative is to snuff out the type of Christianity that existed in the first century, arguably the most 'true' model. Snuffing out this model in favor of societally evolved ones would be a very fine outcome in the eyes of today’s ‘anti-cultists,’ who will allow that religion can have a place only so long as it is clearly subservient to contemporary life and leaders. Anything not meeting this description they are inclined to label a ‘cult’ that ‘brainwashes’ people through ‘mind-control.’ Those of that spirit of Western anti-cultists have used exactly that reasoning to fuel the furor that has banned Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and confiscated all of their property, with many other faiths shaking in their boots that they will be next. Of a prominent Russian anti-cultist, Alexander Dvorkin, who shares Western connections via an French NGO, a human-rights expert has said: he “enjoys disseminating inflammatory narratives and hate speech.” It is no less with anti-cultists here, who further their goals through whatever avenues present themselves.

    It may well be time to acknowledge that this avenue, this one involving child sexual abuse reporting, is one that became riddled with axle-bending potholes, express sincere remorse, help out to whatever extent is necessary to fill them in, so as to move on with the overall program.

    End of Part 2. See Part 3.