Sheep and Goats

Category: Jehovah’s Witnesses Ministry

  • An Habakkuk Presentation

    That day the stock market plunged 1000 points in an hour, only to regain all but 300 at day's end, you could make mention of it in your ministry. But you could only do it for a short time. People's memories are short. After a few days, most crises are swept off center stage by a new crisis. But then you can simply substitute the new calamity in your remarks.

    You don't harp on these things, of course, as if the purpose of your visit is to rub people's noses in disaster. After introducing myself and anyone I might be with, it usually went well to mention a "backdrop of anxiety" that most are aware of.  Even if our own immediate home and family circumstances are just fine (an important possibility to acknowledge when working among the la-de-da homes) there's always an oil spill somewhere, or an economy collapsing, or population rioting – all of which make people uneasy about the future. "You like to think, if only for the sake of the children and grandchildren, that you'll pass the world on to them in better shape than you found it – are they really asking too much to expect that of us? But these days people aren't too sure that's going to happen. Any thoughts on that yourself?"

    I worked with this presentation for awhile. Not word for word, of course, but as if speaking from an outline, playing with the general themes. Tweaking it to fit the individual. If speaking to someone young, for instance, you might set them up as the recipient of the passed on world, rather than the one who passes it. It's a bit of a challenge, the door-to-door ministry. You strive to register signs, words, or impressions of the householder so as to mold a sensible response. You never know who you'll be speaking with or what their demeanor may be. Calling without appointment adds another degree of challenge; if your householder is any sort of productive person, invariably you'll be interrupting something. Not to mention that the last thing your person expected was to be confronted with a door-to-door minister. So your best chance is to be relaxed, friendly, non-threatening, and coherent.

    It's usually good to weave a scripture into whatever presentation you're giving. Lately, I've been using Hab 3:17-18:

    Although [the] fig tree itself may not blossom, and there may be no yield on the vines; the work of [the] olive tree may actually turn out a failure, and the terraces themselves may actually produce no food; [the] flock may actually be severed from [the] pen, and there may be no herd in the enclosures;

    Yet, as for me, I will exult in Jehovah himself; I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.

    pointing out that Habakkuk's response (vs 18) isn't really what one would expect from the conditions he describes…you'd expect him to complain and whine. It's the more human response; most people would do that. We're told that Diagoras, the world's first atheist, went that course after "an [unspecified] incident that happened against him went unpunished by the gods." So did Habakkuk know something that Diagoras didn't? It's a good lead-in for a subject like "Why Has God Permit Suffering," chapter 11 of the book What Does the Bible Really Teach.

    Transitioning into your scripture isn't so hard as you might think, but you don't want to be clumsy about it. You don't ask, for example, "is it okay if I read a scripture?" Of course it isn't; the very question indicates you think it is a big deal…a major escalation. Who's not going to balk at that?  Instead, ask yourself why should it surprise anyone if a minister of the Bible wants to read a scripture? Would you be shocked if a mechanic pulled out a wrench? You'd be disappointed if he didn't.

    And you might think that when inviting your householder to comment on world conditions, he has to give the "right" answer, such as "everything's going to hell in a handbasket," and if he doesn't, you're stymied. Instead, your person may say something like "the world is what we make it," or "I guess we just have to be optimistic," or even "seems to me that things are getting better." It doesn't matter. Acknowledge whatever comment he makes, and then say "the reason I bring it up is because…." and go into Habukkuk. Plenty of people give the "wrong" answer, yet become real attentive when you reach the scripture. You can't expect people to pour out their hearts speaking to a complete stranger. Even when people think the world is going to hell in a handbasket, they're not likely to say it to you…for fear you'll perceive them a crybaby. No, "we have to just carry on best we can regardless of what comes down the pipe," they may reason. In fact, they're only listening to you with half an ear, anyway. They're also thinking "who is this guy? What does he want? Religion? Right here at my door? Isn't that a little strange?" So just go to your verse with a "the reason I bring it up is because…." You can use it regardless of what the householder says, unless he hurls epithets at you.

    And somewhere along the line, it's good to add a "let me get your thoughts on this, and then I'll be on my way…..you probably have things to do." Your householder's likely worried that you mean to stay all day…you have to defuse that concern (and then stick to your promise). I've had people raise questions or bring in other matters, and I'll remind them how I said I was going to just be a few minutes, but now they've brought up this or that concern…..if we go that way, I'll say, it's on their dime, not mine.

    Now, if you're transitioning into an offer of the Bible Teach book, why not describe how we use it as an outline for a Bible study program? An hour a week, a week or two per chapter, at a time and place of the householder's choosing, and in six months they'll have a working knowledge of the entire Bible. Hand the book to them with table of contents opened…."do any of these chapters strike you as interesting?" Frequently they'll latch onto an entirely different subject, one more attuned to their needs. I had one college kid recently who chose to confide, at this point, that his sister had died as an infant…and why would God do that? It had always bothered him.

    That happens a lot. While you're rattling on, people 'take your measure' and may conclude you're someone with whom they can discuss spiritual concerns, same way businesspeople used to conclude Mac was someone with whom they could speak; after all, there's not many people with whom you can do that. After that, they'll bring up all kinds of things, and that's what you respond to, setting aside your prepared remarks (which calls for a certain nimbleness). Starting at whatever point most suits the householder, I like to offer to show how we use the book as a study guide. And by the way, why offer to study the Bible with them then and there? Offer to show how we study the Bible; it's the same thing, and sounds a lot less time-consuming.

    Most often, even when their interest is genuinely piqued, they'll pass. They'll want to look it over, think about it, make sure they're not being hoodwinked somehow. After all, they were doing other things before you ambled along out of nowhere to offer them a Bible study. All of that's okay. Frankly, if I see persons unknown walking up my driveway, my first instinct  – and often my 2nd, 3rd and 4th instinct – is to get rid of them! Offer to stop again when they've had some time to think it over. And then, at least monthly, you can drop by with the latest copy of the magazines. This way no one ever thinks that your purpose is to distribute magazines; rather the magazines are a means of keeping spiritual things on the radar until interest and circumstances lend themselves to a more substantial Bible study.

    It works for me. In time, it will grow stale – funny how presentations do that – or I'll grow bored with it and devise something new, maybe to come back to it later. It won't work in every part of the world, probably; it's tailored to those in my neck of the woods. And it's tailored to my personality, which isn't (thank God, you may say) the same as yours.

    Reflecting on whatever good experiences one might find in the ministry, a Witness of Jehovah might recall the verse immediately following Jesus' Sermon on the Mount:

    Now when Jesus finished these sayings, the effect was that the crowds were astounded at his way of teaching; for he was teaching them as a person having authority, and not as their scribes.   (Matt 7:28-29)

    The 'authority' (in your case) comes from putting the scriptures together, fitting the pieces so that anyone can see, not only do they make sense, but they address the deepest questions of life. The contrast could not be greater from instruction of "their scribes," who quoted each other, and who taught an elaborate structure of doctrine and tradition to the point where the original thoughts of God all but vanished.

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    Tom Irregardless and Me                   No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Counting the Costs

    When Roger the retired C. O. gave the public talk, we invited him to the house for lunch afterward. Also a few twenty-somethings. Mutual encouragement, you know, copy a fine example, one 'face sharpens another,' and so forth. Young Solomon approached the fellow after lunch.

    “So, how long were you in the Circuit work?”

    “Thirty years!” came the reply.

    “Wow. You must really miss it.”
     
    “Nope!” the C.O. shot back.

    “Well…um…I mean….that is..(this was not the answer he'd expected) it must have been a big adjustment.”

    “I adjusted that afternoon.”

    “Look, I don't want to sound unappreciative,” he told a friend on another occasion. “It's just that a lot of the job is not my cup of tea. You know me…I'm an outdoors guy. [in his younger days, he'd worked on the railroad] And so what am I doing all day? I'm sitting in meetings! Still, Jehovah apparently has a purpose for me, so I've stayed the course.”

    It's called 'counting the costs.' It's a good thing to do. You get emotional control of your circumstances. Aren't 'mid-life crises' caused when people don't count the costs, then are suddenly floored when the 'bill' hits them all at once? Be it family, job, responsibilities, goals in life…people go haywire all the time for never having counted the costs. But if you blow off steam as you go….acknowledge this part is good, though that part is not so good….and adjust accordingly, either deciding to stay the present course or make modifications….well, I'll trust those folks a lot quicker than those who've never made introspection.

    And Jehovah did have a purpose for him, apparently. In one of those training schools, where the traveling ministers instruct all the assembled elders and servants, I noticed that the weightiest parts were invariably assigned to Roger. A favorite among C.O's, he was a man of real empathy, who's trademark expression, “just do the best you can,” (as opposed to measuring yourself by the standards of others) is still recalled by all in these parts. I groused once about servants who'd leave the city congregations so as to raise their growing families in the rurals or suburbs, [“Don't worry, Jehovah will provide. Besides, I'm outta here.”]  but Roger didn't agree. 'You always do what's best for your family' he observed.  When he retired, he settled in a nearly congregation, where he continues in full-time service to this day.

    The Christian life itself calls for counting the costs. 'What if it's not true, Tom Sheepandgoats, what then?' taunts a certain character, trying to get me going. What if the whole Universal Court Case and Armageddon and all of it is just a story? What if there is no God? What if there is no purpose? What then? Won't all your preaching and all your meeting-going and all your Bible reading be just wasted time?

    He's convinced his point is original. In fact, Paul also made it at 1 Cor 15:17-19:

    "Further, if Christ has not been raised up, your faith is useless; you are yet in your sins. In fact, also, those who fell asleep [in death] in union with Christ perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied."

    Is this a weak point for Christianity? Or a strong one? There's no question that the JW organization doesn't hedge its bets, and it stands for a life that amounts to not hedging bets. Jehovah's Witnesses are a serious religion that maintain today's world is fundamentally out of harmony with God's will. Not merely on the surface, fixable by just a bit of tweaking, but fundamentally. So we don't try to put a smiley face on it. We take positions involving goals, lifestyle, employment, associations, which are in harmony with Christianity, but diametrically opposed to today's prevalent thinking. So much so that if someone reassesses years later and leaves the faith, he finds himself out of sync with the mindset he repudiated years ago. So he strives to readjust. It's a rougher transition than, say, changing brands of cars. Some simply conclude that they made a decision that did not work for them and move on. People being what they are, however, many prefer to find a scapegoat, and what better scapegoat than the faith they left? They were "mislead," "lied to," "bullied," etc. Sheesh! Isn't it a lot like the “slave” of Matt 24:48 who is upset that “my master is delaying,” and who therefore starts “beating his fellow slaves?”

    Back when I spoke with Frank Mulicotti, years ago, I and my younger chums were inclined to view the Christian life so refreshing…enjoyable activity surrounded by good people and all….that even if it turned out to be not true, it was still worth pursuing. But older Frank would have none of it, and he stood his ground. The older you get, the more the costs become apparent. Activities and goals you pursue, that you wouldn't otherwise. Activities and goals you don't pursue, that you might otherwise, because of the ones you do. It's not to say the costs aren't worth paying, just as people pay costs in all areas of life. But it's well to always 'count them,' so they don't sneak up on you unawares.

    On the internet somewhere is a person who frankly acknowledged he left the faith because he wanted to advance professionally. To really advance, he pointed out, you have to be clubby, you have to hang out socially with your work colleagues, and Jehovah's Witnesses don't do that; they hang out with each other. With distance behind him, he'd come to think of other Witness things he disagreed with, but at the time, it was professional considerations alone that appeared to have moved him. Some commenters commiserated with him….one has to keep religion in it's place, after all……but I think Paul would have looked at matters differently, if 2 Tim 4:10 is anything to go by:

    “Demas has forsaken me because he loved the present system of things.”

    Sigh….whenever people start carrying on about keeping religion in it's place, invariably they mean last place.

    As I get older, I also side with Frank, though at the same time one must concede that the youngsters had a point
    , too. I mean, considering how some lives consist of just one disastrous move after another, lives spiraling ever downward to all manner of decadence, a religion that transforms them into honest, clean, productive persons, even if it turned out to be untrue, would be a significant step up. One detractor carries on about how, when one dies after a lifetime propagating Witness beliefs, it is far more than a waste of time….it is a tragedy. Give me a break! Don't tell me about wasted lives! Just look at all the “fulfilled” people rioting or starving, raped or butchered, as portrayed on TV news! How many embittered and disillusioned people are there today? How many who feel betrayed by their goals? How many knocked about by one setback after another? How many once-respected and prominent people broken, succumbing to various temptations, then gleefully busted in the media? How many groping through life with closets packed full of skeletons in their wake? And if some have found fulfillment in self-directed God-free life, (as some have) it's always with the caveat that, just as you begin to feel you've figured things out, your health starts to give out and off to the grave you go. Let's face it – there's a certain 'futility' built into this life. One may escape it for a time, but it eventually catches up with you.

    But this is merely an answer to those who'd assert the Christian life is a waste of time. We don't take such a fall-back position…we look to the fulfillment of all things God has promised. No one would ever assert, as regards the faith, that every 'i' is dotted nor 't' crossed. But there's enough to go on. It's like that definition of faith found at Heb 11:1: “Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.” It's not like that strong feeling one may get that “this time, for sure, my lottery number will come up.”  There's substance to it. A bit like (to oversimplify) one has little doubt the sun will arise next day, knowing the mechanics behind it.

    Alas, there is much to work against faith today. Atheists parade a no-God gospel almost with the zeal of, well….Jehovah's Witnesses, as if their message, too, was good news for all, and not just sawing off the branch upon which their sitting. Religious nutjobs blow up buildings, people and airplanes. The Pope evades arrest from grousers, for crying out loud, accused of shielding pedophile clergy. 'If this is God, I want no part of it!' say more and more people. Now….the prevalence of counterfeit money does not prove there's no such thing as real money, but many lump it all together anyway. Doesn't it add timeliness to Jesus question: “when the Son of man arrives, will he really find the faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8)

    Ah well. The work progresses. It speeds up a bit in the last year or two, perhaps as colossal failure of human economics causes some to reassess human rule. It's absolutely astounding that JWs buy out increasing time for the ministry, given the squeeze this system puts on everyone.

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    Tom Irregardless and Me       No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Chief Superintendent Maigret

    My all time favorite author says he's slept with 10,000 women in the course of his life. You gotta admit, that's a lot. From my virtuous vantage point, one wonders if it is even possible. Actually, he didn't say it himself, but it was some reporter who knew his habits made the calculation, and he said 'yeah….that sounds about right.'

    The author is Geoges Simenon (1903-1989), largely unknown in the U.S, but one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, and familiar everywhere else. Many of his novels are so sordid – should one be surprised? – you almost can't read them. I haven't gotten through many, and my motivation to do so quickly wanes. His own mother complained “"Why don't you ever write a book about nice people and good Catholics, instead of all these criminals?'" Indeed, I might not know of this author at all were it not for one remarkable fact: his most famous character, Chief Superintendent Maigret, protagonist of over 100 books and short stories – all murder mysteries – is as upright as his creator is decadent. One almost imagines the author inventing him as a sort of therapy, as if pining like a Michael Jackson of yesteryear for a normality that was never his. (not that he ever expressed any regret over the 10,000)
     
    The impossibly cozy home scenes of Chief Superintendent Maigret and Mdm. Maigret play almost as novelettes within novels – typifying that old-fashioned safe harbor that a person longs for after slogging it out in the rough-and-tumble world. Was marriage ever so tranquil, its participants so companionable? Don’t expect any racy sex scenes here nor even strong emotion, just pure domestic pleasantry. After solving a tough case, there is no better pastime for Maigret than to stroll arm in arm with his wife to the movies.

    You wouldn’t expect a series of murder stories would be joyful, but joy, good humor, and a sheer love of life, permeate the Maigret series. Maigret loves nothing more than to roam the streets of Paris, tracking all clues himself, interviewing whomever he can – page after page is unattributed dialog – defying superiors who want him to focus on bureaucratic drudgery and delegate the interesting stuff to underlings. Its from him I learned to savor bistros, sipping coffee or some such beverage (always alcoholic for him) absorbing the comings and goings of passerby. If he must catch a bus, hopefully its an open platform one, not one of those new-fangled jobs that imprison its passengers. He employs patience and plodding police work, and he benefits from the easy camaraderie of his staff. He absorbs scenes and people and clues almost subconsciously, and he arrives at the truth as much through intuition as deduction – not like that insufferable smart-ass Sherlock Holmes on the other side of the channel, who barely notices it’s people he’s dealing with – an atheist, I'm sure – who is wont to reduce everything to ciphers, and who, when case is closed, doesn't go home to his wife but snorts cocaine instead. 

    It’s as though Simenon channels all his love of life into these Maigret novels, and reserves his darker broodings (of which he has many) for other works. If there are sordid characters in a Maigret mystery, they are to be found among those he must investigate – do the French really do nothing but tipple and visit mistresses? Or is that only in the author’s mind? Meanwhile, Maigret and his colleagues embody the very essence of normality (just like the police in real life!).

    Maigret mysteries explore subtle psychological themes, themes rarely touched upon in popular literature – the interactions of class distinction, for one. Here, Maigret does not have the advantage. He's not an Hercule Poirot, able to look down on all the rest of humanity. The Chief Superintendent is solidly middle class, son of a peasant. Here are excerpts from one of my favorite Maigrets – Maigret in Retirement, in which the Chief is summoned to investigate shadiness amongst the upper crust, and the sleaziest fellow turns out to be an old schoolmate, lowly enough back then, but wealthy and full of himself now:

    As the two men were walking along the river bank, it must have looked as though one was holding the other on a leash, and Maigret, as sullen and clumsy as a big shaggy dog, was letting himself be pulled along….The fact was that he was ill at ease….Moreover, he hated people who suddenly spring up out of your past to pat you on the shoulder and address you familiarly….Ernest Malik, in short, represented a type of humanity that had always aroused his aversion.

    The fellow strode along with the utmost unconcern, free and easy in his beautifully cut white flannel suit, physically fit, with glossy hair and no hint of sweat on his skin despite the heat. He was already playing the great nobleman showing off his estates to a yokel. "This is where my domain begins…I've a few small boats, since one's got to amuse oneself somehow in this Godforsaken place…Do you like sailing?"

    What irony there was in his voice as he asked the heavily-built Superintendent if he liked sailing in one of the slender skiffs visible between the buoys!

    And Malik, with an ever more casual air, like a pretty woman toying carelessly with a jewel worth millions, seemed to be saying: "Take a good look, you great lout. This place belongs to Malik, to little Malik whom all of you contemptuously call the Tax-Collector because his father spent his days in a dark office, behind a grating."…Some Great Danes came up to lick his hands and he accepted their humble homage with indifference.

    …And in fact Maigret was ill at ease in this setting. Even the surroundings, too smooth and harmonious, irritated him. He felt no petty jealousy but an actual loathing of that immaculate tennis court, of the well-fed chauffeur whom he had seen polishing the sumptuous car. The landing -stage with its diving boards, its small boats moored all round, the swimming-pool, the trimmed trees, the smooth unblemished gravel paths were all part of a world into which he entered reluctantly and in which he felt terribly clumsy.

    What Witness of Jehovah hasn’t been there, and felt the subtle condescension of the la-de-da, the stifling atmosphere of wealth? It’s a curious fact that in the public ministry you might find yourself discussing the Bible in a run-down inner city home one hour and in some great imposing manor the next, and be comfortable in both. I’m grateful anytime that happens – that experience of transcending class boundaries – somewhat mirroring this description of Jesus from The Man From Nazareth:

    Alike in public and in private he associated with men and women on equal terms. He was at home with little children in their innocence and strangely enough at home too with conscience-stricken grafters like Zacchaeus. Respectable home-keeping women, such as Mary and Martha, could talk with him with natural frankness, but courtesans also sought him out as though assured that he would understand and befriend them . . . His strange unawareness of boundaries that hemmed ordinary people in is one of his most characteristic qualities.

    Of course, you're not as likely to be invited inside in the wealthier areas, for the loftier a man's home the more full of himself he becomes, so that he readily imagines himself above fraternizing with some door-to-door minister – a visitor with an inherently humble role. Still, it does happen – receptive people may be found anywhere – and no sooner do you start judging people when you come across someone who overturns all your tidy notions of what to expect.

    Again, from Maigret in Retirement (for as usual, the Chief Superintendent does get his man):

    With such men, one had a difficult moment to go through, the moment when in spite of oneself one is impressed by their fine houses, their cars, their servants, their manner….One must come to see them like the rest, naked and unadorned…

    Isn’t it really just as Prov 18:11 observes?

    The valuable things of the rich are his strong town, and they are like a protective wall in his imagination?  

    The definitive web resource for all things Maigret is http://www.trussel.com/f_maig.htm. Check it out. Here is a webmaster who keeps up with things both substantial and trivial. If Life Magazine ran an article on the Chief Superintendent sixty years ago, Trussel has it. There is even a forum section. Many months ago, I submitted a review of one of my favorite Maigrets, but it wasn't published. I sulked and sulked but then I got over it. Is the forum even open to all and sundry? Or maybe Truffle didn't think the review was any good. That's always plausible. These folks are really into Maigret…real aficionados, and perhaps not too indulgent with amateurs.

    I'm never certain how many Maigrets, if any, I've yet to read. Simenon wrote in French, and only gradually did they trickle into English. His last Maigret I just discovered browsing in the library: Maigret and the Killer. (not to be confused with Maigret and the Killers, an entirely different book) It wasn't on the shelves, though. The librarian said it was in storage, deep in the bowels of the building, and she'd go get in for me. Um…were there other Maigrets down there? I thought to ask only upon her return. Yes, there were quite a few, was the reply. Cool!!! Now there’s a summer pastime! If I'm late with an upcoming post or two, you'll know why.

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    Visit Smashwords bookstore.  Also available at Amazon & other ebook retailers.

     

  • Enemies

    As if 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 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 the book and record was entirely appropriate for its time. In fact, given the same circumstances, I believe Jehovah's Witnesses would do it again.

    In the wake of World War I, the mainline churches had proved 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, and an additional 21 million wounded. With another world war approaching, they showed every sign of resuming that role. Yet in the interim, they presumed to slide right back into that cozy seat of representing the Prince of Peace, claiming to speak in his name. And, showing their break with the Bible was complete, after the first war – dubbed the Great War, until it was dwarfed by an even greater World War II – they abandoned all pretense of God's Kingdom and trumpeted the man-made world government substitute, the League of Nations, hailing it as the "political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth."Of course, it wasn't, and the League went down twenty years after it's birth, trampled by that second world war. Yes, the religious leaders of Christendom were the enemies that record referred to.
     
    Eighty years later, it's hard to appreciate how enthusiastic church leaders were for the war, how they worked as cheerleaders for both sides. It doesn't seem believable. Surely, there must be an exaggeration. But, reflecting back, 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, in all cases 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)
     

    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 (Belgian newspaper)).

     
    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. (Quoted in Preachers Present Arms, Ray H Abrams, p. 68.))
     

    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 they and they alone speak for Christ? It's 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 gotta 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 blog, 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!” So I don't want to hear Sam Harris the Atheist whining about how moderate "good" churches don't condemn their more belligerent brethren – and how they refuse to "call a spade a spade." We did it before he was in diapers, and did it with a courage that he could never 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. They kept a stranglehold upon popular thought. Catholics, in particular, as you may have heard your 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. See again that previous post for another. 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 everyone else thought was rubbish.
     
    Some, taking the opposite view of the blogger quoted in the third paragraph, grouse 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.

    …………………….

    More early history here.

    *************************

    Tom Irregardless and Me        No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Floods in Our Enlightened Age

    Let's face it, Noah and the flood and the ark and the animals boarding two by two is hard for people to swallow. So, sure enough, after I posted I Don't do Floods this email landed on my desk:
     

    I truly wish I understood the mind that can accept, on faith and believe them to be factual events, such tales as a World-Wide flood not more than a few thousand years ago. I read the Little Red Book, God's Word or Man's and found it amazing that in this enlightened age, it could be taken seriously. Sticking strictly to the Old Testament, I asked a Jewish friend of mine how the Jews dealt with such stories as that of the flood. She mostly, just smiled.
     
    Speaking of science in connection with the Bible, I use the following quote from one of my all-time favorite writers. "Pure science is necessarily godless. It is incapable of worship. There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Reason, Observation and Experience, the Holy Trinity of Science have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others happy."
     
    ………………………………………
     
    Dear Person:
     
     
     
    “I truly wish I understood the mind that can accept, on faith and believe them to be factual events, such tales as a World-Wide flood “
     
    It’s because we approach the subject from two different vantage points. If I am cruising on the freeway at 60MPH, I’m not sure why I should be especially concerned about the scientist on the radio telling me my car doesn’t run. But if my car is up on blocks, I’ll pay him more attention.
     
    Put another way, if my multi-piece puzzle is fully assembled and I’ve reproduced that vista on the box cover, I may not pay too much attention to news reports that the product’s been recalled, the manufacturers jailed as hucksters. But if I’ve worked for weeks and can’t get any of the pieces to fit, I will turn up the volume and say “so that‘s why the damn thing won‘t come together!”
     
    And so if I am to answer your question, I must launch into another discussion of why I think Jehovah’s Witnesses have the truth and other religions don’t. And you will hate it, or at least you have hated it when I’ve ventured there in the past. But it’s the only answer to your question I can give; I’ve conceded more than once that current scientific consensus is not on my side. If I am to overlook such consensus, I have to give you a reason. You would take me to task if I did not.
     
    From prior discussions, I know we agree on the hellfire doctrine being nonsense. Punishment ought to fit the crime. To wit: putting a vile person to death does no injury to our sense of justice. Most human governments have seen fit to do that. But to torture someone forever for a few decades of wrongdoing? It’s vengeful and repulsive; we all know that. Issac Asimov observed that hell was "the drooling dream of a sadist" crudely affixed to an all-merciful God; if even human governments were willing to curtail cruel and unusual punishments, he muses, why would punishment in the afterlife not be restricted to a limited term.Of course, JWs have never taught hell. Most other faiths have; many still do.
     
    If there is a God who cares for us, you would hope that he would make himself knowable. The Trinity doctrine makes him absolutely incomprehensible. Father and Son being two separate beings, which we maintain, squares perfectly with our common sense. Jehovah’s Witnesses have never taught a trinity. Most churches have and do. Specifically, a trinity doctrine makes Christ’s sacrifice for humankind’s sins an unfathomable, syrupy mess. But if God caused his Son to be born a perfect man, and his life course counterbalances that of the only other perfect man, Adam, and thus he can buy back, or redeem, what Adam lost – listen, I’m not saying you have to believe it, but you must admit there is some internal logic there, and not just some gooey “God died to show how much he loves us.”
     
    Moreover, if God wants us in heaven, as all religions except for Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, why didn’t he put us there in the first place, for crying out loud??! What’s with this shell game of a stepping stone earth, from which we get promoted to heaven or sink to hell? How does that make any sense? But a promise that, under the proper government of God’s Kingdom, humans may live on earth forever ….well, that sure does square with his original act to start humans on earth with instructions to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the place. If God suspends this purpose temporarily while he works out the bugs  – bugs introduced through Adam’s rebellion – well, that’s not too hard to understand. We all know about working out bugs.
     
    The foregoing points have an internal logic to them…..the pieces fit together, much like a completed jigsaw puzzle. I realize that completing a puzzle does not prove the puzzle is genuine, but it sure is more impressive than not completing it. That’s what the churches are stuck with – a mess of ill-fitting pieces that you can’t do much with, so that you either sweep them into the wastebasket or say “ah, well, I’ll just believe it anyway.” Only a certain type of person can take the latter course. Jehovah's Witnesses don’t have to.
     
    So that’s why I’m not as influenced by the conclusions of our current "enlightened age" (is it really that enlightened?) as you may think I ought to be. We have a strong counterweight. Religions in general have no such counterweight, so their adherents are more easily toppled. You quoted your favorite writing on science. Here’s mine, from Max Planck the physicist: 

     
     

     A new truth does not establish itself by opponents seeing the light. Rather, the opponents eventually die, and a new generation arises who is familiar with the idea [paraphrased] People run in herd mentality, be they scientists or laymen.

     

    I’ll even add to that flood post a little. One commenter spoke of an ancient flood in Africa, and I responded with another example and the observation that there are probably many. In fact, as I’ve since read, there are; geologists find evidence of scores of massive ancient floods. Is it really so great a stretch to link them together? Another comment spoke of a possible fallacy in current (biological) dating methods. Now, assigning, from our time, the dates of eons-ago events is intriguing, to be sure, but I sometimes wonder if it is not like swinging a baseball bat while gripping only the sixteenth of an inch on the end. Are we really so adept at it as we think we are? Or might some new view come along someday to sweep all our current understandings away? It’s not as if such things haven’t happened before. Lastly, accounts of a worldwide flood abound in the legends of many peoples, which is not proof, I understand, but not bad corroborating evidence.

    ***********************************

    Tom Irregardless and Me       No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

     

     

     

  • I Don’t Do Floods

    Every so often someone will challenge me to “prove” the flood with science. But I don’t do floods. The cost/benefit doesn't work out.

    I mean, if you’re going to debate something in Genesis, do creation. There are incentives to demonstrating creation; it is a truth that has consequences. For example, Paul, writing to the Corinthians, tells how the last Adam undoes the damage caused by the first Adam:

     It is even so written: “The first man Adam became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.   1 Cor 15:45

    Adam’s sin impacts not just himself. It also impacts the generations that would come from him, condemning them to sin and death. Jesus (the last Adam) takes the consequences of that sin upon himself, and so he provides a basis for freeing humankind. Without a first Adam, the whole provision of Christ's sacrifice is meaningless. So there is a reason to establish the creation account as genuine. But the flood? There’s no real consequences to establishing that as true. Here and there other Bible writers refer to it, as they do to most OT events, but other than that, what really hinges on it? If you win, all you've done is demonstrate the Bible is correct on that particular point, leaving all the other points for grousers to take aim at.

    Moreover, as an explanation for life's origin, one can maintain that the opposite of creation – evolution founded in spontaneous origin-of-life – is ridiculous.. But there’s nothing especially preposterous about the opposite of a flood: a 'no flood.' So why go there? You should not run with this ball. You should punt.

    Of course, it’s not as though you are left – ahem – high and dry. You can garner bits of supporting evidence. You can answer questions like:

    Q: Where did the water come from?

    A: Let an expanse come to be in between the waters and let a dividing occur between the waters and the waters.” Then God proceeded to make the expanse and to make a division between the waters that should be beneath the expanse and the waters that should be above the expanse. And it came to be so. And God began to call the expanse Heaven.    (Gen 1:6-8)  So it looks as though earth at one time had waters suspended above “the expanse,” maybe they served to moderate temperature extremes that pummel the planet today – like a giant greenhouse. This might also explain why ancient tropical animals are excavated in arctic areas today. When this expanse emptied, earth’s climate changed in a flash:

    In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on this day all the springs of the vast watery deep were broken open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And the downpour upon the earth went on for forty days and forty nights.    Gen 7:11,12

    Q: Where did the water go?

    A: If you took the earth and made it “rounder,” we’d all be under water. Conversely, if you take a round earth, raise some mountains and sink some ocean trenches, you have provided a place for the waters to drain. Did this happen?

    Mountains proceeded to ascend, valley plains proceeded to descend—to the place you have founded for them.    Ps 104:8

    Q: Where is the geological evidence for a flood?

    A: We maintain it is all around us, largely misinterpreted as evidence of “ice ages.”

    So you have some answers. You’re not left a sitting duck for those who challenge you about the flood. Still, it's merely corroborating evidence. It doesn’t prove anything. In the final analysis, you end up saying you accept the flood because “the Bible says so,” thus provoking howls and catcalls from the atheists. Why go there?

    So I don't like to debate it, since even if you win, you've gained nothing. Yes, yes, the demons had their downfall just before the flood, provoking it. But you really think that will help your case? If some atheist challenges you about the flood, don't think telling him about demons will bail you out.

    Now, there is nothing so terrible about something who's proof lies mostly with internal evidence – in this case "the Bible says so." The same can be said of evolutionary pschology, which rests completely upon absolute acceptance of biological evolution. You could not attempt to prove it otherwise. Yes, there are facts that corroborate with the notion, just like I have outlined a few for the flood, but nothing that even begins to prove it.

    A while back, former staff scientist here at the Whitepebble Institute, Tom Tombaugh, achieved scientific stardom when he proposed that ear-splitting flatulence evolved over the eons as a defense mechanism to scare off predators. But then his colleagues discovered he was joking. Tom had thought he might actually pull it off, though, in view of this recent letter published in the Economist (Jan 24th, 2009). Referring to a previous article on evolutionary psychology, the writer notes:

    "Everything is ex-post reasoning: we can run fast, detect cheating, kill our stepchildren, because…and here you simply insert anything from the days of being a member of a small, close-knit endangered tribe to justify this. With this one can explain almost everything without actually ever bothering to prove anything."

    Pretty much the same as 'I believe the flood, since the Bible says so', I'd say.

    Are there aspects of a worldwide flood that seem to contradict current findings of science? Yeah, there are. But perhaps today's conclusions will change. For now, a guy really can't go wrong quoting the former Beatle, John Lennon. He observed: "everything they told me as a kid has already been disproved by the same type of 'experts' who made them up in the first place."

    Just try challenging a former Beatle on this blog. Just try it.

    ******  The bookstore


     

  • For Mac

    “Once you learn the truth, it doesn’t change; it doesn’t flip around like worldly reasonings. Once you learn what God requires of you, just do it.” That was Mac Campbell’s reasoning, and nobody can ever say that he didn’t “just do it.” Unique even among Jehovah’s Witnesses, he died last week at age 85. He and I had kept up over the years, so I was there for the funeral. Surely, the verse was true of him:

    “a name is better than good oil, and the day of death than the day of one’s being born. Better is it to go to the house of mourning than to go to the banquet house, because that is the end of all mankind; and the one alive should take [it] to his heart.” (Ecces 7:1) On his day of his death, Mac’s record is his. No one can take it from him.

    Mac specialized in a type of ministry rare these days – “street work.” Not the type of street work where you approach passersby, but the type where you just stand there and they (ideally) approach you. A couple dozen years ago the JW organization started to discourage that type of witnessing. Don’t just stand there like a sign post, they’d say, what can you possibly accomplish by that? Sure enough, two or three times I’d gone downtown and just stood there like a sign post. After a time, I began to feel like one. People would whiz by you – did you even exist? But when I endeavored to move and mingle and approach people – the ministry, though a bit more stressful, became both enjoyable and productive.

    Still, Mac made a success of the old style street work. He did it because he was always there. Ever  immaculate in appearance, he staked out a position on Main Street and made it his own. They’ve since boarded up that abandoned doorway – I don’t know what he’d do now – but he’d been off the streets for several years, incapacitated by poor health.  He was as much a fixture as any Rochester landmark. Businesspeople would eye him a dozen times or so, eavesdrop, note that he was amiable, dignified, in no way a screwball, and would end up chatting regularly. He’d spend all day speaking with people.

    Probably that’s how he caught quirky Bob Lonsberry’s attention. Bob is a radio fixture here, and was once a fixture of the newspapers. He wrote about Mac in his “Real People” series back in July of 1992: [nobody was more real than Mac]  “In friendly conversation, Malcolm is hard to reject. He is commanding of respect; he’s dignified. He is 68, married 45 years and a grandfather of 18, [he took Gen 1:28 –be fruitful and become many and fill the earth – seriously, the funeral speaker pointed out.] coming back from a stroke last year.”

    His manner, speech and appearance were the match of the most prominent businesspersons, with whom he frequently spoke. They would have been amazed had they known his modest circumstances. They would have been more amazed had they known it was by design. Mac worked part-time in basic blue collar-type work, which provided enough so that the majority of time was his, and that was all he asked. Even among us, who constantly hear the virtue of simplification, few have the combination of faith and capability to simplify to that extent, particularly while raising a family. Yet, spending time with Mac made it seem quite doable and reasonable, and you began to wonder why you weren’t doing it also.

    He was a frugal kind of guy. There he was, having run across this fellow who had built his own furnace from scratch, going on and on about it. Why would anyone do that? his pal responded – just call a furnace guy. But Mac was always impressed with those who could make do. Wasn’t it he who defined (in 1982) the phrase “keeping up with the Jones?” It was “spending money you don’t have, to buy things you don’t need, to impress people you don’t like.” He had that green Volare – he must have driven that 100 years. One day, stopping by, there were two of them in his driveway. Identical. Same color and all. One was for parts. “You probably paid more for those shoes than I did for this car,” he told a visitor. Sure enough, the shoes had cost more.

    If that impresses me, it’s because it is a quality I don’t have. Alas, with some justification Mrs Sheepandgoats has accused me of living the motto “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, don’t fix it.” I’m not especially handy, which makes me appreciate guys who are.

    Mac was also a put-together guy, again, something I am not. He told of one fellow who would pat his shirt pocket just once to find his pen. If it wasn’t there, he didn’t have it. He wouldn’t pat down his shirt pocket, then his pants pockets, then his coat pockets, then do it all over again, then pull stuff out of all pockets to make sure, like I would do. No. He was organized. There was only one place that pen could possibly be. Mac, too, had that sort of organization.

    And he wouldn’t blow his horn. On the mean streets of Rochester, where people routinely block traffic so they can kibitz with their pals – not in the snooty suburbs, where “such things just aren’t done” – but in the city where they are done all the time, Mac wouldn’t blast his horn to break up the jam. “Daddy, just blow your horn,” his daughter would say, “that’s what people do.” But Mac wouldn’t. “You never know when you are the last straw,” he’d observe.

    He kind of hoped – in vain, as it turned out – that his own funeral would not be a big deal. “Just put me in a pine box and lay me down quietly,” he’d say. "Don’t make a fuss over me.“ He was troubled that his death would inconvenience people, make them take a day off work, and such. (Indeed, for a time, funerals did get out of hand, with some high-profile people filling up the whole assembly hall, but I think that is not done anymore) “Mac, it’s not for you, it’s for us,” a friend retorted. “You’ll be asleep. We’re the ones who’ll be comforted by it.” He smiled, in the way that Mac did. That was the only answer that could have prevented him from going on and on.

    I served with him once in one of the congregations, and had more or less kept up with him since, visiting him at home a few lengthy times, and always seeking him out at conventions. “You going to visit me again?” he asked at the last convention. “It depends on if you’ll give me a beer,” I responded. Mac was hospitable, and he liked beer. “I’ll give you a whole case,” he replied.

    Six months later, in one of those strange convergences that you don’t quite know what to make of afterwards, I was mentioning to my wife how I was going to pop in for a visit – I brought the subject up several times. But I was too late. Next meeting they announced that he’d passed away.

    I’ll probably hear about it upon his resurrection.

    ************

    More in the Afterword of Tom Irregardless and Me      "Black Mack, Slow Joe and Davey the Kid"

  • Beating Swords Into Plowshares

    Jehovah’s Witnesses’ determination not to make war was never so severely tested as during World War II, when the whole world came down with war fever.

    Their determination, of course, stems from the Bible's directive to learn war no more. These words adorn the U.N. building in New York:

    And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore.    Isa 2:4

    For the U.N. it makes a catchy and inspirational slogan. For Jehovah’s Witnesses it makes a way of life. If you’re not going to apply those words in time of war, just when do you apply them?

    Yet, the course is much easier said than done. In nations under Nazi rule, following the course landed you in concentration camps. Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the first inmates there, preceding the far-more-numerous Jews. They were the only group who could “write their ticket” out by renouncing their faith and pledging Nazi support. Only a handful took advantage of the offer.

    In the United States, Jehovah’s Witnesses took the same stand amidst much opposition. Where applicable…that is, where persons had ministerial duties in the congregation or occupied themselves full time in outside ministry…. some would request the 4D “ministerial” exemption their local draft board. “Church” ministers never had the slightest difficulty obtaining such exemptions. For Jehovah’s Witnesses, they were invariably denied. Draft boards recognized not the scriptural or even legal definition of “minister,“ they only knew the popular definition of a minister: one who “had a church“ and “got paid.”

    Paul the apostle would not have fared well under this definition.  He was not paid for his ministry. He worked to support himself. He ministered mostly to those on the outside, not inside a "church." (the word rendered "church" in the NT always refers to a group of people, never a building. Accordingly, the New World Translation renders the word "congregation.") For example:

    ….on account of being of the same trade he [Paul] stayed at their home, and they worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. However, he would give a talk in the synagogue every Sabbath and would persuade Jews and Greeks.    Acts 18:3,4

    And:

    Certainly you bear in mind, brothers, our labor and toil. It was with working night and day, so as not to put an expensive burden upon any one of you, that we preached the good news of God to you.    1 Cor 2:9

    For that matter, Jesus wouldn’t have fared well.  Everyone knows he worked as a carpenter. And sending his followers out to preach, he told them “you received free, give free.”    Matt 10:8

    Both Paul and Jesus would have been denied 4D ministerial exemption. Would they have gone to war?

    Neither did Jehovah’s Witnesses fare well. Though their ministry might plainly be the most important thing in their lives, and the time spent thereof exceed time spent in any secular work, draft boards would generally only recognize the “mercenary ministers,“ those who did it for pay.

    Occasionally a judge or two would rule our way. Attorney Victor Blackwell tells of a young Witness he represented who, per the Biblical and legal definition, plainly was a minister. Before he could complete his argument, the District Court judge took up his case, saying:

    "If I remember my Bible, our Lord was a carpenter, Peter and John were fishermen, and Paul a tent-maker. They were ministers. Young man, I commend you for working at an honest occupation to support yourself and your ministry. I wish my preacher would go to work."

    Mr. Blackwell represented hundreds of our people during the hot years of WWII and immediately afterwards. He recorded his experiences in his 1976 book Oer the Ramparts They Watched. (Carlton Press, NY)

    Far more typical was another experience he relates:** After giving light sentences, each one suspended in favor of probation, to a dozen or so who had confessed to various crimes against society, some quite serious, the judge turned his attention to our brother:

    “Your whole life record is spotless. You were a model young man in high school, no smoking, no drinking, no fighting, no running around. One of the finest pre-sentence reports I have ever read.

     Do you have any words to say before I sentence you?”

     The youth replied he did not.

     “Do you, Mr. Blackwell, wish to say anything in behalf of your client?”

     “Considering that fine report Your Honor has just read, and the leniency shown toward the others who just appeared before you, it would be unthinkable that you would send this youth to prison.”

    The sentence: “I cannot tolerate that someone like this will defy the law. I sentence you to serve two years in some institution to be designated by the Attorney General.”

    Often our youths were sentenced with considerable emotion, which runs high in wartime. Like this one:

    “I sentence you to five years in a federal prison to be approved by the Attorney General. My only regret, you yellow coward, is that I cannot give you twenty five years.”

    Better than a German concentration camp, to be sure. Nonetheless, there was price to pay for all who would actually apply the words of Isaiah 2:4 and refuse to “learn war.”

    It was only after the war, after hundreds of youths had been sent off to prison, that some judicial high courts began to see matters differently. From the opinion of Wiggins v U.S. for instance:

    ….Ministers of Jehovah’s Witnesses are not paid a salary, furnished a parsonage, or even given funds for necessary expenses to carry on their ministerial work. As pointed out, they have no choice except to engage in secular pursuits in order to obtain funds to make the ministry their vocation. The Act (Selective Training and Service Act, 1940) does not define a minister in terms of one who is paid for ministerial work, has a diploma or license, preached and teaches primarily in a church. The test under the Act is not whether a minister is paid for his ministry but whether, as a vocation, regularly, not occasionally, he teaches and preaches the principles of his religion.

    This favorable [to us] decision was of the Fifth Federal Circuit Court and thus was not binding everywhere, but nonetheless stood as a template. When the government appealed the case to the Supreme Court, that Court declined to review it, letting the case stand.

    …………………………………

    ** Unlike the preceding and succeeding cases, this youth was a “rank and file” Witness and thus made no claim for ministerial exemption. He was assigned 1-O status (conscientious objector) status and assigned to “civilian work of national importance.” Finding this work squarely in support of the war effort, his conscience would not permit him to comply, and for this he was prosecuted.

    Nearly two centuries prior to this, General George Washington had written descendents of William Penn [Quakers]:

    Government being, among other purposes, instituted to protect the person and consciences of men from oppression it certainly is the duty of rulers, not only to abstain from it themselves, but according to their station to prevent it in others.

    I assure you explicitly, that in my opinion the conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire that laws may always be as extensively accommodated to them, as a due regard to the protection and essential interests of the nation many justify and permit.

    But in wartime, emotions run very hot.

    …………………………………………………..

    The foregoing all happened in the United States. Each nation has its own story, and some continue right up to the present. The country most behind the curve today appears to be South Korea. Awake! Magazine (December 2008) interviews Chong-Il Park, who was the first of a long line of Korean Witnesses to be sent to prison for refusing military service.

    “Coward! You are afraid of dying at the front lines. You are trying to evade military service of the pretence of your religious conscience.” With those words, he was beaten and subsequently sentenced to three years imprisonment. That was in 1953, when there were less than 100 JWs in the entire country and their beliefs, let alone those of neutrality, were little understood.

    Today there are  94,000 Witnesses in South Korea. “Many who were imprisoned as conscientious objectors when they were young men have seen their sons, and even their grandsons, go to prisons for the same reason,” relates Mr. Park. Specifically, the numbers are 13,000 over the years, and 600 at present. Park expresses hope the situation may change. “One lawyer who had prosecuted a Witness conscientious objector even wrote an open letter of apology for what he had done, and it was published in a well-known magazine,” says he.

    ……………………………………………..

    Another exchange from Mr. Blackwell’s book:

    Judge:  "This whole matter troubles me. What, with Jehovah’s Witnesses increasing and spreading out all over the earth, if everybody got to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, where would we be…."

    Blackwell: "Your honor, if everybody on earth became Jehovah’s Witnesses, there would be no war, and no need for armed forces of any kind, in any nation. Would the Court object to that state of affairs?"

    Proceed with the case, the judge said.

     

    ***********************

    Tom Irregardless and Me                    No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Felix, Festus, Agrippa, and Paul

     

    When Paul's visit sparked a riot in Ephesus, the Romans came and took him into protective custody. Not too protective, though. The Roman officer in charge wanted to know why all the ruckus and figured he’d beat it out of Paul. But Paul was a Roman citizen and, as such, had certain rights.

    But when they had stretched him out for the whipping, Paul said to the army officer standing there: “Is it lawful for you men to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?” Well, when the army officer heard this, he went to the military commander and made report, saying: “What are you intending to do? Why, this man is a Roman.” So the military commander approached and said to him: “Tell me, Are you a Roman?” He said: “Yes.” The military commander responded: “I purchased these rights as a citizen for a large sum [of money].” Paul said: “But I was even born [in them].” Immediately, therefore, the men that were about to examine him with torture withdrew from him; and the military commander became afraid on ascertaining that he was a Roman and that he had bound him.      Acts 22:22-29

    Paul never came out from under house arrest.  He appealed his case to Caesar. The book of Acts from this chapter on relates his travels to Rome. Along the way he met a bevy of officials, some petty, some major, and he pitched Christianity to each one. They all ran for cover, same as folks do today. They all had their reasons, same as folks do today.

    First off was provincial governor Felix:

    Some days later Felix arrived with Drusilla his wife, who was a Jewess, and he sent for Paul and listened to him on the belief in Christ Jesus. But as he talked about righteousness and self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and answered: “For the present go your way, but when I get an opportune time I shall send for you again.”     Acts 24:24-25

    What was it that made him sweat? All was fine until Paul brought up “righteousness and self-control and the judgment to come.” Felix wasn‘t really that great of a guy:

     [Wikipedia on Antonius Felix:" Felix’s cruelty and licentiousness, coupled with his accessibility to bribes, led to a great increase of crime in Judaea. To put down the Zealots he favored an even more violent sect, the Sicarii ("Dagger-men"), by whose aid he contrived the murder of the high-priest Jonathan. The period of his rule was marked by internal feuds and disturbances, which he put down with severity."]

    We run into that a lot, too. Sure, the truth promises a world without war…who wouldn’t want that? And a world without sickness, or even death. An earth made beautiful…..same as God originally intended it….sure does sound appealing. If only it were not for that “righteousness and self-control and the judgment to come!” We live in a time in which people want to do exactly what they want to do. The title of a current JW publication says it all: “What Does God Require of Us.” Surely when man and his Creator meet up, it won’t be the man telling God how things should be done. (though you'd never know that to hear certain ones bellyache on the web. Just like at Ezekiel 18:25: And you people will certainly say: “The way of Jehovah is not adjusted right.” Hear, please, O house of Israel. Is not my own way adjusted right? Are not the ways of you people not adjusted right?) He does require certain things of us…adjustments in our  thinking and ways and of living…. otherwise life would already be panacea, all problems would be readily solved and we wouldn’t need him.

    Felix didn't release Paul. He handed him off to the next governor, Festus. (Unlike, Felix, the internet has very little to say about Festus of the Bible, but a great deal to say about Festus Haggen, the scruffy sidekick of Marshall Dillon in Gunsmoke. Such is today's culchure.) Festus heard Paul out and thought he would make for great entertainment when his crony king Agrippa rolled into town. Over after-dinner drinks, perhaps, Festus briefed Agrippa on Paul’s plight:

    “There is a certain man left prisoner by Felix, and when I was in Jerusalem the chief priests and the older men of the Jews brought information about him, asking a judgment of condemnation against him. But I replied to them that it is not Roman procedure to hand any man over as a favor before the accused man meets his accusers face to face and gets a chance to speak in his defense concerning the complaint. [actually, he replied just the opposite. He was more than ready to hand Paul over………….Acts 25:9-11] Therefore when they got together here, I made no delay, but the next day I sat down on the judgment seat and commanded the man to be brought in. Taking the stand, the accusers produced no charge of the wicked things I had supposed concerning him. They simply had certain disputes with him concerning their own worship of the deity and concerning a certain Jesus who was dead but who Paul kept asserting was alive. So, being perplexed as to the dispute over these matters, I proceeded to ask if he would like to go to Jerusalem and there be judged concerning these matters. But when Paul appealed to be kept for the decision by the August One, I commanded him to be kept until I should send him on up to Caesar.”

    Here Agrippa [said] to Festus: “I myself would also like to hear the man.” “Tomorrow,” he said, “you shall hear him.” Therefore, on the next day, Agrippa and Bernice came with much pompous show and entered into the audience chamber together with military commanders as well as men of eminence in the city, and when Festus gave the command, Paul was brought in. And Festus said: “King Agrippa and all you men who are present with us, you are beholding this man concerning whom all the multitude of the Jews together have applied to me both in Jerusalem and here, shouting that he ought not to live any longer. But I perceived he had committed nothing deserving of death. So when this [man] himself appealed to the August One, I decided to send him. But concerning him I have nothing certain to write to [my] Lord. Therefore I brought him forth before you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, in order that, after the judicial examination has taken place, I might get something to write. For it seems unreasonable to me to send a prisoner and not also to signify the charges against him.”


    Agrippa said to Paul: “You are permitted to speak in behalf of yourself.” Then Paul stretched his hand out and proceeded to say in his defense: “Concerning all the things of which I am accused by Jews, King Agrippa, I count myself happy that it is before you I am to make my defense this day, especially as you are expert on all the customs as well as the controversies among Jews. Therefore I beg you to hear me patiently.

    Paul gives an account of his past and how he came to be where he was. Some of it is a bit much for Festus…..a man can only stand so much religion, after all…. who interrupted:

    Now as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said in a loud voice: “You are going mad, Paul! Great learning is driving you into madness!”    Acts 26:24

    That, too, we get a lot. Though its not generally phrased that way. Usually it’s less respectful, more along the lines of “you've got your noses stuck in that Bible so much that……" and so forth. But “great learning” back then centered on spiritual or philosophical things, and Paul did center his life there, as do Jehovah's Witnesses today.

    Paul wasn’t put off in the slightest. Rather, he homed in on Agrippa:

    Paul said: “I am not going mad, Your Excellency Festus, but I am uttering sayings of truth and of soundness of mind. In reality, the king to whom I am speaking with freeness of speech well knows about these things; for I am persuaded that not one of these things escapes his notice, for this thing has not been done in a corner. Do you, King Agrippa, believe the Prophets? I know you believe.” But Agrippa said to Paul: “In a short time you would persuade me to become a Christian.”

    Whoa! Back off, fella! Needless to say, we get that a lot, too.

    At this Paul said: “I could wish to God that whether in a short time or in a long time not only you but also all those who hear me today would become men such as I also am, with the exception of these bonds.”   vs. 29

    Nothing great about the bonds! All else was good, though. His efforts to persuade in behalf of Christianity may have met with resistance, but Paul did establish his innocence of the charges against him:

    And the king rose and so did the governor and Bernice and the men seated with them. But as they withdrew they began talking with one another, saying: “This man practices nothing deserving death or bonds.” Moreover, Agrippa said to Festus: “This man could have been released if he had not appealed to Caesar.”             vs. 30-32

    Paul’s appeal took him to Rome soon enough. His custody was relaxed and he had much freedom to move about. He went to the senior Jewish leaders to explain himself. Maybe they’d heard bad reports about him?

    They said to him: “Neither have we received letters concerning you from Judea, nor has anyone of the brothers that has arrived reported or spoken anything wicked about you. But we think it proper to hear from you what your thoughts are, for truly as regards this sect it is known to us that everywhere it is spoken against.”              Acts 28:21-22

    Boy, do we ever get that! “Everywhere it is spoken against.” If that was a trademark of real Christianity back then, it is just as much so today. We’re sort of used to it, and in fact, would wonder what was wrong if it wasn’t the case. Christianity and “the world” are not supposed to be on friendly terms:

    Adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of God.       James 4:4

    The final verses of the book of Acts shows how Paul spent his final days in Rome.

    So he remained for an entire two years in his own hired house, and he would kindly receive all those who came in to him, preaching the kingdom of God to them and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with the greatest freeness of speech, without hindrance.      vs. 30-31

    We kind of hope for that too, to be able to preach with freeness of speech and without hindrance. Sometimes that is the case. Sometimes not.

     

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    Tom Irregardless and Me           No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

     

     

     

  • Super Pioneer

    Oh, very well!

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEpC2jte2_o

    What can one say? Most of Jehovah's Witnesses will love it. As for everyone else…..well, I just don't know.

    Clever kid.

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    Tom Irregardless and Me           No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash