To be honest, until a few weeks ago, I knew two things about the Witnesses: a very fine family from my childhood was of this faith and part of the Witnesses' "job" is to go out into the world (including people's homes) and proclaim their message. (Which always brings to mind the old joke "What do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with a Unitarian? Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason.)
A class assignment has me reading Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution by Shawn Francis Peters. While I'm only halfway through the book, which describes the persecution the Witnesses experienced here in the U.S. on the eve of WWII, I can tell you that the irony of suppressing one's religious freedoms in the name of patriotism is not lost on the author. It had me thinking about the often misguided attempts at "out-patrioting" we witnessed (and still do) in the post-9/11 era.
What got the American Legion and others wound up to the point of brutalizing hundreds of Witnesses in the 1940s stemmed from a number of court cases, including a Supreme Court case involving children who refused to salute the flag on religious grounds (which rings similarly to my own thoughts on forced patriotism, although I haven't used the term idolatry to describe it, oh, and I didn't get the crap beaten out of me, either).
So, we sat in on a nearly two-hour meeting of the faithful and looked up a seemingly endless stream of biblical one-liners. They're an earnest people, these Witnesses. They have strong beliefs, yet they proclaim humbly. I mean it, too. Think of the amount of conviction it takes to go up to a stranger's door and share deeply held beliefs as if it were a point of life or death. And for them it really is that deadly serious. I asked the woman who was gracious enough to sit with me and answer questions after the meeting about what it was like to go "in the field" and do ministry. She admitted that if it were any other topic, she'd be scared to death, but all their time in study has given her the confidence of her topic. More importantly, she goes out not because she can; she goes out because she must. Powerful words spoken by a pretty unassuming woman.
I won't go into their beliefs. While they're based on the same set of scriptures that I use when preparing a sermon (although they use a different translation), the conclusions they reach are far different from my own. However, many of the traditions, such as allowing only male members the ability to preach in the assembly, are not that different from other faith traditions with which I am more familiar, including a couple of the more conservative Lutheran denominations. And for those who know the term, they also seem to adhere to a "fellowship doctrine" that is eerily familiar to someone who was exposed to the strange German Lutheran ways. Curiously enough, my escort mentioned that when it comes to day-to-day operations, including much of the door-to-door ministry, it's the women who do the bulk of the work. Again, a not unfamiliar concept for most of the Christian denominations I've been exposed to - the women do the fundraising and mission work behind the scenes. Regardless of the religious bent, women once again wear the heavy robe of the suffering servant with a quiet grace that renders me speechless.
So, what did I get out of the experience? Do I see myself joining them as a member in the future? Not likely. I've traveled entirely too many miles on a different path than theirs. That doesn't mean that I couldn't don my entirely appropriate long, black skirt and join them on their own turf again in the future. They're decent people with a genuine concern for others and for each other. While their beliefs are not my own, they have their eyes on a prize that is only attained by following a carefully ordered plan. What they want, is summed up in the final sentence of their Watchtower lesson of the day, "Yes, if we prove to be real followers of Christ, we will receive God's favor, and our future will be secure as if founded on rock!"
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