The gravitas behind the adage “Ignorance is bliss” is truly frightening when talking about religion. Organized religion is certainly a source of peace for many people, and a source of pain for many others. Although there are many different religions and practices, there is always a structure behind each belief system. Most people come to a religion because they value the belief system behind it. However, organized religion creates an atmosphere of fear that can be exploited by terrorists.
Those who follow the teachings of a religion live in fear of a higher being who has power over their lives. Because of this fear, these people are easily influenced if they are convinced that the higher being will punish them if certain conditions are not met. Religion provides a system of rules that come with punishments, and the enforcement of these rules is what keeps the people in a religion in that religion (Jerry S. Piven “Religious Psychosis Terrorism” 121). One extreme group comes to mind. The Jehovah’s Witnesses of the Watchtower Bible and Tract are not well known, but have structured their religion to be structurally violent to many peoples within their religion.
Before talking about the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, I’d like to establish my credibility as a someone able to speak about Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was raised in and am stuck in the religion, as were my parents, my grandparents, and my entire extended family. Because of my circumstances, I am highly qualified to talk about the religion from an insider’s perspective. As of now, my position in the congregation is that of an Unbaptized Publisher, which means that I am one step away from baptism and being permanently roped into the religion. I feel that my narrative brings a deeper level of understanding Jehovah’s Witnesses, rather than someone who researched the religion but has not been immersed in it.
The core belief of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is similar to all other Christianities: The world is doomed, and everyone else will die except us. However, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in all people going to heaven or hell. Instead, a person has the chance to save their own life by preaching and staying in the organization. This fictional life or death situation the the Watchtower Society creates is certainly effective at bringing in new members. A reliance on fear is evident in their literature which always set up life or death situations in the beginning of the article or magazine issue. The topic of the 2016 third issue of the public ‘Watchtower’ is “When a Loved One Dies.” Right from the beginning, a reader is manipulated into imagining their friends and family dead, or perhaps have already experienced loss. The Watchtower Society plays to this emotion, and lures people into their religion by saying that you will be able to see your family and friends once again.
The structure of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion is comparable to trickle down economics. The people at the top, which, unsurprisingly, are all men, are called the Governing Body. The Governing Body dictates doctrine, and their word is law. They are believed to be hand picked by God, and are supposed to lead everybody through Armageddon. None of the seven men in the Governing Body work to support themselves. Their “work” is to fly around the world and give sermons, or as Jehovah’s Witnesses call them, “talks.” In addition to giving talks and determining doctrine, the Governing Body is in charge of Traveling Overseers.
Traveling Overseers are appointed by the governing body and are representatives of the Jehovah’s Witness headquarters. Duties of a Traveling Overseer include overseeing several congregations, visiting each congregation twice in a year. Similar to members of the Governing Body, the Traveling Overseers also give talks at the congregations they visit, and, similar to how the Governing Body appoints Traveling Overseers, appoint Elders within the congregation.
The Elders and Ministerial Servants, seen mostly as aids to the Elders, comprise the lowest tier of authority within the Watchtower Society. This group of people are in charge of maintaining the congregations that they attend. This means handling the sound system at the Kingdom Hall, organizing the people (men) who will speak at each meeting (church service), and organizing the territory to preach in. Even though they are the lowest form of authority within the whole Watchtower Society, in the congregation, they still hold a lot of power, since they are hand-picked by God through the Governing Body who appointed the Traveling Overseers who appointed the Elders.
That being said, none of the aforementioned men have any authority on anybody unless that person is baptized into the Watchtower Society. Baptism is the formal and public induction to the Watchtower Society. With baptism, a person acknowledges that Jehovah is the “one true god,” (John 3:17) and more importantly, acknowledges the power of the Elders, Traveling Overseers, and Governing Body as absolute. Getting baptized means that you will dedicate your life to serving God and ‘his’ organization.
Baptism is an integral part of the Watchtower Society’s control tactics. It is a lifetime agreement in their eyes, and one extremely important detail left out in the agreement of baptism is that if you break one of the more serious rules, you get kicked out, or in their vernacular, disfellowshipped. This means that you are not allowed to talk to your family or friends, and they cannot talk to you lest they risk being disfellowshipped too. In most cases, the disfellowshipped person is kicked out of the house.
To truly understand the effects of being disfellowshipped, the social situation of the individual being disfellowshipped. In most cases, the individual has been brought up in the religion, meaning the individual followed the rules a baptized person would. This entails not celebrating any holidays or birthdays, not voting, not being gay, abstaining from sexual intercourse before marriage, going to the meetings twice a week, going out to preach for many hours a month, not researching into the Watchtower Society through sources not approved by them, and, perhaps most importantly, not pursuing higher education or having friends outside of the Watchtower Society. There are a myriad more rules that have not been brought up, but these are the main ones.
The Watchtower Society employ these rules and regulations to keep the religion extremely insular. For example, by putting a stigma on higher education and glorifying the preaching work, the Watchtower Society kills two birds with one stone. On one hand, people get excited about preaching. Within the Society, it is referred to as life-saving work. In their minds, not only are they saving their own lives by preaching, but they are potentially saving the lives they preach to. On the other hand, it keeps the Jehovah’s Witnesses generally uneducated and easier to control. This makes it extremely hard for people in the religion to have an educated on anything outside of their religion since they mostly have a high school education. Within the organization, there is no critical thinking, since all of their literature is perhaps the reading level of a high school freshman.
By keeping the religion extremely insular, kids who grow up in the religion only know and are friends with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their whole world is the Watchtower Society. Combined with the idea that everyone outside the realm of Jehovah’s Witnesses are evil and under Satan’s influence, and the resulting ignorance of the real world, a person raised as a Jehovah’s Witness would not want to go out into the “real” world. By cutting a person off from the people outside the religion, and then enforcing a policy that is able to isolate you from all of your friends and family, the Watchtower Society rules the people in their religion through fear and intimidation. The following is a direct quote on how to treat a disfellowshipped person, taken from one of the Watchtower Society’s publications, Keep Yourselves In God’s Love:
Few things can hurt us more deeply than the pain we suffer when a relative or a close friend is expelled from the congregation for unrepentant sin. How we respond to the Bible’s direction on this matter can reveal the depth of our love for God and of our loyalty to his arrangement. Consider some questions that arise on this subject.
How should we treat a disfellowshipped person? The Bible says: “Stop keeping company with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man.” (1 Corinthians 5:11) Regarding everyone who “does not remain in the teaching of the Christ,” we read: “Do not receive him into your homes or say a greeting to him. For the one who says a greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works.” (2 John 9-11) We do not have spiritual or social fellowship with disfellowshipped ones. The Watchtower of September 15, 1981, page 25, stated: “A simple ‘Hello’ to someone can be the first step that develops into a conversation and maybe even a friendship. Would we want to take that first step with a disfellowshipped person?”
Is strict avoidance really necessary? Yes, for several reasons. First, it is a matter of loyalty to God and his Word. We obey Jehovah not only when it is convenient but also when doing so presents real challenges. Love for God moves us to obey all his commandments, recognizing that he is just and loving and that his laws promote the greatest good. (Isaiah 48:17; 1 John 5:3) Second, withdrawing from an unrepentant wrongdoer protects us and the rest of the congregation from spiritual and moral contamination and upholds the congregation’s good name. (1 Corinthians 5:6, 7) Third, our firm stand for Bible principles may even benefit the disfellowshipped one. By supporting the decision of the judicial committee, we may touch the heart of a wrongdoer who thus far has failed to respond to the efforts of the elders to assist him. Losing precious fellowship with loved ones may help him to come “to his senses,” see the seriousness of his wrong, and take steps to return to Jehovah.—Luke 15:17.
What if a relative is disfellowshipped? In such a case, the close bond between family members can pose a real test of loyalty. How should we treat a disfellowshipped relative? We cannot here cover every situation that may arise, but let us focus on two basic ones.
In some instances, the disfellowshipped family member may still be living in the same home as part of the immediate household. Since his being disfellowshipped does not sever the family ties, normal day-to-day family activities and dealings may continue. Yet, by his course, the individual has chosen to break the spiritual bond between him and his believing family. So loyal family members can no longer have spiritual fellowship with him. For example, if the disfellowshipped one is present, he would not participate when the family gets together for family worship. However, if the disfellowshipped one is a minor child, the parents are still responsible to instruct and discipline him. Hence, loving parents may arrange to conduct a Bible study with the child. —Proverbs 6:20-22; 29:17.
In other cases, the disfellowshipped relative may be living outside the immediate family circle and home. Although there might be a need for limited contact on some rare occasion to care for a necessary family matter, any such contact should be kept to a minimum. Loyal Christian family members do not look for excuses to have dealings with a disfellowshipped relative not living at home. Rather, loyalty to Jehovah and his organization moves them to uphold the Scriptural arrangement of disfellowshipping. Their loyal course has the best interests of the wrongdoer at heart and may help him to benefit from the discipline received. —Hebrews 12:11.
The Watchtower Society wields the act of disfellowshipping as a weapon to control its members. Nobody wants to be branded an outcast. The only options that people who grew up in the Watchtower Society have is to conform to their standards and live a double life, or disassociate themselves and get disfellowshipped. The disfellowshipping “arrangement,” as Jehovah’s Witnesses call it, is a caring way to show their brothers and sisters in faith that they love them, and because they love them so much, will shun the disfellowshipped person because they want that person to return to Jehovah God. This violent policy emotionally blackmails everybody in the religion on many baseless reasons.
Reasons for being disfellowshipped are many, ranging from frivolous to reasonable. A few reasons for being disfellowshipped include: apostasy, drunkenness, failure to abstain from blood, fits of anger and violence, fornication, which includes homosexuality, greed, which encompasses gambling and gluttony, hypnotism, loose and brazen conduct, lying, misuse of tobacco and other drugs, murder, manslaughter, and attempted suicide, obscene speech, extreme physical uncleanliness, refusal to provide for your family, stealing, and voting in an election (Correspondence Guidelines, 26 - 28). Some of these reasons, such as manslaughter, having fits of anger and violence, and murder are completely reasonable. Others, such as attempted suicide and not abstaining from blood, including life-saving blood transfusions are a bit morally gray. To know that somebody who just attempted suicide will be kicked out of his or her entire world instead of being consoled seems a bit cruel and inhumane. Similar to attempted suicide, if a person decides to have a blood transfusion to save their life, he or she will get disfellowshipped. The end result is an otherwise avoidable death.
An instance of an avoidable death is seen in the example provided by the birth of Emma Marie. Emma Marie’s mother lost a lot of blood in the delivery process, and needed a blood transfusion. However, because her mother was a Jehovah’s Witness, she could not accept the blood transfusion and died. This shows that a Jehovah’s Witness will die for their beliefs, and will be praised for dying faithfully. Without knowing what went through her mother’s mind before refusing a blood transfusion, it is easy to assume that she feared being disfellowshipped and angering an imaginary being more than she cared about being a mother to her daughter.
More of the Watchtower Society’s fear tactics is seen in a cartoon series aimed at kids entitled “Become Jehovah’s Friend.” In multiple videos, death is implied if you do not obey the rules. For example, in the video entitled “Pay Attention at the Meetings,” the father in the cartoon compares the importance of paying attention at the meetings to the situation that Noah lived in. The father says that if Noah did not pay attention to God, then he would have died in the flood along with everybody else. Likewise, God supposedly speaks through the people who give talks at the meetings, so if you do not pay attention to them, you will die as well (Pay Attention at the Meetings).
Another video entitled “Obey Jehovah” shows the gravity with which Jehovah’s Witnesses take when pleasing or displeasing him. It features Caleb, who is playing with a toy that is associated with magic. His mom finds him playing with it, and asks him if Jehovah likes magic, and when he answers no, she asks him about Adam and Eve. She says that magic makes him sad, as Adam and Eve made him sad when they disobeyed him. All Jehovah’s Witnesses and their children know what happened to Adam and Eve, and by saying that Jehovah will be sad if Caleb plays with a magic toy, Caleb’s mother threatens him with death (Obey Jehovah).
In their most recently video in the series called “One Man One Woman,” the Watchtower Society teaches kids that if you are gay, you will not be allowed to enter paradise. The situation is presented as Sophia comes home from school. Everybody in her class had to draw a family portrait, and a student in her class drew her family, except her family had two moms. Sophia is puzzled about this and asks her mom why her classmate has two moms. Her mother’s response is alarming. She compares being gay to having baggage that is not allowed at an airport. She says that if you have illegal baggage, you won’t be able to fly. Similar to that, if you are gay, you will not go to paradise, because being gay is unwanted baggage that Jehovah will not let you have if you want to go to paradise (One Man One Woman).
One of the more disturbing things about this video is the “lesson” presented at the end. Sophia expresses her desire for everybody to go to paradise, which her mother says is a feeling reciprocated by Jehovah. She says that “people can change” and enter paradise. She asks Sophia what she can tell her classmate, and Sophia responds by saying she’ll tell her about paradise. This video is dangerous.
Although this is a fictional video and circumstance, the children who watch this video are real. This teaches children that it is okay to tell their classmates who have same-sex parents that their parents will die and not go to paradise, possibly turning family members against each other. It also teaches children that being gay is a choice, which is absolutely untrue. The Watchtower Society is breeding another generation of ignoramuses that will only create further conflict in the future.
Another blatant example of fear mongering is seen in the February 1, 2012 edition of The Watchtower. It is entitled ARMAGEDDON. WHAT IS IT? WHEN WILL IT COME? The artwork behind it features a fiery mushroom cloud. When somebody sees this, they assume that armageddon will result in destruction and death.
Later inside the magazine on page 7, there is a picture of happy people leaving a trail of destruction behind them.
Together, without even reading any part of the articles, these two pictures paint a vivid picture of what will happen at armageddon. People who serve god are saved and will live forever in the second picture, and the rest are destroyed forever. Join us or die.
The Watchtower Society is able to change and control people’s behavior through fear and intimidation. If the Watchtower Society is able to control behavior with the threat of being disfellowshipped, it shows that people in the organization are not really free. If this religion is able to “stop” people from being gay, then either they have found the “solution” to homosexuality, or everything that the Watchtower Society preaches is untrue.
In one of our latter class sessions during the semester, we discussed the effectiveness of terrorism. We talked about how the threat of terroristic violence, not even the violence itself, is used to achieve a change in policy or behavior, or maintain the status quo. In the Kydd and Walter article Strategies of Terrorism, they talked about the intimidation strategy. This is when terrorists try to convince the population of the target country that they are strong enough to punish disobedience, and that their own government will not be able to stop them. This is meant to make the population of the target country behave as the terrorists want them to (Kydd and Walter 50-51).
With Jehovah’s Witnesses, the threat of becoming an outcast by being disfellowshipped is the threat of violence. The terrorists are the Governing Body, and the target population are Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves. Jehovah’s Witnesses are in a social system they themselves as individuals are too weak to stop the disfellowshipping from happening.
Granted, there are no terrorists Jehovah’s Witnesses, nor have there been violent attacks by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jehovah’s Witnesses are usually referred to as the nice people who knock on your door on Sunday morning. Having grown up around Jehovah’s Witnesses, I can confidently say that Jehovah’s Witnesses are peaceful people. However, in that same note, one can look to another religion that has been called a peaceful religion, Buddhism, that is committing genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar. In the name of their religion and against Islam, Buddhist monks keep these Rohingya people in modern day concentration camps (United to End Genocide, “What’s Happening in Burma?” What is stopping the radicalization of Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Though many find peace in religion, it is also the source of unimaginable pain. From the Crusades to the KKK, organized religion preys on the atmosphere of fear that it creates to take advantage of the people within the religion. Jehovah’s Witnesses live in a unique situation, where they are not violent, but have violence enacted upon them. The unanswered question then is “Are Jehovah’s Witnesses terrorists, or are just the Governing Body at the top of the Watchtower Society terrorists?”
