Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses
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| William Miller · N.H. Barbour Jonas Wendell |
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| List of Jehovah's Witnesses C.T. Russell · M.G. Henschel J.F. Rutherford · F.W. Franz D.A. Adams · N.H. Knorr |
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Throughout the history of Jehovah's Witnesses, their history, their beliefs, doctrines and practices have met controversy and opposition from the local governments, communities, or religious groups. Many Christian denominations consider their interpretation and doctrines to be heresy. Thus some religious leaders have accused Jehovah's Witnesses of being a "cult" (a term that has no precise meaning, and requires no standard of evidence). Political and religious animosity against them has at times led to mob action and government oppression, including the oppression of Jehovah's Witnesses by National Socialist Germany. The religion was banned at times in the region of the Soviet Union, in Spain (partly due to Jehovah's Witnesses refusal to do military service), and currently is illegal in many Islamic states. The religion's policy of political neutrality has led to the gaoling of Witnesses who refused conscription (for example in Britain during World War II and afterwards during the period of compulsory national service).
On the milder side, there have been opposition by locals to the building of facilities (such as Kingdom Halls), and the holding of large conventions. In those circumstances, at times the reason is opposition to the religion, but at other times, they are more mundane, such as concerns about traffic congestion and noise.
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[edit] Mob violence in the USA
Strong resentment and anger were sometimes directed at the group (then called Bible Students) in the 1910s and 1920s. At the time, this was largely due to the Watch Tower Society's outspoken manner; members carrying placards outside many churches and in the streets proclaiming the imminent destruction of church members, along with both church and government institutions if they did not flee from "false religion" was not an uncommon sight. Typical examples of the Watchtower's attitude are found in the Watch Tower Society's book publication The Finished Mystery (SS-7), 1917 edition: "Also, in the year 1918, when God destroys the churches wholesale and the church members by millions, it shall be that any that escape shall come to the works of Pastor Russell to learn the meaning of the downfall of 'Christianity.'" (Page 485) "The people who are the strength of Christendom shall be cut off in the brief but terribly eventful period beginning in 1918 A.D. A third part are 'burned with fire in the midst of the city.' Fire symbolizes destruction. . . .After 1918 the people supporting churchianity will cease to be its supporters, be destroyed as adherents, by the spiritual pestilence of errors abroad, and by the famine of the Word of God among them." (Pages 398, 399) The Bible Students believed religion was a "racket and a snare" and refused to be identified as a 'religion' for some time.
In the United States in the late 1930s and into 1940, especially during wartime, mob violence against Jehovah's Witnesses became rampant. On June 16, 1940, the United States attorney general, Francis Biddle, made a radio broadcast over a coast-to-coast network in an effort to quiet the mob action, saying in part:
- " . . . Jehovah's witnesses have been repeatedly set upon and beaten. They had committed no crime; but the mob adjudged they had, and meted out mob punishment. The Attorney General has ordered an immediate investigation of these outrages. The people must be alert and watchful, and above all cool and sane. Since mob violence will make the government's task infinitely more difficult, it will not be tolerated. We shall not defeat the Nazi evil by emulating its methods."
After wartime, violent actions against Jehovah's Witnesses subsided, but, they were viewed with continued suspicion especially due to their doctrine of "neutrality," and especially during the Red scare in the 50s were viewed as possibly communist. As legal battles were won to establish their rights to preach from "door to door" and abstain from patriotic activities in schools, and the US society increasingly became more tolerant of non-mainstream viewpoints in the 60s and 70s, general opposition to Jehovah's Witnesses further subsided.
[edit] Proselytizing
Jehovah's Witnesses base their practice of evangelism on scriptures, such as Matthew 28:18–20; they cite Acts 20:20 as scriptural support for the manner in which this activity is carried out, and receive additional encouragement in this activity from their literature and local congregations. The Supreme Courts of many lands have established their rights to proceed with this activity.
The installation of Kingdom Halls (the Witnesses' meeting places) is sometimes met by local opposition. As an example, in 1995 the inhabitants of the village of Remomeix (resp. Deyvillers) in the Vosges département of France opposed the installation of Kingdom Halls. [2][3] Reasons given were the fear of aggressive prozelytizing of minors, and the large size of the installations. In both cases, the number of Jehovah's Witnesses attending the Hall would have well exceeded the total population of the village.
[edit] From other religious groups
Hostility from traditional, fundamentalist and evangelical Christians has been common, perhaps because of this group's rejection of many of the doctrines of mainstream Christian groups. For example, they teach that Jesus Christ is God's first creation rather than God Himself, and that the Holy Spirit is not a person but God's active force. Orthodox Christians believe this contradicts the translation of John 1:1 given in the King James Bible and other popular English translations; Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:15-16; Revelation 1:8, 1:11 & chapter 5, 22:13, Philippians 2:5-11; and also what orthodoxs believe to be the historical teaching of Christianity. While many versions of the Bible translate these verses differently, Jehovah's Witnesses consistently translate some of these verses differently. [1] (as some of the aforementioned texts have been regarded as spurious or inaccuractly translated) Witnesses teach that orthodox Christianity has been fundamentally wrong for most of its history (see Restorationism). (See also New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures and Great Apostasy for more on these controversies.) Many have been critical of their opinion that our current time period is "the Last Days."
[edit] In Nazi Germany (1933-1945)
Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany were persecuted between 1933 and 1945. They were scorned by the name Ernste Bibelforscher (Earnest Bible Students) at that time, because Jehovah's Witnesses would not give allegiance to the Nazi party, and refused to serve in the military, they were detained, put in concentration camps, or imprisoned during the Holocaust. Unlike Jews, homosexuals and Gypsies who were persecuted for racial, political and social reasons. Jehovah's Witnesses were persecuted on religious ideological grounds. The Nazi government gave detained Jehovah's Witnesses the option if they were to renounce their faith, submit to the state authority, and support the German military they would be free to leave prison or the camps. Approximately 12,000 Jehovah's Witnesses were sent to concentration camps where they were forced to wear a purple triangle that specifically identified them as Jehovah's Witnesses. In the end, about 2,000 of their members who were incarcerated perished under the Nazi system died. [2] All lost their employment, many were sent to regular prisons. Few signed the renouncement documents.
(Quoted from Jehovah's Witnesses--Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, p. 661. Original.)
As early as 1921, political and religious factions accused the Witnesses of being linked with the Jews in subversive political movements. Bible Students were branded as the dangerous, Bolshevik, "Jewish worm." In response, the April 15, 1930, German edition of The Golden Age (forerunner of Awake!) stated: "We have no reason to regard this false accusation as an insult as we are convinced that the Jew is at least as valuable a person as a nominal Christian; but we reject the above untruth of the church tabloid because it is aimed at deprecating our work, as if it were being done not for the sake of the Gospel but for the Jews." Swiss theologian Karl Barth later wrote: "The accusation that Jehovah's Witnesses are linked with the Communists can only be due to an involuntary or even intentional misunderstanding."
In May 1933 the Gestapo searched the house of Ewald Vorsteher, who had been disfellowshipped from the society in the 1920s for refusing to accept the new leadership following the crisis sparked by Pastor Russell's death in 1917. The writings found in his home were highly critical of Hitler's regime, and were used as a basis for condemning the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Watchtower Society reacted by strongly rejecting Ewald Vorsteher and his opinions.
[edit] Declaration of Facts
On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hilter was appointed Germany's new chancellor. At the start of his rule millions were viewing the National Socialist Party(Nazis) as a legitimate ruling authority. Even in 1936 the International Olympic Games were held under the emblem of the swastika. [3] Years before,the Nazi party platform of February 24,1920 demanded that employment, housing, health, self-respect, and a generous old-age pension were to be met. [4] Before the ban on Jehovah's Witnesses in 1933, church circles had tried, initially, to "fully utilize existing legal grounds for taking action against the Bible Students" as stated by Dr. Detlef Garbe a leading authority on the history of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Nazi era. This resulted in more than 1,000 court cases against Bible Students for "unauthorized peddling" by the end of the 1920s. [5] For years, before Hilter was chancellor, Witnesses had been accused of being “Communists” and associated with the Jews in subversive political movements. In light of this, the Witnesses wanted to inform the new rulership of the true nonpolitical nature of their religion.[6]
Thus on June 25, 1933, in spite of hostility of the Hitler regime, Jehovah's Witnesses organized a convention in Berlin, Germany. Some 7,000 persons assembled. The Witnesses publicly presented their intentions. A formal letter from the Society to Hitler was unanimously accepted by all Jehovah Witnesses at the convention. This open letter was called, "Declaration of Facts"[7]. The letter stated that their position was one of political neutrality, however it also referred to points on which they both agreed such as the Nazi party platform points of 1920 mentioned above.
The Society did not succeed in its efforts to show that the Witnesses would offer no political opposition to the Nazi regime: "Our organization is not political in any sense. We only insist on teaching the Word of Jehovah God to the people, and that without hindrance. We do not object or try to hinder anyone's teaching or believing what he desires." The Declaration appealed to the stated ideals of the Nazi regime: "Furthermore it was established by the 5,000 delegates, as expressed in the declaration, that the Bible Students of Germany are striving for the same high goals and ideals, as proclaimed by the government of the German Reich, regarding the relationship of man to God, namely (i.e.), the honesty (sincerity) of His creation, in response to the creator."
The Declaration[8] also made reference to Jews, with statements such as: "It has been the commercial Jews (used only once) of the British-American empire that have built up and carried on Big Business as a means of exploiting and oppressing the peoples of many nations. This fact particularly applies to the cities of London and New York, the stronghold of Big Business." Thus Witnesses "vehemently responded to this slander and emphatically repudiated" the accusation of being financed by the "Jews". [9] In a separate context of the same Declaration, after stating that "it is impossible for our literature and our work to be a menace to the peace and safety of the nation," it went on and stated: "Instead of being against the principles advocated by the government of Germany, we stand squarely for such principles and point out that Jehovah God through Christ Jesus will bring about the full realization of these principles and will give to the people peace and prosperity and the greatest desire of every honest heart." Some have accused Witness leadership of attempts to cover up this history. However, Witnesses have candidly discussed these issues. [4] One former member and critic, Dr. M. James Penton, professor emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Lethbridge, wrote in his book Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich, in which, drawing on his own Witness background and years of research on Witness history, interprets antisemitic attitudes on the part of Jehovah's Witnesses and a "friendly" rapport with the Nazis' regime.
In considering these accusations the following points have been highlighted by historians.
- The Declaration did not hesitate to label the Roman Catholic Church a tool of “Satan our great enemy.” [10]
- The “Declaration does not address him as “Fuhrer” and does not conclude with the words “Heil Hitler”-as was the case at that time on most official church documents addressed to state authorities.” [11]
- “The absence of influence by the antisemitic terminology of that time is evident from the Declaration's free and unabashed use of Old Testament quotations that include the term “Zion””[12]
- The Declaration culminate in the statement that Jehovah's Witnesses have placed themselves on God's side and thus all who fight against them are bound to lose, “but as for us, we will serve Jehovah forever.”
In the third edition of his book, Detlef Garbe stated: “Numerous judgments found in literature about the Wilmersdorf Declaration include erroneous criticism,or rather, are not fair to the text and the situation. Therefore, one could not say that Jehovah's Witnesses had professed antisemitism... or promoted themselves “as a possible ally.” Labels such as “congress supporting the Nazis”, “ or the assertion that the Watch Tower management had attempted to “conclude a pact with Hitler”... resulted from conclusions motivated by a desire to discredit [them] as in Gebhard's 1970 GDR documentation alleging the “criminal support of the antisemitic Hitler policy” in the Declaration.” He also notes that the charge of collaboration with the Nazis and other manufactured propaganda about the Witnesses was promoted by the East German Stasi in the 1960's. [13]. Sadly today many professional historians and critics of Jehovah's Witnesses still use this “biased book”,[14] Published under the name of Manfred Gebhard.[15] This work “was based on a manuscript by [Guenther Pape a excommunicated Witness who subsequently wrote strong accusations against his former religious associates] which he compiled at the end of the 1960's” Dr. Garbe refers to it as having, “distorted quotations” and is characterized by a “selective use of quotes”. Even Manfred Gebhard later expressly disassociated himself from the book and its “exaggerations and falsifications” “and called it a mistake that he had agreed to the use of his name without knowing the results.”[16]
Dr. Gabriele Yonan, Religious Scientist and “religious scholar”,[17], of the Free University of Berlin, stated: "When the entire text of the June 25, 1933 'Declaration of Facts,' along with the letter to Hitler is, in retrospect, put into the context of the history of Jehovah's Witnesses during the Nazi regime, their resistance, and the Holocaust, it consequently has nothing to do with 'antisemitic statements and currying favor with Hitler.' These accusations made by today's church circles are deliberate manipulations and historical misrepresentations, and their obvious motivation is the discomfort of a moral inferiority."[18] Penton and Yonan do not hold each other's perspectives in high regard, with Dr Penton in a 2004 publication describing Dr Yonan as a "Watch Tower apologist".[19]
Detlef Garbe Historian and director at the Neuengamme (Hamburg) Memorial stated in Social Disinterest, Governmental Disinformation, Renewed Persecution, and Now Manipulation of History?: “Taking everything into consideration, it has been established that no other religious movement resisted the pressure to conform to National Socialism with comparable unanimity and steadfastness.” He later went on to say that at “no point did they support Nazi rule. Rather, the stand taken by Jehovah's Witnesses would have, according to Klaus Drobisch, “been befitting” for the majority of the population” The Nazis incarcerated some 12,0000 Witnesses and about 2,000 died in the concentration camps and prisons. [20]
During the same time period Jehovah's Witnesses were also persecuted in the United States and many other countries for similar reasons, mainly because they refused to serve in the military or help with war efforts. In Canada during that time, Jehovah's Witnesses were interned in camps along with political dissidents and people of Japanese and Chinese descent. In the United States, the Supreme Court issued a series of landmark First Amendment rulings that confirmed the Jehovah's Witnesses right to be excused from military service and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. (See also Supreme Court cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses.)
[edit] References
- ^ The King James Version Debate DA Carson p. 64
- '^ Revelation Its Grand Climax At Hand p.185 updated in 2006
- ^ Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933-1945 p. 338 Hans Hesse [ed.]
- ^ Points 7- 23 {Programm der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei see: Meyers Kleines Lexikon, 9th rev. edition 3 vol., Leipzig, 1933, vol. 2, p.1604
- ^ Garbe, Sendboten p. 154
- ^ "Awake!" July 8, 1998
- ^ Declaration of Facts (English translation)
- ^ Declaration of Facts (English translation)
- ^ It is worth noting that the term “commercial Jews” in connection with big business can be traced back to the nineteenth century as part of the standard German vocabulary of those days and thus should not be interpreted in terms of today. Thus “if critics wish to read antisemitism into comments made by Jehovah's Witnesses in 1933, they are overlooking the contemporaneous context and committing an anachronistic error.” See: Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933-1945 p. 318,330-331
- ^ Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933-1945 p. 314
- ^ Dr. Gabriele Yonan, p. 340 Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933-1945
- ^ Ibid
- ^ Garbe, Zwischen Widerstand und Martyrium, p. 106, note 82
- ^ Die Zeugen Jehovas: Eine Dokumentation uber die Watchtturm-Gesellschaft, published by Manfred Gebhard with Urania-Verlag 1970 GDR; quote taken from p.310 of Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933-1945
- ^ Garbe, Zwischen Widerstand und Martyrium, pp. 20f.
- ^ Garbe, Zwischen Widerstand und Martyrium, p. 20f and p.20 note 44; P.263 note 27; also Wrobel 1997, Erich Frost und Konrad Franke 9.1 and 9.2
- ^ Detlef Garbe p. 258 Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933-1945
- ^ "Am mutigsten waren immer wieder die Zeugen Jehovas." Verfolgung und Widerstand der Zeugen Jehovas im Nationalsozialismus, published by historian Hans Hesse, Bremen, 1998, page 395 see also: [1]
- ^ "Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich: Sectarian Politics under Persecution by M. James Penton, Pub. University of Toronto, Canada, 2004, page 48
- ^ John Conway a British historian stated that they were “against any form of collaboration with the Nazis and against service in the army.” p.251,260 “Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933-1945
[edit] External links
- Holocaust Learning Center - Jehovah's Witnesses: Persecution
- Holocaust - Jehovah's Witnesses
- Awake!' 'July 8,1998 - Jehovah's Witnesses' Website
- Article containing a copy of the 1933 letter to Hitler, on a website critical of the Jehovah's Witnesses
- Timeline of the Bible Students / Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany
- Yadvashem - Shoah Resource Centre - Jehovah's Witnesses
- The "Bibelforscher" in the Third Reich (An Examination of the Conflict between Jehovah's Witnesses and the Nazis)
[edit] See also
- Knocking, a documentary on Jehovah's Witnesses featuring a Jewish concentration camp survivor, Joseph Kempler
- Forum 18 - Religious repression news
- Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
- US Holocaust Museum
[edit] Additional reading
- UNBROKEN WILL: The Story of Leopold Engleitner, born 1905, Bernhard Rammerstorfer, Grammaton Press.
- Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi Regime 1933-1945, Hans Hesse (Ed.), Edition Temmen.
- FACING THE LION: Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Europe, Simone Arnold Liebster, Grammaton Press.
- CRUCIBLE OF TERROR: A Story of Survival Through the Nazi Storm, Max Liebster, Grammaton Press.
- The Nazi State and the New Religions : Five Case Studies in Non-Conformity, Christine E. King, Edwin Mellen Press, 1982.
- Detlev Garbe: Zwischen Widerstand und Martyrium, 1999, ISBN 3-486-56404-8
- "Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich: Sectarian Politics Under Persecution", M. James Penton, University of Toronto Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8020-8678-0
- Manfred Gebhard: Geschichte der Zeugen Jehovas. Mit Schwerpunkt der deutschen Geschichte, 1999, ISBN 3-89811-217-9
- Hans Hesse: Am mutigsten waren immer wieder die Zeugen Jehovas, Edition Temmen, 2000, ISBN 3-86108-724-3
- Hans Hesse, Jürgen Harder: ...und wenn ich lebenslang in einem KZ bleiben müßte... Die Zeuginnen Jehovas in den Frauenkonzentrationslagern Moringen, Lichtenburg und Ravensbrück, 2001, ISBN 3-88474-935-8
- Michael H. Kater: Die Ernsten Bibelforscher im Dritten Reich; in: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 17. Jg. 1969 Heft 2
- Bernhard Rammerstorfer: Nein statt Ja und Amen. Leopold Engleitner: Er ging einen anderen Weg, Linz 1999, ISBN 3-9500718-6-5
- A History of Christianity , Paul Johnson
- Judith Tydor Baumel, Walter Laqueur:"The Holocaust Encyclopedia" ISBN 0-300-08432-3
