JW’s: Would you like to know The Truth?

This afternoon my wife and I were at home when someone knocked on the door. My wife answered to an elderly man who appeared to be hoping for a drop and run rather than a personal encounter. “Oh, I thought there was no-one here, I was just going to leave this for you.”

He gave my wife a pamphlet titled “Would you like to know the Truth?”

It’s a catchy line, a bit of a teaser really. Would I like to know the truth… Yes I would, thanks! No one wants to be given false information, we want the cold hard facts! Give me as much truth as you can muster up. What sort of truth? I wondered. The truth about life? Or the truth about a secret conspiracy like the real amount of fluoride in water, or how the government is suppressing the real cure for cancer. How much truth can you pack into a pamphlet, anyway?

Their conversation went like this:

He: “We’re dropping these in every household in the world, you know… Every household.”
She: “Oh, ok…”
He: “It’s not good to be fooled or tricked by people, is it – do you like to be fooled or tricked?”
She: “Errr… no… Are you a Jehovah’s Witness?”
He: (loudly) “Well I worship the Jehovah, yes, but (pointing at leaflet) what’s important is where we can find answers to questions, have a read of that and you’ll find out some very interesting stuff” (hastily backing down the path)
She: “Bye”

What an interesting question, but strange encounter! I was further intrigued to find that nowhere on the leaflet does it mention that the material is presented by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Unfortunately one of his lines resounded in my head, “do you like to be fooled or tricked?”

Maybe his spiel and material don’t quite fall into the category of trickery, but I couldn’t help but think that selling yourself, your material or what you believe in under false pretense is probably not the best approach to take. We live in an age where scams and trickery are plentiful – it’s good to have a healthy degree of skepticism. If someone markets their material under a different name than the one they stand by, and does not offer to be up front with their affiliation to a particular company, church or whatever, I tend to ask myself why is that? Do they have a reason to misrepresent themselves?

Even though I do have some fundamental disagreements on Jehovah’s Witness beliefs, such as the special chosen group of 144,000 anointed ones who get to go to heaven, and (even worse) the fact that I have to read these headlines: “Jehovah’s Witness mother dies after refusing blood transfusion after giving birth to twins”, my intention is not to disparage them as a group in this post! Quite possibly there are some fundamental truths we both agree on in some areas. I would like to offer up a few thoughts though:

Why are some religions so intent on professing that their beliefs are right, rather than seeing the bigger picture? “One way to God – through St Matthew’s Church, corner Smith and First Streets..” I’m not suggesting you have to adopt other people’s beliefs, or put other religions down, but isn’t there room somewhere for healthy and open discussion about God, life, religion without misrepresenting yourself?

After doing a bit of reading about Jehovah’s Witnesses, I came across an interesting excerpt from a book by Diane Wilson, a former member, titled “Escape From the Watchtower Society“:

Occasionally a householder would want to give the Witness a religious pamphlet from her own church; while often the Witness would refuse to accept it on the basis that she already had the Truth, at other times another Witness might accept it. However, as soon as we were out of sight of the householder, the pamphlet became like the proverbial “hot potato”—the Witness couldn’t get rid of it fast enough! Some Witnesses feared that even touching the pamphlet could cause a demon to transfer itself from the pamphlet to themselves.
 
This fear stemmed from their belief that Jehovah’s Witnesses represent the only true religion on Earth, thus all other religions are false and under the control of the Devil and the demons; consequently, they believe all literature from another religion to be contaminated with demonic forces. While some Witnesses insisted that burning the pamphlets was the only safe way to dispose of them in order to avoid demon attacks, others seemed relieved to simply drop them into the nearest trashcan.

Maybe JW’s feel that public perceptions have forced them to be more reluctant to identify themselves. I don’t feel good about it in my heart when I see 3, 4 and 5 year old toddlers dragged from door to door wearing suits in the heat of a Saturday morning though. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with that. Can’t you believe in God and be just as effective in ministry by kicking a football together at the park, and showing other people that family values come first?

Do you want to know the Truth?