Cult News articles on the Jehovah's Witnesses

 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
'You've got to believe'
Torn between their religion and love for their child, a Jehovah's Witness couple from Sweden put faith in a Columbus doctor to save their little fighter
The Columbus Dispatch/October 25, 2004
By Jeb Phillips
On a February day in Stockholm, Sweden, Maria and Alex Altinterim learned they were having twins. The echogram technician could see the two little hearts beating on the screen. Maria and Alex could see them, too. And even to the first-time parents, the hearts clearly looked different from each other.
"Something is wrong," the technician said.
Three days later, doctors told the Altinterims that one heart was missing a part. The left ventricle, which pumps blood to the body, wasn't developing in one of the babies.
The diagnosis of hypoplastic left heart syndrome left them with two options. One was the Norwood procedure, which would involve three open-heart surgeries. The baby would need blood transfusions during the procedures or suffer brain damage.
But the Altinterims are Jehovah's Witnesses, and to them, blood is sacred. The religious group interprets Bible passages as commanding them to abstain from receiving blood, even if it means dying without a trans- fusion. So they settled on the second option.
"We planned a funeral," Maria said.
The baby was supposed to live hours or days. Certainly no longer than a month.
On June 23, Robin Altinterim was born with a healthy heart. His brother, Kevin Altinterim, was born six minutes later, and his parents began waiting for him to die.
Kevin lived through the night. He lived all through that week. Then the next one. He had his 1-month birthday, shocking the doctors. On Aug. 23, he turned 2 months old.
"I cried every day. Every single day," Maria said.
Kevin was now a gurgling baby with huge brown eyes, skin a little blue from his body's lack of oxygen. His parents decided they would try to save him.
"He was fighting," Alex said. "We had to do our part."
Swedish doctors still said there was nothing they could do without transfusions. So the Altinterims called the Jehovah's Witnesses Hospital Liaison Committee in Sweden, to see if anyone in the world could help their baby.
They found one person, in Columbus, Ohio.
A matter of days
Dr. Mark Galantowicz, co-director of the Children's Hospital Heart Center, looked at Kevin's tests and scans Sept. 17. Four days later, he called the Altinterims. I can help, he told them, and I can do it without transfusions. But you don't have months or weeks to get here.
"This is a matter of days," Maria remembers Galantowicz saying.
The Altinterims began calling friends and family members for money to make the trip. They raised $50,000 in a few hours. As an afterthought, they called their Stockholm doctors. One told them that a flight, with its changing air pressures and oxygen levels, could kill Kevin.
It's true, Galantowicz's assistant, Erin Williams, told Maria, but it was the only hope they had.
"You've got to believe," said Williams, who has a child with the same heart condition.
The next day, Alex, Maria, Robin and Kevin boarded a plane.
A loving stare
Alex first saw Maria during a church service in Stockholm 10 years ago. Neither looks like a stereotypical Swede. Both have dark hair and olive skin. Alex immediately noticed Maria's eyes, which are so brown they are almost black.
"We liked each other from the first time we saw each other," Alex said.
Maria remembers it differently. "I didn't like him at all," she said. "He was staring at me so much."
But Alex kept working on her, and she fell in love with him. They married seven years ago.
In the rare moment when Maria is searching for a word in English, she'll say it in Swedish to Alex, and he'll translate. She does the same for him.
Eighteen months ago, they felt their lives were set. Alex, 34, was in software development at Ericsson, the telecommunications corporation. Maria, 30, was a manager of a clothing store. They were building their first house.
And so, they thought, it was time to start a family.
Nervous flight
Alex and Maria had heard that they couldn't tell the airline about Kevin. An airline wouldn't want a baby dying on one of its planes. They boarded with the twins - one of whom was blue from lack of air - without an oxygen tank.
During the 10-hour trip, Kevin's lips turned nearly black. Alex walked him to the emergency exits, where he had learned there was more oxygen during flights. Kevin slept most of the way. Maria took care of Robin. Both parents prayed.
Kevin, as he had his entire life, fought his way through.
The family landed in Chicago late on Sept. 22. The U.S. Hospital Liaison Committee had arranged for Jehovah's Witnesses to drive them from Chicago to Indianapolis. Then Jim Hunt, a committee member from Blacklick, drove the Altinterims to Columbus, where they are staying with a host family.
"They have helped us so much here," Alex said.
On Sept. 23, Galantowicz saw Kevin for the first time. The next day, a Friday, Kevin had surgery.
'Kinder and gentler'
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome keeps the body from getting the blood it needs, while pumping too much blood into the lungs.
The three surgeries of the Norwood procedure are an accepted treatment. But Galantowicz has helped pioneer a way to make the procedure what he calls "kinder and gentler." It still involves three surgeries: one to stabilize the baby, an open-heart surgery to redirect blood flow and a touch-up surgery two years later. Kevin had the stabilizing one on Sept. 24. It wasn't the open-heart surgery, but Galantowicz still had to go through his chest.
With the help of a cardiologist, Dr. John Cheatham, Galantowicz began the five-hour procedure. He put two bands around the arteries that lead to the lungs, to help reduce the blood pressure there. With a balloon, he opened the flow from the lungs to the heart. And he put a stent in an artery that leads away from the heart to help more blood get to the body.
Galantowicz can do that with or without transfusions, depending on the parents' wishes. He said that every case is different, but medicines, machines and surgical techniques combined to keep Kevin from losing much blood. So he didn't need any extra and didn't get a transfusion.
Kevin, as usual, did better than anyone expected. He was out of intensive care in a day. On Sept. 28, four days after surgery, he was discharged from the hospital.
"He's tough," Galantowicz said. "He's a miracle baby."
Uncertainty reigns
Alex and Maria had packed for what they thought would be a two-week trip to Ohio. Now they could be here for a year.
No one knows for sure. Galantowicz has performed this procedure about 30 times, but not on babies as old as Kevin.
In Galantowicz's normal sequence, Kevin would recuperate for several months, then undergo the large openheart surgery to replumb his heart. His lungs, though, are damaged from too much blood, which could mean he would need a heart transplant. But the chance of that decreases every day, his doctors say.
In any case, the money the Altinterims borrowed has all gone to pay for the trip and the first surgery. Local Jehovah's Witnesses are taking care of their daily expenses. Alex and Maria are trying to persuade the Swedish health-care system to pay for the operations here. If it won't, they have a plan.
"We'll sell our house and our car," Maria said.
But how much treatment Kevin needs is determined by what doctors find out every Tuesday.
Anxious family
Last week, the Altinterims arrived at Children's Hospital with Kevin strapped to his father's chest and Robin pushed in a stroller by his mother, both babies dressed in white jumpsuits and white bunny slippers.
Robin slept. Kevin was weighed and measured, then had to lose his outfit for the electrocardiogram. The technician put gel on the end of a sensor and then ran it over Kevin's chest, near the 3-inch scar in the middle.
Kevin kicked his feet and held onto his mom's finger. She talked and sang to him. He stared at her or at a video of animals and colors playing next to him. He hardly made a sound.
"He just pooped, he just ate, he just slept," Maria said. "So everything is good."
Alex and Maria seemed completely composed. But when Dr. Steven Cassidy, a cardiologist, walked through the door, they were worried parents again.
"He sweats so much. Is that normal, Steven?" Alex asked. Maria asked about the five times a night that Kevin woke up hungry, about the formula she was feeding him, about his medicine.
All of that was fine, Cassidy said. The sweating, for now, probably means better circulation. His appetite is a sign he's healing. His medication needed a slight adjustment but otherwise looked good.
Most importantly, he had gained weight in the past week. Kevin, 4 months old, now weighs about 9.2 pounds. His twin brother weighs 18 pounds.
"I thought it was going to be a bad day," Maria admitted later. "I haven't been able to sleep thinking about the second surgery.
"Sometimes I try to think this is normal. We're on a vacation."
Outside the checkup room, Cassidy said that this is not close to normal. "Most kids his age who came to us would be dead," he said.
The lungs, and how they will heal, are what the doctors can't predict and what will determine the kind of surgery Kevin needs next, Cassidy said. Six months from now, they'll know. Until then, Kevin will need weekly checkups.
Back inside the checkup room, Robin was awake. Maria was putting the bunny slippers back on Kevin.
Then they packed up, headed for the car and drove off, to wait for whatever comes next.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.


http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11136-youve-got-to-believe-.html











 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
'You've got to believe'
Torn between their religion and love for their child, a Jehovah's Witness couple from Sweden put faith in a Columbus doctor to save their little fighter
The Columbus Dispatch/October 25, 2004
By Jeb Phillips
On a February day in Stockholm, Sweden, Maria and Alex Altinterim learned they were having twins. The echogram technician could see the two little hearts beating on the screen. Maria and Alex could see them, too. And even to the first-time parents, the hearts clearly looked different from each other.
"Something is wrong," the technician said.
Three days later, doctors told the Altinterims that one heart was missing a part. The left ventricle, which pumps blood to the body, wasn't developing in one of the babies.
The diagnosis of hypoplastic left heart syndrome left them with two options. One was the Norwood procedure, which would involve three open-heart surgeries. The baby would need blood transfusions during the procedures or suffer brain damage.
But the Altinterims are Jehovah's Witnesses, and to them, blood is sacred. The religious group interprets Bible passages as commanding them to abstain from receiving blood, even if it means dying without a trans- fusion. So they settled on the second option.
"We planned a funeral," Maria said.
The baby was supposed to live hours or days. Certainly no longer than a month.
On June 23, Robin Altinterim was born with a healthy heart. His brother, Kevin Altinterim, was born six minutes later, and his parents began waiting for him to die.
Kevin lived through the night. He lived all through that week. Then the next one. He had his 1-month birthday, shocking the doctors. On Aug. 23, he turned 2 months old.
"I cried every day. Every single day," Maria said.
Kevin was now a gurgling baby with huge brown eyes, skin a little blue from his body's lack of oxygen. His parents decided they would try to save him.
"He was fighting," Alex said. "We had to do our part."
Swedish doctors still said there was nothing they could do without transfusions. So the Altinterims called the Jehovah's Witnesses Hospital Liaison Committee in Sweden, to see if anyone in the world could help their baby.
They found one person, in Columbus, Ohio.
A matter of days
Dr. Mark Galantowicz, co-director of the Children's Hospital Heart Center, looked at Kevin's tests and scans Sept. 17. Four days later, he called the Altinterims. I can help, he told them, and I can do it without transfusions. But you don't have months or weeks to get here.
"This is a matter of days," Maria remembers Galantowicz saying.
The Altinterims began calling friends and family members for money to make the trip. They raised $50,000 in a few hours. As an afterthought, they called their Stockholm doctors. One told them that a flight, with its changing air pressures and oxygen levels, could kill Kevin.
It's true, Galantowicz's assistant, Erin Williams, told Maria, but it was the only hope they had.
"You've got to believe," said Williams, who has a child with the same heart condition.
The next day, Alex, Maria, Robin and Kevin boarded a plane.
A loving stare
Alex first saw Maria during a church service in Stockholm 10 years ago. Neither looks like a stereotypical Swede. Both have dark hair and olive skin. Alex immediately noticed Maria's eyes, which are so brown they are almost black.
"We liked each other from the first time we saw each other," Alex said.
Maria remembers it differently. "I didn't like him at all," she said. "He was staring at me so much."
But Alex kept working on her, and she fell in love with him. They married seven years ago.
In the rare moment when Maria is searching for a word in English, she'll say it in Swedish to Alex, and he'll translate. She does the same for him.
Eighteen months ago, they felt their lives were set. Alex, 34, was in software development at Ericsson, the telecommunications corporation. Maria, 30, was a manager of a clothing store. They were building their first house.
And so, they thought, it was time to start a family.
Nervous flight
Alex and Maria had heard that they couldn't tell the airline about Kevin. An airline wouldn't want a baby dying on one of its planes. They boarded with the twins - one of whom was blue from lack of air - without an oxygen tank.
During the 10-hour trip, Kevin's lips turned nearly black. Alex walked him to the emergency exits, where he had learned there was more oxygen during flights. Kevin slept most of the way. Maria took care of Robin. Both parents prayed.
Kevin, as he had his entire life, fought his way through.
The family landed in Chicago late on Sept. 22. The U.S. Hospital Liaison Committee had arranged for Jehovah's Witnesses to drive them from Chicago to Indianapolis. Then Jim Hunt, a committee member from Blacklick, drove the Altinterims to Columbus, where they are staying with a host family.
"They have helped us so much here," Alex said.
On Sept. 23, Galantowicz saw Kevin for the first time. The next day, a Friday, Kevin had surgery.
'Kinder and gentler'
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome keeps the body from getting the blood it needs, while pumping too much blood into the lungs.
The three surgeries of the Norwood procedure are an accepted treatment. But Galantowicz has helped pioneer a way to make the procedure what he calls "kinder and gentler." It still involves three surgeries: one to stabilize the baby, an open-heart surgery to redirect blood flow and a touch-up surgery two years later. Kevin had the stabilizing one on Sept. 24. It wasn't the open-heart surgery, but Galantowicz still had to go through his chest.
With the help of a cardiologist, Dr. John Cheatham, Galantowicz began the five-hour procedure. He put two bands around the arteries that lead to the lungs, to help reduce the blood pressure there. With a balloon, he opened the flow from the lungs to the heart. And he put a stent in an artery that leads away from the heart to help more blood get to the body.
Galantowicz can do that with or without transfusions, depending on the parents' wishes. He said that every case is different, but medicines, machines and surgical techniques combined to keep Kevin from losing much blood. So he didn't need any extra and didn't get a transfusion.
Kevin, as usual, did better than anyone expected. He was out of intensive care in a day. On Sept. 28, four days after surgery, he was discharged from the hospital.
"He's tough," Galantowicz said. "He's a miracle baby."
Uncertainty reigns
Alex and Maria had packed for what they thought would be a two-week trip to Ohio. Now they could be here for a year.
No one knows for sure. Galantowicz has performed this procedure about 30 times, but not on babies as old as Kevin.
In Galantowicz's normal sequence, Kevin would recuperate for several months, then undergo the large openheart surgery to replumb his heart. His lungs, though, are damaged from too much blood, which could mean he would need a heart transplant. But the chance of that decreases every day, his doctors say.
In any case, the money the Altinterims borrowed has all gone to pay for the trip and the first surgery. Local Jehovah's Witnesses are taking care of their daily expenses. Alex and Maria are trying to persuade the Swedish health-care system to pay for the operations here. If it won't, they have a plan.
"We'll sell our house and our car," Maria said.
But how much treatment Kevin needs is determined by what doctors find out every Tuesday.
Anxious family
Last week, the Altinterims arrived at Children's Hospital with Kevin strapped to his father's chest and Robin pushed in a stroller by his mother, both babies dressed in white jumpsuits and white bunny slippers.
Robin slept. Kevin was weighed and measured, then had to lose his outfit for the electrocardiogram. The technician put gel on the end of a sensor and then ran it over Kevin's chest, near the 3-inch scar in the middle.
Kevin kicked his feet and held onto his mom's finger. She talked and sang to him. He stared at her or at a video of animals and colors playing next to him. He hardly made a sound.
"He just pooped, he just ate, he just slept," Maria said. "So everything is good."
Alex and Maria seemed completely composed. But when Dr. Steven Cassidy, a cardiologist, walked through the door, they were worried parents again.
"He sweats so much. Is that normal, Steven?" Alex asked. Maria asked about the five times a night that Kevin woke up hungry, about the formula she was feeding him, about his medicine.
All of that was fine, Cassidy said. The sweating, for now, probably means better circulation. His appetite is a sign he's healing. His medication needed a slight adjustment but otherwise looked good.
Most importantly, he had gained weight in the past week. Kevin, 4 months old, now weighs about 9.2 pounds. His twin brother weighs 18 pounds.
"I thought it was going to be a bad day," Maria admitted later. "I haven't been able to sleep thinking about the second surgery.
"Sometimes I try to think this is normal. We're on a vacation."
Outside the checkup room, Cassidy said that this is not close to normal. "Most kids his age who came to us would be dead," he said.
The lungs, and how they will heal, are what the doctors can't predict and what will determine the kind of surgery Kevin needs next, Cassidy said. Six months from now, they'll know. Until then, Kevin will need weekly checkups.
Back inside the checkup room, Robin was awake. Maria was putting the bunny slippers back on Kevin.
Then they packed up, headed for the car and drove off, to wait for whatever comes next.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.


http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11136-youve-got-to-believe-.html










 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Biblical scholar says Jehovah's Witnesses wrong about blood transfusions
Canadian Press/February 2, 2007
By Dirk Meissner
Victoria -- A biblical scholar says he woke up Friday morning convinced he must wade into the blood battle in British Columbia involving four babies, their Jehovah's Witness parents, their church and the government.
Religious scholars have evaded the Jehovah's Witness blood issue because they didn't believe it had academic merit, but it's a story that must be told, said Prof. Michael Duggan, who teaches biblical literature at St. Mary's University College in Calgary.
Duggan said he's been in Alberta hospitals telling doctors his academic perspective on what the Bible says about blood and what many Jehovah's Witnesses believe the biblical scriptures say about blood.
But the message needs to be made more public, he said.
"The point that I make to the physicians is none of these texts has to do with human blood," said Duggan. "Certainly, they never had to do with transfusions."
"What they have to do with is the handling of animals that are slaughtered and the cooking and the procedures in cooking the meat so as to be free of contamination and disease."
Four babies fighting for their survival in a Vancouver hospital are at the centre of a debate about religious freedom and the power of the government to protect its citizens.
The babies are the surviving sextuplets born almost three months' premature in Vancouver last month. Two of the six babies have died.
The parents are Jehovah's Witnesses who say they were horrified when the government seized custody of three of their children and gave two of them blood transfusions, a procedure their religion forbids.
The B.C. government said it was obligated by law to temporarily seize the babies and administer the blood transfusions for health reasons against the wishes of their parents.
Last week, the government took custody of three of the remaining children so doctors could perform transfusions. The government withdrew a seizure order Wednesday and the parents regained custody.
But the government can legally move in again.
The group that speaks for Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada issued a statement that said hospitals in Canada and the United States have treated extremely premature infants without blood transfusions by taking smaller samples of blood and accepting lower hemoglobin levels, among other things.
Premature babies have extremely low blood volumes, are prone to anemia and require frequent blood tests.
When asked why the religious denomination refuses blood transfusions, spokesman Mark Ruge pointed to the Jehovah's Witnesses website.
On it, the organization cites Bible passages to back up the belief. They include Leviticus 17:10-14, which reads in part:
"And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people."
The group also cites Acts 15:19-20, which states that God's followers must "abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood."
Duggan said the blood passages in the Hebrew Bible - Old Testament - often cited by Jehovah's Witnesses as their reasons to refuse blood transfusions are safe cooking instructions that date back to the 5th Century.
"That needs to be said," Duggan said. "The way the Jehovah's Witnesses read the biblical text is simply wrong."
The texts in the Hebrew Bible are mainly taken from Genesis 9:4-6 and from the book of Leviticus 17, he said.
"They speak about the life being in the blood, but the blood they are talking about is the blood of animals," Duggan said.
The case of the British Columbia sextuplets and other similar blood tranfusion battles in Alberta have him wanting to take on the Jehovah's Witnesses academically.
"I'm just concerned that people don't get victimized any more by this," Duggan said. "I mean this is life and death for people."
"It means I've got to write this article," he said. "As absurd as it seems to me to say this, I really do. I got up this morning realizing I have to do this."
A former Jehovah's Witness said the blood ban isn't always as strict as it appears.
Kerry Louderback-Wood, whose Jehovah's Witness mother died of a heart attack after refusing a blood transfusion late in her life, said the blood policy has shifted over the years.
Organ transplants weren't allowed in the 1960s, but they are now, she said.
Louderback-Wood, from Fort Myers, Florida, said the lives of the Vancouver babies should not be put at risk for a religious doctrine that has changed over the years and could likely change again.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.


http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11218-biblical-scholar-says-jehovahs-witnesses-wrong-about-blood-transfusions.html











 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Biblical scholar says Jehovah's Witnesses wrong about blood transfusions
Canadian Press/February 2, 2007
By Dirk Meissner
Victoria -- A biblical scholar says he woke up Friday morning convinced he must wade into the blood battle in British Columbia involving four babies, their Jehovah's Witness parents, their church and the government.
Religious scholars have evaded the Jehovah's Witness blood issue because they didn't believe it had academic merit, but it's a story that must be told, said Prof. Michael Duggan, who teaches biblical literature at St. Mary's University College in Calgary.
Duggan said he's been in Alberta hospitals telling doctors his academic perspective on what the Bible says about blood and what many Jehovah's Witnesses believe the biblical scriptures say about blood.
But the message needs to be made more public, he said.
"The point that I make to the physicians is none of these texts has to do with human blood," said Duggan. "Certainly, they never had to do with transfusions."
"What they have to do with is the handling of animals that are slaughtered and the cooking and the procedures in cooking the meat so as to be free of contamination and disease."
Four babies fighting for their survival in a Vancouver hospital are at the centre of a debate about religious freedom and the power of the government to protect its citizens.
The babies are the surviving sextuplets born almost three months' premature in Vancouver last month. Two of the six babies have died.
The parents are Jehovah's Witnesses who say they were horrified when the government seized custody of three of their children and gave two of them blood transfusions, a procedure their religion forbids.
The B.C. government said it was obligated by law to temporarily seize the babies and administer the blood transfusions for health reasons against the wishes of their parents.
Last week, the government took custody of three of the remaining children so doctors could perform transfusions. The government withdrew a seizure order Wednesday and the parents regained custody.
But the government can legally move in again.
The group that speaks for Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada issued a statement that said hospitals in Canada and the United States have treated extremely premature infants without blood transfusions by taking smaller samples of blood and accepting lower hemoglobin levels, among other things.
Premature babies have extremely low blood volumes, are prone to anemia and require frequent blood tests.
When asked why the religious denomination refuses blood transfusions, spokesman Mark Ruge pointed to the Jehovah's Witnesses website.
On it, the organization cites Bible passages to back up the belief. They include Leviticus 17:10-14, which reads in part:
"And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people."
The group also cites Acts 15:19-20, which states that God's followers must "abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood."
Duggan said the blood passages in the Hebrew Bible - Old Testament - often cited by Jehovah's Witnesses as their reasons to refuse blood transfusions are safe cooking instructions that date back to the 5th Century.
"That needs to be said," Duggan said. "The way the Jehovah's Witnesses read the biblical text is simply wrong."
The texts in the Hebrew Bible are mainly taken from Genesis 9:4-6 and from the book of Leviticus 17, he said.
"They speak about the life being in the blood, but the blood they are talking about is the blood of animals," Duggan said.
The case of the British Columbia sextuplets and other similar blood tranfusion battles in Alberta have him wanting to take on the Jehovah's Witnesses academically.
"I'm just concerned that people don't get victimized any more by this," Duggan said. "I mean this is life and death for people."
"It means I've got to write this article," he said. "As absurd as it seems to me to say this, I really do. I got up this morning realizing I have to do this."
A former Jehovah's Witness said the blood ban isn't always as strict as it appears.
Kerry Louderback-Wood, whose Jehovah's Witness mother died of a heart attack after refusing a blood transfusion late in her life, said the blood policy has shifted over the years.
Organ transplants weren't allowed in the 1960s, but they are now, she said.
Louderback-Wood, from Fort Myers, Florida, said the lives of the Vancouver babies should not be put at risk for a religious doctrine that has changed over the years and could likely change again.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.


http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11218-biblical-scholar-says-jehovahs-witnesses-wrong-about-blood-transfusions.html












 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Cast out: Religious shunning provides an unusual background in the Longo and Bryant slayings
The Register-Guard/March 2, 2003
By Karen McCowan
Shunning -- In the eyes of most Oregonians, it's an unfamiliar, even archaic, practice - a throwback to the era of "The Scarlet Letter." Yet it provided a bizarre backdrop for two recent familicides that occurred here just two months and 75 miles apart.
Shunning is not a topic that typically arises when detectives interview a murder suspect.
But Christian Longo, accused in the December 2001 killings of his wife, MaryJane, and their three children, raised shunning as the reason they moved to Oregon, so far from friends and family in Michigan.
After McMinnville resident Robert Bryant killed his wife, Janet, their four children and himself in February 2002, Janet's sister also cited the practice, saying it helped create the isolation and despair that drove Robert - "a loving and dedicated husband" - to snap.
Both families were members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, who say shunning is an act of love intended to inspire repentence and a return to right living.
Officially, the practice is known as "disfellowshipping." The word may sound less drastic than the "excommunication" of the Roman Catholic Church, but the practice goes far beyond denying sacraments to those cast out.
J.R. Brown, national spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses and Watchtower Society, explained it in straightforward fashion:
"Basically, it is a discipline that is applied by the congregation," he said in a recent interview. "Its purpose is to correct what is wrong or at variance with the scriptures ... We base it on what is in the Bible, I Corinthians 5 and 6: `Neither receive him into your home, or say a greeting to him or share a meal with him.' All spiritual relations and all social relationships are severed - and, by extension, business relationships."
Defense attorney Ken Hadley said he expected "more to come" out on Christian Longo's disfellowshipping when Longo's murder trial begins this month, and prospective jurors were quizzed about their knowledge of the practice.
Scholars who've studied the Jehovah's Witnesses use terms such as "psychologically devastating" to describe the impact of shunning - particularly on those who've known only the Jehovah's Witness faith.
None of the researchers interviewed for this story suggested the experience was a rationale for murder.
"I'm not familiar with any case when it was shown scientifically or social scientifically to be a cause of homicide" said Denver University religious studies professor Carl Raschke. "People are shunned, ostracized all the time without doing this."
In fact, one sociologist who has studied the Witnesses suggested that the disfellowshippings preceding the Longo and Bryant familicides were simply signs of coming trouble.
"People don't get disfellowshipped for nothing," said University of Washington sociology professor Rodney Stark [often referred to as a "cult apologist"] . "It seems far more likely that, rather than disfellowshipping being a cause, it was just one more symptom of someone with serious problems."
But other researchers said the isolation and tension inherent in disfellowshipping can also create emotional distress.
In their book "The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses" (University of Toronto Press, 1984), former Witnesses Heather and Gary Botting call the group's disfellowshipping "a form of social and spiritual ostracism, the effects of which are legendary."
"Jehovah's Witnesses have a closed society in that they try to ensure that the majority of their friends and acquaintances are from within the congregation," they wrote. "If a Witness should be disfellowshipped, he not only loses most of his friends, but also finds himself out in the world with limited employment opportunities.
"The very focus of his `spiritual education' that makes him successful as a Witness leads to difficulties in coping with the larger world."
Witnesses are taught that "the external world must be regarded as inimical, hostile and ugly, as a primary `enemy,' " the couple contended. "A move into that alien world is a frightening and painful experience" even for those who leave voluntarily, having prepared for the break, they said.
For those forced out suddenly, they wrote, the break can be "psychologically disruptive."
Ironically, it is the extraordinary support within groups such as the Witnesses that makes being cast out so devastating, said Julius Rubin, a sociology professor at Connecticut's St. Joseph College. His book "The Other Side of Joy" probed the effects of shunning in another group that practices it, the Bruderhof.
Being a Jehovah's Witness is not just a matter of gathering for an hour or two on Sunday mornings, he said. Rather, the congregation's cocoon of fellowship extends to study and door-to-door evangelism throughout the week, to informal socializing - even to business and employment referrals.
"They do remarkable things for each other," Rubin said. "They take care of their own. That's why shunning is absolutely horrible, not only for the individual, but for the family. They feel that they've been cast into this unredeemed world and its hopeless sinfulness. At every level, they lose support - social, financial, spiritual.
"I can't emphasize too much how devastating it is. You go from this warm, close-knit, loving group where the church is much of your life to a disciplining in which your own father and mother will systematically shun you."
Brown, the church's spokesman, confirmed that even immediate family is expected to avoid contact with the disfellowshipped, except those living in the same household.
He also acknowledged that the practice is intended to be painful.
"Its purpose is to correct," he said. "The proof that it does correct is every year we have thousands that correct their ways and come back - apply for reinstatement."
Some 40,000 to 50,000 Jehovah's Witnesses are disfellowshipped each year, out of 6 million worldwide, Brown said. Some 20,000 to 25,000 are "warmly welcomed back" each year after repenting, he added.
"It is not viewed by us as something unloving, but as a means of bringing the sinner back to his senses," Brown said.
Shunning raised early
When Lincoln County detectives asked Christian Longo why he moved his family to Oregon, he immediately raised the issue of his disfellowshipping in late 2000.
"Primarily everything was getting too stressful in Michigan, with everybody being so close," he said, according to the court transcript of a January 2002 jailhouse interview. "It was a little ways before that time that I was disfellowshipped from the religious aspect of our life. And everybody was kind of compounding on us from that level."
A spokesman for his former Kingdom Hall in Ypsilanti, Mich., said Longo was "put out" after being convicted of forgery and writing more than $30,000 in bad checks.
One relationship severed as a result was with his own father, an elder in the congregation, Longo told detectives.
He also said Kingdom Hall members were visiting MaryJane at home, suggesting that she consider "maintaining a little bit more of a separation from me, not just outside, but even within the household, just being a little bit more distant than she probably was ... Still being a wife, but not being so devoted to sticking by everything that I did."
The couple concluded they "needed to distance ourselves from that," Longo said.
They moved to Toledo, Ohio, in the spring of 2001 - a development so alarming to MaryJane's sisters that they drove to Toledo and begged her to return to Michigan, the Associated Press reported in January 2002. They took her to a restaurant so she could speak freely, but she insisted she would not leave her husband.
When her cell phone was disconnected later that year, the sisters again drove to Toledo. But the Longos had already moved on, leaving behind such sentimental treasures as family photo albums. MaryJane's family filed a missing persons report, but withdrew it after postcards in her handwriting were mailed from South Dakota in November. She'd written that Longo was in a job training program and that she would send a new address once he got a permanent work assignment.
In fact, the family had been living in a succession of rental housing on the Oregon Coast. MaryJane was so isolated that neighbors at their last home, a Newport condominium, didn't even know she and the children were living with Longo.
She was last seen alive Dec. 16 at a Salem furniture store, where a salesman remembered her as "aloof and weary." Her body - and those of Zachery, 5, Sadie, 3, and Madison, 2 - would be discovered in coastal inlets Dec. 19, 22 and 27.
Striking Similarities
An eerily similar case would unfold just two months later and 75 miles away. Once again, a disfellowshipped former Jehovah's Witness would relocate his family to Oregon. Once again, his wife and children would live in such isolation that no friend, neighbor or fellow church member would notice their absence and report them missing.
But - in a departure from the Longo case - Robert Bryant apparently took his own life after shooting his family.
In this case, Janet Bryant's sister, Sharon Roe, raised the issue of disfellowshipping.
Roe, who'd attended the same Shingle Springs, Calif., Kingdom Hall as her sister and brother-in-law, said he was disfellowshipped in 1999 for apostasy, after renouncing some of the faith's beliefs.
Congregation spokesman Mark Messier told reporters Robert Bryant had been cast out because of "unrepentant behavior" and "conduct not in harmony with the Bible's principles."
In a telephone interview with The Register-Guard, Roe said Robert Bryant had been an elder of their Kingdom Hall about three years when he began questioning the organization's structure and beliefs.
His misgivings crystallized, she said, after he met a troubled young woman while distributing Watchtower literature; she told him she had been sexually abused by her father and the church failed to help her. He began reading the Bible on his own, she said, finding what he considered inconsistencies with Witness doctrine.
"They were very mad at him for questioning," she recalled.
Church elders held a hearing which resulted in Robert's disfellowshipping from a congregation that included his parents and siblings, Roe said.
While not officially disfellowshipped, Janet Bryant eventually opted to join her husband in staying away. She, too, experienced shunning, her sister said.
Janet was devastated when longtime friends refused to greet her at the grocery store, Roe said.
Meanwhile, Robert's landscaping business suffered as family members quit working with him and he lost Jehovah's Witness clients. In January of 2000, he filed for bankruptcy. Both Bryants developed stress-related health problems, Roe said.
She could understand, she said, having once been disfellowshipped after marrying outside the faith.
"It was horrible," she said. "I had anxiety attacks, health problems. They brand you as the wickedest person on earth. Your whole realm of family and friends you've had since you were a little kid - gone."
But the final straw came for her sister and brother-in-law when they heard rumors that his parents were exploring the possibility of court-ordered visitation so they could take their grandchildren to Kingdom Hall. "Robert was so upset, he was vomiting," Roe recalled.
The couple quietly sold their home, Roe said, and she and her husband helped them pack their belongings to leave for Oregon in the middle of the night.
For a brief time the Bryants appeared to make a successful fresh start. In the long daylight hours and dry weather of Oregon summer, Robert found plenty of landscaping work. The couple obtained a loan to place a manufactured home on two acres west of McMinnville.
Then came the winter rains, however, and things got grim once again. By the time Roe came to visit over the Christmas holidays, Robert was telling Janet they had only enough money to last two more months.
" 'After that, we're going to starve,' he told her," Roe said. "Those were his exact words."
Police believe Robert Bryant waited until Janet and their four children - Clayton, 15; Ethan, 12; Ashley, 10 and Alyssa, 9 - were asleep the night of Feb. 23, 2002 before shooting each at close range, then turning his gun on himself. The bodies were not discovered until March 14.
Divided Loyalties
Wives such as Janet Bryant and MaryJane Longo face a spiritual "no woman's land" once their husbands are disfellowshipped, say those who have studied the Witnesses.
"In these two (Oregon) cases, I would speculate that the wife was caught in an almost intolerable tension between conflicting Biblical demands," said David Weddle, a religion professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. "She can either remain faithful to the teaching and practice of this faith upon which her eternal salvation rests, or remain faithful to her husband, which she's also taught to do by the same organization."
Brown, the Jehovah's Witness spokesman, did not speak specifically about the Oregon cases, except to call them "tragic."
But he confirmed that the church teaches that "marriage ties remain in effect" even after a spouse is disfellowshipped.
"They are still `one flesh,' " he said. "The only thing that changes between the husband and wife is the spiritual nature of the relationship - The Jehovah's Witness would discontinue studying scripture or spiritual discussion with the spouse."
Even a disfellowshipped husband is "the head of the house, according to the scriptures," Brown added.
"Our advice would always be to the wife, `Well, you should cooperate with the head.' "
Some of MaryJane Longo's family members worried about her because she'd been raised in a faith that left a wife so completely in the power of her husband, true-crime writer Carlton Smith reported in an August 2002 Willamette Week.
As a Witness who still believed the church's teachings, she could not simply find another denomination to join, noted Rick Ross of the Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements.
"You have to understand the mindset of Jehovah's Witnesses," said Ross, who has testified in Witness-related court cases.
"They teach that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, alone, is the connection to Jehovah God on Earth. All other churches, organizations and governments are part of the world system which is influenced by Satan," he said.
So women such as MaryJane Longo and Janet Bryant, raised as Jehovah's Witnesses, would probably feel they "really don't have a choice but to live to themselves," Weddle said.
Sharon Roe believes that spiritual legacy kept Janet Bryant isolated from outside relationships that might have saved her.
"They brainwash you to be afraid of the world, of any support out there," Roe said. "Janet was afraid of making new friends."
The fear may explain why three weeks passed before police, in the area on an unrelated burglary call, discovered the Bryants' bodies. Likewise, authorities had no clue about the deaths of MaryJane Longo and her children until their bodies were discovered.
Atypical Domestic Violence
Katherine van Wormer, a University of Northern Iowa professor of social work, has long studied domestic violence homicides. The Longo and Bryant cases are "totally different" from the classic pattern, she said.
Usually, offenders are males killing a wife or girlfriend after a break-up. Typically, they have been batteriers, lashing out in "If I can't have you, nobody can" violence, she said.
But those close to MaryJane Longo and Janet Bryant said there was never any hint of physical - even verbal -abuse before their killings.
Also, men in classic domestic violence slayings rarely kill their children, van Wormer noted. The two disfellowshipped fathers remind her more of the female perpetrators she has studied, whose victims are more typically their children. Their rationale is often more like, "If I can't take care of you, nobody can," van Wormer said.
Both men had expressed despair about their inability to provide for their families, she said. "They were taking the world on their shoulders, you might say," she said. "They saw themselves as totally in charge and responsible. They couldn't support their families, and life was getting worse and worse."
Even with her sister dead at Robert Bryant's hand, Roe refuses to characterize what he did as domestic violence. She insists that he had untreated depression and was "not in his right mind."
"I have known him since age 15 and he was never a vengeful, angry person," she said. "I never heard the man raise his voice to my sister.
"He was just desperate. He didn't think he had a way out. And if he was not going to be able to take care of his family, he was going to take them with him. I believe he thought for some bizarre reason that he was protecting them."
In at least one respect, however, the cases do fit the domestic violence profile.
"One of the factors in domestic violence is isolation, and shunning certainly comes into play with that," said Margo Schaefer, community outreach director at WomenSpace in Eugene.
Religions with rigid gender roles have been statistically associated with a higher incidence of domestic violence, she added. "The church is protecting their community from behaviors they consider nefarious" she said of shunning in such settings. "But, on the flip side, that may put the person's family members more at risk."
For van Wormer, one of the most chilling revelations in the Longo case is that a neighbor in a unit directly below the family's condo didn't even know MaryJane and the children lived there.
"That says a lot about their isolation," she said. "They couldn't even make any noise."
Karen McCowan can be reached at 338-2422 or kmccowan@guardnet.com.
Jehovah's Witnesses at a Glance
Founded: 1872 by former Congregational layman Charles Taze Russell.
Numbers: 6 million in 97,000 congregations worldwide, 18,000 in 226 Oregon congregations.
Leaders: Governing Body at Watchtower World Headquarters in Brooklyn; Lay elders (always male) in local Kingdom Halls.
Keeping apart: Witnesses do not vote; hold public office; salute the flag; serve in the military; celebrate national holidays or take part in interfaith worship.
Medical practices: Witnesses believe blood transfusions are prohibited by scripture, but accept other medical care.
Afterlife beliefs: No hell - the wicked are simply eternally destroyed. Only 144,000 select people will go to heaven and rule with Christ. Others approved by Jehovah will live eternally in an earthly paradise.
Evangelism: Witnesses are expected to "publish" God's word by distributing The Watchtower door-to-door.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.



http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11073-cast-out-religious-shunning-provides-an-unusual-background-in-the-longo-and-bryant-slayings-.html











 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Cast out: Religious shunning provides an unusual background in the Longo and Bryant slayings
The Register-Guard/March 2, 2003
By Karen McCowan
Shunning -- In the eyes of most Oregonians, it's an unfamiliar, even archaic, practice - a throwback to the era of "The Scarlet Letter." Yet it provided a bizarre backdrop for two recent familicides that occurred here just two months and 75 miles apart.
Shunning is not a topic that typically arises when detectives interview a murder suspect.
But Christian Longo, accused in the December 2001 killings of his wife, MaryJane, and their three children, raised shunning as the reason they moved to Oregon, so far from friends and family in Michigan.
After McMinnville resident Robert Bryant killed his wife, Janet, their four children and himself in February 2002, Janet's sister also cited the practice, saying it helped create the isolation and despair that drove Robert - "a loving and dedicated husband" - to snap.
Both families were members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, who say shunning is an act of love intended to inspire repentence and a return to right living.
Officially, the practice is known as "disfellowshipping." The word may sound less drastic than the "excommunication" of the Roman Catholic Church, but the practice goes far beyond denying sacraments to those cast out.
J.R. Brown, national spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses and Watchtower Society, explained it in straightforward fashion:
"Basically, it is a discipline that is applied by the congregation," he said in a recent interview. "Its purpose is to correct what is wrong or at variance with the scriptures ... We base it on what is in the Bible, I Corinthians 5 and 6: `Neither receive him into your home, or say a greeting to him or share a meal with him.' All spiritual relations and all social relationships are severed - and, by extension, business relationships."
Defense attorney Ken Hadley said he expected "more to come" out on Christian Longo's disfellowshipping when Longo's murder trial begins this month, and prospective jurors were quizzed about their knowledge of the practice.
Scholars who've studied the Jehovah's Witnesses use terms such as "psychologically devastating" to describe the impact of shunning - particularly on those who've known only the Jehovah's Witness faith.
None of the researchers interviewed for this story suggested the experience was a rationale for murder.
"I'm not familiar with any case when it was shown scientifically or social scientifically to be a cause of homicide" said Denver University religious studies professor Carl Raschke. "People are shunned, ostracized all the time without doing this."
In fact, one sociologist who has studied the Witnesses suggested that the disfellowshippings preceding the Longo and Bryant familicides were simply signs of coming trouble.
"People don't get disfellowshipped for nothing," said University of Washington sociology professor Rodney Stark [often referred to as a "cult apologist"] . "It seems far more likely that, rather than disfellowshipping being a cause, it was just one more symptom of someone with serious problems."
But other researchers said the isolation and tension inherent in disfellowshipping can also create emotional distress.
In their book "The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses" (University of Toronto Press, 1984), former Witnesses Heather and Gary Botting call the group's disfellowshipping "a form of social and spiritual ostracism, the effects of which are legendary."
"Jehovah's Witnesses have a closed society in that they try to ensure that the majority of their friends and acquaintances are from within the congregation," they wrote. "If a Witness should be disfellowshipped, he not only loses most of his friends, but also finds himself out in the world with limited employment opportunities.
"The very focus of his `spiritual education' that makes him successful as a Witness leads to difficulties in coping with the larger world."
Witnesses are taught that "the external world must be regarded as inimical, hostile and ugly, as a primary `enemy,' " the couple contended. "A move into that alien world is a frightening and painful experience" even for those who leave voluntarily, having prepared for the break, they said.
For those forced out suddenly, they wrote, the break can be "psychologically disruptive."
Ironically, it is the extraordinary support within groups such as the Witnesses that makes being cast out so devastating, said Julius Rubin, a sociology professor at Connecticut's St. Joseph College. His book "The Other Side of Joy" probed the effects of shunning in another group that practices it, the Bruderhof.
Being a Jehovah's Witness is not just a matter of gathering for an hour or two on Sunday mornings, he said. Rather, the congregation's cocoon of fellowship extends to study and door-to-door evangelism throughout the week, to informal socializing - even to business and employment referrals.
"They do remarkable things for each other," Rubin said. "They take care of their own. That's why shunning is absolutely horrible, not only for the individual, but for the family. They feel that they've been cast into this unredeemed world and its hopeless sinfulness. At every level, they lose support - social, financial, spiritual.
"I can't emphasize too much how devastating it is. You go from this warm, close-knit, loving group where the church is much of your life to a disciplining in which your own father and mother will systematically shun you."
Brown, the church's spokesman, confirmed that even immediate family is expected to avoid contact with the disfellowshipped, except those living in the same household.
He also acknowledged that the practice is intended to be painful.
"Its purpose is to correct," he said. "The proof that it does correct is every year we have thousands that correct their ways and come back - apply for reinstatement."
Some 40,000 to 50,000 Jehovah's Witnesses are disfellowshipped each year, out of 6 million worldwide, Brown said. Some 20,000 to 25,000 are "warmly welcomed back" each year after repenting, he added.
"It is not viewed by us as something unloving, but as a means of bringing the sinner back to his senses," Brown said.
Shunning raised early
When Lincoln County detectives asked Christian Longo why he moved his family to Oregon, he immediately raised the issue of his disfellowshipping in late 2000.
"Primarily everything was getting too stressful in Michigan, with everybody being so close," he said, according to the court transcript of a January 2002 jailhouse interview. "It was a little ways before that time that I was disfellowshipped from the religious aspect of our life. And everybody was kind of compounding on us from that level."
A spokesman for his former Kingdom Hall in Ypsilanti, Mich., said Longo was "put out" after being convicted of forgery and writing more than $30,000 in bad checks.
One relationship severed as a result was with his own father, an elder in the congregation, Longo told detectives.
He also said Kingdom Hall members were visiting MaryJane at home, suggesting that she consider "maintaining a little bit more of a separation from me, not just outside, but even within the household, just being a little bit more distant than she probably was ... Still being a wife, but not being so devoted to sticking by everything that I did."
The couple concluded they "needed to distance ourselves from that," Longo said.
They moved to Toledo, Ohio, in the spring of 2001 - a development so alarming to MaryJane's sisters that they drove to Toledo and begged her to return to Michigan, the Associated Press reported in January 2002. They took her to a restaurant so she could speak freely, but she insisted she would not leave her husband.
When her cell phone was disconnected later that year, the sisters again drove to Toledo. But the Longos had already moved on, leaving behind such sentimental treasures as family photo albums. MaryJane's family filed a missing persons report, but withdrew it after postcards in her handwriting were mailed from South Dakota in November. She'd written that Longo was in a job training program and that she would send a new address once he got a permanent work assignment.
In fact, the family had been living in a succession of rental housing on the Oregon Coast. MaryJane was so isolated that neighbors at their last home, a Newport condominium, didn't even know she and the children were living with Longo.
She was last seen alive Dec. 16 at a Salem furniture store, where a salesman remembered her as "aloof and weary." Her body - and those of Zachery, 5, Sadie, 3, and Madison, 2 - would be discovered in coastal inlets Dec. 19, 22 and 27.
Striking Similarities
An eerily similar case would unfold just two months later and 75 miles away. Once again, a disfellowshipped former Jehovah's Witness would relocate his family to Oregon. Once again, his wife and children would live in such isolation that no friend, neighbor or fellow church member would notice their absence and report them missing.
But - in a departure from the Longo case - Robert Bryant apparently took his own life after shooting his family.
In this case, Janet Bryant's sister, Sharon Roe, raised the issue of disfellowshipping.
Roe, who'd attended the same Shingle Springs, Calif., Kingdom Hall as her sister and brother-in-law, said he was disfellowshipped in 1999 for apostasy, after renouncing some of the faith's beliefs.
Congregation spokesman Mark Messier told reporters Robert Bryant had been cast out because of "unrepentant behavior" and "conduct not in harmony with the Bible's principles."
In a telephone interview with The Register-Guard, Roe said Robert Bryant had been an elder of their Kingdom Hall about three years when he began questioning the organization's structure and beliefs.
His misgivings crystallized, she said, after he met a troubled young woman while distributing Watchtower literature; she told him she had been sexually abused by her father and the church failed to help her. He began reading the Bible on his own, she said, finding what he considered inconsistencies with Witness doctrine.
"They were very mad at him for questioning," she recalled.
Church elders held a hearing which resulted in Robert's disfellowshipping from a congregation that included his parents and siblings, Roe said.
While not officially disfellowshipped, Janet Bryant eventually opted to join her husband in staying away. She, too, experienced shunning, her sister said.
Janet was devastated when longtime friends refused to greet her at the grocery store, Roe said.
Meanwhile, Robert's landscaping business suffered as family members quit working with him and he lost Jehovah's Witness clients. In January of 2000, he filed for bankruptcy. Both Bryants developed stress-related health problems, Roe said.
She could understand, she said, having once been disfellowshipped after marrying outside the faith.
"It was horrible," she said. "I had anxiety attacks, health problems. They brand you as the wickedest person on earth. Your whole realm of family and friends you've had since you were a little kid - gone."
But the final straw came for her sister and brother-in-law when they heard rumors that his parents were exploring the possibility of court-ordered visitation so they could take their grandchildren to Kingdom Hall. "Robert was so upset, he was vomiting," Roe recalled.
The couple quietly sold their home, Roe said, and she and her husband helped them pack their belongings to leave for Oregon in the middle of the night.
For a brief time the Bryants appeared to make a successful fresh start. In the long daylight hours and dry weather of Oregon summer, Robert found plenty of landscaping work. The couple obtained a loan to place a manufactured home on two acres west of McMinnville.
Then came the winter rains, however, and things got grim once again. By the time Roe came to visit over the Christmas holidays, Robert was telling Janet they had only enough money to last two more months.
" 'After that, we're going to starve,' he told her," Roe said. "Those were his exact words."
Police believe Robert Bryant waited until Janet and their four children - Clayton, 15; Ethan, 12; Ashley, 10 and Alyssa, 9 - were asleep the night of Feb. 23, 2002 before shooting each at close range, then turning his gun on himself. The bodies were not discovered until March 14.
Divided Loyalties
Wives such as Janet Bryant and MaryJane Longo face a spiritual "no woman's land" once their husbands are disfellowshipped, say those who have studied the Witnesses.
"In these two (Oregon) cases, I would speculate that the wife was caught in an almost intolerable tension between conflicting Biblical demands," said David Weddle, a religion professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. "She can either remain faithful to the teaching and practice of this faith upon which her eternal salvation rests, or remain faithful to her husband, which she's also taught to do by the same organization."
Brown, the Jehovah's Witness spokesman, did not speak specifically about the Oregon cases, except to call them "tragic."
But he confirmed that the church teaches that "marriage ties remain in effect" even after a spouse is disfellowshipped.
"They are still `one flesh,' " he said. "The only thing that changes between the husband and wife is the spiritual nature of the relationship - The Jehovah's Witness would discontinue studying scripture or spiritual discussion with the spouse."
Even a disfellowshipped husband is "the head of the house, according to the scriptures," Brown added.
"Our advice would always be to the wife, `Well, you should cooperate with the head.' "
Some of MaryJane Longo's family members worried about her because she'd been raised in a faith that left a wife so completely in the power of her husband, true-crime writer Carlton Smith reported in an August 2002 Willamette Week.
As a Witness who still believed the church's teachings, she could not simply find another denomination to join, noted Rick Ross of the Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements.
"You have to understand the mindset of Jehovah's Witnesses," said Ross, who has testified in Witness-related court cases.
"They teach that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, alone, is the connection to Jehovah God on Earth. All other churches, organizations and governments are part of the world system which is influenced by Satan," he said.
So women such as MaryJane Longo and Janet Bryant, raised as Jehovah's Witnesses, would probably feel they "really don't have a choice but to live to themselves," Weddle said.
Sharon Roe believes that spiritual legacy kept Janet Bryant isolated from outside relationships that might have saved her.
"They brainwash you to be afraid of the world, of any support out there," Roe said. "Janet was afraid of making new friends."
The fear may explain why three weeks passed before police, in the area on an unrelated burglary call, discovered the Bryants' bodies. Likewise, authorities had no clue about the deaths of MaryJane Longo and her children until their bodies were discovered.
Atypical Domestic Violence
Katherine van Wormer, a University of Northern Iowa professor of social work, has long studied domestic violence homicides. The Longo and Bryant cases are "totally different" from the classic pattern, she said.
Usually, offenders are males killing a wife or girlfriend after a break-up. Typically, they have been batteriers, lashing out in "If I can't have you, nobody can" violence, she said.
But those close to MaryJane Longo and Janet Bryant said there was never any hint of physical - even verbal -abuse before their killings.
Also, men in classic domestic violence slayings rarely kill their children, van Wormer noted. The two disfellowshipped fathers remind her more of the female perpetrators she has studied, whose victims are more typically their children. Their rationale is often more like, "If I can't take care of you, nobody can," van Wormer said.
Both men had expressed despair about their inability to provide for their families, she said. "They were taking the world on their shoulders, you might say," she said. "They saw themselves as totally in charge and responsible. They couldn't support their families, and life was getting worse and worse."
Even with her sister dead at Robert Bryant's hand, Roe refuses to characterize what he did as domestic violence. She insists that he had untreated depression and was "not in his right mind."
"I have known him since age 15 and he was never a vengeful, angry person," she said. "I never heard the man raise his voice to my sister.
"He was just desperate. He didn't think he had a way out. And if he was not going to be able to take care of his family, he was going to take them with him. I believe he thought for some bizarre reason that he was protecting them."
In at least one respect, however, the cases do fit the domestic violence profile.
"One of the factors in domestic violence is isolation, and shunning certainly comes into play with that," said Margo Schaefer, community outreach director at WomenSpace in Eugene.
Religions with rigid gender roles have been statistically associated with a higher incidence of domestic violence, she added. "The church is protecting their community from behaviors they consider nefarious" she said of shunning in such settings. "But, on the flip side, that may put the person's family members more at risk."
For van Wormer, one of the most chilling revelations in the Longo case is that a neighbor in a unit directly below the family's condo didn't even know MaryJane and the children lived there.
"That says a lot about their isolation," she said. "They couldn't even make any noise."
Karen McCowan can be reached at 338-2422 or kmccowan@guardnet.com.
Jehovah's Witnesses at a Glance
Founded: 1872 by former Congregational layman Charles Taze Russell.
Numbers: 6 million in 97,000 congregations worldwide, 18,000 in 226 Oregon congregations.
Leaders: Governing Body at Watchtower World Headquarters in Brooklyn; Lay elders (always male) in local Kingdom Halls.
Keeping apart: Witnesses do not vote; hold public office; salute the flag; serve in the military; celebrate national holidays or take part in interfaith worship.
Medical practices: Witnesses believe blood transfusions are prohibited by scripture, but accept other medical care.
Afterlife beliefs: No hell - the wicked are simply eternally destroyed. Only 144,000 select people will go to heaven and rule with Christ. Others approved by Jehovah will live eternally in an earthly paradise.
Evangelism: Witnesses are expected to "publish" God's word by distributing The Watchtower door-to-door.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.



http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11073-cast-out-religious-shunning-provides-an-unusual-background-in-the-longo-and-bryant-slayings-.html











 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Changing tactics speed growth of Jehovah's Witnesses
Seattle Post-Intelligencer/August 27, 2003
By Vanessa Ho
Renton -- The next time you feel down about rejection, consider Sheryl Brown and Helen Schwerdtfeger. As longtime Jehovah's Witnesses, they have knocked on hundreds of doors to promote the benefits of studying the Bible. Along the way, they've weathered insults, slammed doors, growling dogs and aching feet, and come away with just a handful of converts.
And yet, here they were on a sunny morning in summer skirts, Bibles in hand, ready for more. But instead of ringing doorbells, they circled bus stops and parking lots, in search of lone commuters -- and anyone else, really, who looked available. No one escaped their eagle eyes -- not drivers, joggers, baristas or construction workers.
Jehovah's Witnesses once conveyed their message almost exclusively door-to-door. But the increase in high-rise apartments -- coupled with a declining chance of finding anyone at home during the day -- has prompted new tactics. People now are as likely to hear about the coming kingdom of God at a gas station or Laundromat as they are at their front door.
The group's aggressive methods have helped propel them into one of the nation's fastest-growing religions. They've also irritated some people.
The city of Stratton, Ohio, fought to keep an ordinance requiring Jehovah's Witnesses and other door-to-door groups to get a permit before knocking -- until the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional last year. In Blainville, Quebec, city lawyers have been trying to reinstate a law restricting when Jehovah's Witnesses can knock on doors.
In Renton, where Brown and Schwerdtfeger preach, the mayor's office has not had complaints about Jehovah's Witnesses. But that doesn't mean the work is easy.
Jehovah's Witnesses follow a literal reading of the Bible that compels them to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and spread the "good news" about God's earthly paradise. But because they can't enter many apartments and condos, they often resort to thick reverse-directories for hours of "telephone witnessing."
Some members, such as Maggie Wood of Issaquah, like to write letters. "Dear Neighbor," Wood writes on flowery stationery. "I try to pay a visit to every person in town with the best message ever."
And at the airport and in downtown Seattle, Jehovah's Witnesses occasionally display "The Watchtower" magazines for passersby.
But face-to-face visits are still preferred.
That is what propelled Brown and Schwerdtfeger to meander through Renton in a gray minivan recently, searching for people who were alone. They spend 70 hours a month preaching, and have become adept at reading human dynamics and body language. People who are alone and aren't too busy are the most receptive. People in groups are the least.
Brown, who is 46 and was raised a Jehovah's Witness, spied a young man waiting for a bus on Sunset Boulevard Northeast. She parked, threaded her way down a cracked, weedy sidewalk in her nice pumps, and yelled over the roar of traffic. He didn't want any pamphlets, but took a Bible tract.
"Oh, good! A thought for the day!" he yelled back, voice slightly off-kilter. "I'm going to kill you! Ha ha ha ha!"
Brown's face froze into a stiff mask. "Well," she said. "That's not a good thought."
Effective methods
To outsiders, the group's methods might seem sure to produce failures, but researchers say they're effective.
"It is extremely difficult. It's not like handing out free samples of some product everyone wants. ... so you're inclined to think this whole system is some dismal failure," said Laurence Iannaccone, an economics professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He and Rodney Stark, a sociology professor at the University of Washington, published a 1997 study on the growth of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Iannaccone said the Jehovah's Witnesses have grown about 5 percent a year since 1980, making them one of the fastest-growing denominations in the world. Their growth, which slowed in the 1990s, comes at a time when other evangelical denominations are booming, while many mainline churches are declining.
Jehovah's Witnesses now number about 6 million worldwide and 1 million in the United States. There are about 30,000 in Washington, where new Kingdom Halls, as the faith calls its churches, are planned in Issaquah, Vancouver and Sultan, as well as in Rochester in Thurston County. In Puyallup, a new Assembly Hall -- a building for 1,700 people -- is scheduled to open soon.
"It could be there are other more efficient ways, but in the final analysis, (the evangelism methods) have worked very well for a century," Iannacone said.
The methods worked on 28-year-old Derseh Gizaw, who was in jail nine years ago, when a Jehovah's Witness gave him a book of Bible stories, which resonated with Gizaw, who was doing time for assault.
He was baptized in July.
"I changed my life around," said Gizaw, a heavy-equipment operator who lives in Renton. "Knowing all the truth, it straightened me up and brought me closer to (Jehovah). It gave me a conscience, basically."
'Life-saving work'
Back in the van, Brown and Schwerdtfeger met several people who politely took their literature. And on one day, Helen Schwerdtfeger dropped off magazines for a woman she had been visiting for nearly five years.
"They've been life-savers for me," said the woman, Mary Rose, an unemployed mother of three who had gone through a difficult divorce. "Helen ran to the store for me when the kids had the stomach flu."
But many people were more like a young man Schwerdtfeger spotted at Coulon Park. A former hairdresser with an easygoing charm and thick Brooklyn accent, Schwerdtfeger beamed at him.
"Have you ever been bullied?" she asked, referring to a cover story in an Awake! magazine.
Waves of apathy radiated from the man. Schwerdtfeger fanned them away.
"How would you like to be remembered? Have you ever thought about that?" she said. The man stared at his cell phone, as if willing it to ring. Then Schwerdtfeger heard the phrase that terminates so many of her conversations:
"I'm not interested."
But rejection never bothered her or Brown. They figured they caught someone at a bad time, or that the person wasn't ready to hear about everlasting life. It was never personal. Schwerdtfeger converted more than 30 years ago, to join her husband in his faith, and she had met many people who appreciated her.
"It's life-saving work," she said. "The goal is help people make changes for the better. Practical changes. You know, the Bible is very practical, and it's never out of date."
And just the other day, Brown knocked on the glass-encrusted double doors of a new mansion, only to hear a dog bark and a woman curtly cut her off.
But as she retreated down a lushly manicured front path, she remained upbeat and whispered brightly, "We get to see some beautiful landscaping."
Some Beliefs
Established in 1872 in Pittsburgh, Jehovah's Witnesses believe the world, as we know it, will end soon and that God will set up an earthly paradise after the battle of Armageddon.
They believe 144,000 people will go to heaven and serve as co-rulers in God's kingdom and that billions of people will have the opportunity to live forever in perfect health on Earth.
A Christian denomination [sic], they preach door-to-door to follow in the practice of Jesus [sic].
They believe they adhere to the oldest religion on Earth, the worship of Almighty God revealed in the Bible as Jehovah.
Because they pledge allegiance to God's kingdom, they do not vote, salute the flag, run for public office or serve in the military.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.


http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11093-changing-tactics-speed-growth-of-jehovahs-witnesses.html











 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Changing tactics speed growth of Jehovah's Witnesses
Seattle Post-Intelligencer/August 27, 2003
By Vanessa Ho
Renton -- The next time you feel down about rejection, consider Sheryl Brown and Helen Schwerdtfeger. As longtime Jehovah's Witnesses, they have knocked on hundreds of doors to promote the benefits of studying the Bible. Along the way, they've weathered insults, slammed doors, growling dogs and aching feet, and come away with just a handful of converts.
And yet, here they were on a sunny morning in summer skirts, Bibles in hand, ready for more. But instead of ringing doorbells, they circled bus stops and parking lots, in search of lone commuters -- and anyone else, really, who looked available. No one escaped their eagle eyes -- not drivers, joggers, baristas or construction workers.
Jehovah's Witnesses once conveyed their message almost exclusively door-to-door. But the increase in high-rise apartments -- coupled with a declining chance of finding anyone at home during the day -- has prompted new tactics. People now are as likely to hear about the coming kingdom of God at a gas station or Laundromat as they are at their front door.
The group's aggressive methods have helped propel them into one of the nation's fastest-growing religions. They've also irritated some people.
The city of Stratton, Ohio, fought to keep an ordinance requiring Jehovah's Witnesses and other door-to-door groups to get a permit before knocking -- until the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional last year. In Blainville, Quebec, city lawyers have been trying to reinstate a law restricting when Jehovah's Witnesses can knock on doors.
In Renton, where Brown and Schwerdtfeger preach, the mayor's office has not had complaints about Jehovah's Witnesses. But that doesn't mean the work is easy.
Jehovah's Witnesses follow a literal reading of the Bible that compels them to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and spread the "good news" about God's earthly paradise. But because they can't enter many apartments and condos, they often resort to thick reverse-directories for hours of "telephone witnessing."
Some members, such as Maggie Wood of Issaquah, like to write letters. "Dear Neighbor," Wood writes on flowery stationery. "I try to pay a visit to every person in town with the best message ever."
And at the airport and in downtown Seattle, Jehovah's Witnesses occasionally display "The Watchtower" magazines for passersby.
But face-to-face visits are still preferred.
That is what propelled Brown and Schwerdtfeger to meander through Renton in a gray minivan recently, searching for people who were alone. They spend 70 hours a month preaching, and have become adept at reading human dynamics and body language. People who are alone and aren't too busy are the most receptive. People in groups are the least.
Brown, who is 46 and was raised a Jehovah's Witness, spied a young man waiting for a bus on Sunset Boulevard Northeast. She parked, threaded her way down a cracked, weedy sidewalk in her nice pumps, and yelled over the roar of traffic. He didn't want any pamphlets, but took a Bible tract.
"Oh, good! A thought for the day!" he yelled back, voice slightly off-kilter. "I'm going to kill you! Ha ha ha ha!"
Brown's face froze into a stiff mask. "Well," she said. "That's not a good thought."
Effective methods
To outsiders, the group's methods might seem sure to produce failures, but researchers say they're effective.
"It is extremely difficult. It's not like handing out free samples of some product everyone wants. ... so you're inclined to think this whole system is some dismal failure," said Laurence Iannaccone, an economics professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He and Rodney Stark, a sociology professor at the University of Washington, published a 1997 study on the growth of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Iannaccone said the Jehovah's Witnesses have grown about 5 percent a year since 1980, making them one of the fastest-growing denominations in the world. Their growth, which slowed in the 1990s, comes at a time when other evangelical denominations are booming, while many mainline churches are declining.
Jehovah's Witnesses now number about 6 million worldwide and 1 million in the United States. There are about 30,000 in Washington, where new Kingdom Halls, as the faith calls its churches, are planned in Issaquah, Vancouver and Sultan, as well as in Rochester in Thurston County. In Puyallup, a new Assembly Hall -- a building for 1,700 people -- is scheduled to open soon.
"It could be there are other more efficient ways, but in the final analysis, (the evangelism methods) have worked very well for a century," Iannacone said.
The methods worked on 28-year-old Derseh Gizaw, who was in jail nine years ago, when a Jehovah's Witness gave him a book of Bible stories, which resonated with Gizaw, who was doing time for assault.
He was baptized in July.
"I changed my life around," said Gizaw, a heavy-equipment operator who lives in Renton. "Knowing all the truth, it straightened me up and brought me closer to (Jehovah). It gave me a conscience, basically."
'Life-saving work'
Back in the van, Brown and Schwerdtfeger met several people who politely took their literature. And on one day, Helen Schwerdtfeger dropped off magazines for a woman she had been visiting for nearly five years.
"They've been life-savers for me," said the woman, Mary Rose, an unemployed mother of three who had gone through a difficult divorce. "Helen ran to the store for me when the kids had the stomach flu."
But many people were more like a young man Schwerdtfeger spotted at Coulon Park. A former hairdresser with an easygoing charm and thick Brooklyn accent, Schwerdtfeger beamed at him.
"Have you ever been bullied?" she asked, referring to a cover story in an Awake! magazine.
Waves of apathy radiated from the man. Schwerdtfeger fanned them away.
"How would you like to be remembered? Have you ever thought about that?" she said. The man stared at his cell phone, as if willing it to ring. Then Schwerdtfeger heard the phrase that terminates so many of her conversations:
"I'm not interested."
But rejection never bothered her or Brown. They figured they caught someone at a bad time, or that the person wasn't ready to hear about everlasting life. It was never personal. Schwerdtfeger converted more than 30 years ago, to join her husband in his faith, and she had met many people who appreciated her.
"It's life-saving work," she said. "The goal is help people make changes for the better. Practical changes. You know, the Bible is very practical, and it's never out of date."
And just the other day, Brown knocked on the glass-encrusted double doors of a new mansion, only to hear a dog bark and a woman curtly cut her off.
But as she retreated down a lushly manicured front path, she remained upbeat and whispered brightly, "We get to see some beautiful landscaping."
Some Beliefs
Established in 1872 in Pittsburgh, Jehovah's Witnesses believe the world, as we know it, will end soon and that God will set up an earthly paradise after the battle of Armageddon.
They believe 144,000 people will go to heaven and serve as co-rulers in God's kingdom and that billions of people will have the opportunity to live forever in perfect health on Earth.
A Christian denomination [sic], they preach door-to-door to follow in the practice of Jesus [sic].
They believe they adhere to the oldest religion on Earth, the worship of Almighty God revealed in the Bible as Jehovah.
Because they pledge allegiance to God's kingdom, they do not vote, salute the flag, run for public office or serve in the military.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.



http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11093-changing-tactics-speed-growth-of-jehovahs-witnesses.html










 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Jehovah's Witnesses busy inviting everyone in region to convention in Tacoma
Seattle Post-Intelligencer/June 19, 2006
By John Iwasaki
An elder from a local congregation, dressed in a coat and tie and bearing religious literature, was headed up the walkway of a Ballard home when a woman sketching on the porch spotted him.
"That's far enough," she called out.
Learning that the visitor was a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the woman said that a previous visit by group members annoyed her: "I'm a nice person, but they pushed me to the limit."
These face-to-face encounters last week -- some hits, some misses -- marked the beginning of a massive campaign by Jehovah's Witnesses to personally invite Western Washington residents to their upcoming district convention in Tacoma next month.
The group printed enough invitations to hand out at 900,000 homes from Bellingham to Vancouver, bold and ambitious even for a religion known for its persistent door-to-door visits and divergence from certain bedrock Christian beliefs.
Though Jehovah's Witnesses annually hold district conventions around the world that are open to the general public, they usually don't seek attention. This year, that changed.
"Why now? Because we recognize how close it is to the culmination of the entire world system," said Peter Michas, the elder who encountered the Ballard woman last week.
Wars, natural disasters and other tumultuous events around the globe indicate that "the kingdom (of God) is like a freight train. It's on its way," he said.
Such discourse draws mixed reaction from the general public, said Chris Mahla, an elder with Michas at the North Park congregation in Greenwood.
"If I had to summarize the perception, I'd say that people who do not know anything about the Bible probably think we're quacks going door-to-door," he said. "People who know about the Bible probably respect our knowledge."
About 20,000 Jehovah's Witnesses live in Western Washington, said Henry Schwerdtfeger, a local spokesman and minister in the Issaquah congregation.
Jehovah's Witnesses -- Jehovah is a name for God in the Old Testament -- usually meet at buildings called Kingdom Halls and do not call themselves a church.
Mahla led 10 members in a brief prayer one morning last week at the North Park Kingdom Hall before they broke into small groups and fanned out into the neighborhood.
As a light rain fell, Mahla and Michas walked around the block, gently rapping on front doors. They handed invitations to a man sitting in his car, a woman scurrying after her child on the sidewalk, a construction worker repairing a house.
Because most residents weren't home, the two elders left folded invitations at the door.
At one empty house, nine silver, artistic crucifixes were on display near the porch -- "a tell-tale sign" about the spiritual interests of the owner, Michas said.
Though Northwesterners are known for their low church attendance, "it does not mean they are unspiritual," Mahla said. "They do not like what they've seen in religion."
Neither do Jehovah's Witnesses, who do not have paid ministers. They generally disagree with churches that seem overly concerned with money and fancy facilities, or those that take pulpit positions on the Iraq war or otherwise engage in political activism, Michas said.
But those are relatively minor differences.
"There is one central theological disagreement between Jehovah's Witnesses and nearly every orthodox form of Christianity, and that is the person of Jesus," said Michael Hamilton, who studies American religions and is chairman of the history department at Seattle Pacific University.
"Orthodox Christianity says Jesus is fully man and fully God, that he's part of the Trinity -- Father, Son, Holy Spirit," he said, while Jehovah's Witnesses say "that Jesus has a divine nature but is not part of the godhead."
Or, as Schwerdtfeger puts it: "We believe Jesus Christ is God's son and not God Himself, which some religions believe."
Other distinctive beliefs -- that Jesus was created, died on a pole and was raised from the dead in spirit and not in body -- are based on the Witnesses' version of the Bible, called the "New World Translation."
"We always go back to what the Bible says," said Mary Crowley of Shoreline, who planned to go door-to-door last weekend in Magnolia with the Queen Anne congregation. "That's the last word on everything. We try to live life the best we can."
When she talks to a stranger about her faith, "people sometimes tell me they have their own religion," Crowley said. "I can appreciate that. I think it's marvelous. I say, 'How does your church think about conditions on Earth today?' Some are just not interested. Some are very polite."
Many of the world's 6 million Jehovah's Witnesses have undergone persecution.
"All around the world, they've won freedom of religion cases," Hamilton said. "In the U.S., Canada, India and the Philippines, they've been hauled into courts and been vindicated."
The beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses have "led to significant differences in lifestyle and ethics: pacifism, downgrading public education and refusal to accept blood transfusions and to salute the flag," said Roger Finke, a sociologist at Pennsylvania State University who studies religion and society. Though not known for seeking attention, "knocking on 900,000 doors is exactly what we would expect from the Witnesses," Finke said. "They tend to encourage public engagements whenever they think it will offer them a chance to share their 'truth.' "
Mahla said that Jehovah's Witnesses are simply offering answers about life.
"We all have similar questions, whether we're religious or not," he said during a break from going door-to-door. "People have some expectations that things can be different."

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.



http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11171-jehovahs-witnesses-busy-inviting-everyone-in-region-to-convention-in-tacoma.html











 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Jehovah's Witnesses busy inviting everyone in region to convention in Tacoma
Seattle Post-Intelligencer/June 19, 2006
By John Iwasaki
An elder from a local congregation, dressed in a coat and tie and bearing religious literature, was headed up the walkway of a Ballard home when a woman sketching on the porch spotted him.
"That's far enough," she called out.
Learning that the visitor was a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the woman said that a previous visit by group members annoyed her: "I'm a nice person, but they pushed me to the limit."
These face-to-face encounters last week -- some hits, some misses -- marked the beginning of a massive campaign by Jehovah's Witnesses to personally invite Western Washington residents to their upcoming district convention in Tacoma next month.
The group printed enough invitations to hand out at 900,000 homes from Bellingham to Vancouver, bold and ambitious even for a religion known for its persistent door-to-door visits and divergence from certain bedrock Christian beliefs.
Though Jehovah's Witnesses annually hold district conventions around the world that are open to the general public, they usually don't seek attention. This year, that changed.
"Why now? Because we recognize how close it is to the culmination of the entire world system," said Peter Michas, the elder who encountered the Ballard woman last week.
Wars, natural disasters and other tumultuous events around the globe indicate that "the kingdom (of God) is like a freight train. It's on its way," he said.
Such discourse draws mixed reaction from the general public, said Chris Mahla, an elder with Michas at the North Park congregation in Greenwood.
"If I had to summarize the perception, I'd say that people who do not know anything about the Bible probably think we're quacks going door-to-door," he said. "People who know about the Bible probably respect our knowledge."
About 20,000 Jehovah's Witnesses live in Western Washington, said Henry Schwerdtfeger, a local spokesman and minister in the Issaquah congregation.
Jehovah's Witnesses -- Jehovah is a name for God in the Old Testament -- usually meet at buildings called Kingdom Halls and do not call themselves a church.
Mahla led 10 members in a brief prayer one morning last week at the North Park Kingdom Hall before they broke into small groups and fanned out into the neighborhood.
As a light rain fell, Mahla and Michas walked around the block, gently rapping on front doors. They handed invitations to a man sitting in his car, a woman scurrying after her child on the sidewalk, a construction worker repairing a house.
Because most residents weren't home, the two elders left folded invitations at the door.
At one empty house, nine silver, artistic crucifixes were on display near the porch -- "a tell-tale sign" about the spiritual interests of the owner, Michas said.
Though Northwesterners are known for their low church attendance, "it does not mean they are unspiritual," Mahla said. "They do not like what they've seen in religion."
Neither do Jehovah's Witnesses, who do not have paid ministers. They generally disagree with churches that seem overly concerned with money and fancy facilities, or those that take pulpit positions on the Iraq war or otherwise engage in political activism, Michas said.
But those are relatively minor differences.
"There is one central theological disagreement between Jehovah's Witnesses and nearly every orthodox form of Christianity, and that is the person of Jesus," said Michael Hamilton, who studies American religions and is chairman of the history department at Seattle Pacific University.
"Orthodox Christianity says Jesus is fully man and fully God, that he's part of the Trinity -- Father, Son, Holy Spirit," he said, while Jehovah's Witnesses say "that Jesus has a divine nature but is not part of the godhead."
Or, as Schwerdtfeger puts it: "We believe Jesus Christ is God's son and not God Himself, which some religions believe."
Other distinctive beliefs -- that Jesus was created, died on a pole and was raised from the dead in spirit and not in body -- are based on the Witnesses' version of the Bible, called the "New World Translation."
"We always go back to what the Bible says," said Mary Crowley of Shoreline, who planned to go door-to-door last weekend in Magnolia with the Queen Anne congregation. "That's the last word on everything. We try to live life the best we can."
When she talks to a stranger about her faith, "people sometimes tell me they have their own religion," Crowley said. "I can appreciate that. I think it's marvelous. I say, 'How does your church think about conditions on Earth today?' Some are just not interested. Some are very polite."
Many of the world's 6 million Jehovah's Witnesses have undergone persecution.
"All around the world, they've won freedom of religion cases," Hamilton said. "In the U.S., Canada, India and the Philippines, they've been hauled into courts and been vindicated."
The beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses have "led to significant differences in lifestyle and ethics: pacifism, downgrading public education and refusal to accept blood transfusions and to salute the flag," said Roger Finke, a sociologist at Pennsylvania State University who studies religion and society. Though not known for seeking attention, "knocking on 900,000 doors is exactly what we would expect from the Witnesses," Finke said. "They tend to encourage public engagements whenever they think it will offer them a chance to share their 'truth.' "
Mahla said that Jehovah's Witnesses are simply offering answers about life.
"We all have similar questions, whether we're religious or not," he said during a break from going door-to-door. "People have some expectations that things can be different."

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.




Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.


http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11171-jehovahs-witnesses-busy-inviting-everyone-in-region-to-convention-in-tacoma.html











 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Jehovah's witnesses: cult, sect or true Christian believers
Otago Daily Times, New Zealand/January 22, 2009

Who are the Jehovah's Witnesses and why are they resented by mainstream Christians? Reg Ponniah of NZPA reports on the movement in New Zealand.
Jehovah's Witnesses known for their door-to-door thumping evangelism - chances are you might have had a visit from them on Christmas Day.
Jehovah's Witnesses have long been a tightly knit and secretive movement and have been accused of unorthodox teachings, which have often angered mainstream Christians.
They believe their faith teaches the only true interpretation of the Bible, that Jesus is not God and the world will end soon.
The most controversial of their beliefs is their refusal to allow followers blood transfusions even when patients' lives are at stake, claiming God forbids it.
National convenor John Wills said they believed blood was sacred and was to be used in the way that God intended.
"The Christian congregation was required to avoid the taking in of blood even to eat it, drink it or when transfusion was involved, so we hold it sacred and treat it that way," Mr Wills told NZPA.
The Witnesses have been rejecting transfusions of whole blood since 1945. Blood products like red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma have also been forbidden.
However, the United States and Canadian courts have ruled against the Witnesses in cases involving life-threatening situations.
Last year, a judge in Vancouver ruled against a Jehovah's Witnesses couple who opposed blood transfusions for their premature sextuplets, saying children's rights overruled their parents' beliefs when lives were in danger.
In London in November 2007, a young mother died after giving birth to twins because her faith prevented her from accepting a blood transfusion.
Mr Wills said many doctors now acknowledged the dangers of blood transfusions, and more bloodless surgery was being done.
The movement accepted non-blood alternatives, and advances in bloodless surgery in the US had also reduced medical dangers for Witnesses.
Mr Wills said NZ Witnesses refused blood transfusions quite frequently.
"We have a support system in hospital liaison committees throughout NZ who act on behalf of the patient when a difficult situation arises." How different are the Witnesses from mainstream Christians? Their central belief was that "Earth is man's home", Mr Wills said.
"We put a lot of emphasis on the prospect of seeing a new administration under God's government, under God's kingdom which probably is different from the Heaven or Hell alternative generated by Christian churches." Witnesses also believe the world is going to end soon.
"We don't mean the planet Earth, we mean human rule being replaced by God's rule and God's power and kingdom." And they reject the belief that Jesus is God.
"We do not feel that the Bible has support for the Trinity that Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit makes up the third one." However, Witnesses accept Jesus as God's son which "is clearly stated in the scripture".
They do not believe in a church or its hierarchy.
So, what's with the door knocking exercise to "spread the word"? Mr Wills said the Bible provided "the premise for our preaching work".
"We go out to the people rather than bring them in and by ringing the bell...we get to people on a one-to-one basis and quite often people prefer that informal way." He accepted the door-to-door preaching could annoy ordinary people.
"Most people are not happy with being interrupted in what they are doing and emotions range from keen interest, tolerance, disinterest or suspicion." In 2006, a British woman was ordered by police to take down a sign on her garden gate which read "Our dogs are fed on Jehovah's Witnesses".
The woman, who insisted the sign was a gentle joke, said her late husband put the sign up more than 30 years earlier, when Witnesses called on Christmas Day.
Mr Wills said the movement did not celebrate Christmas because it did not believe Jesus was born on that day.
"There was no record of Jesus' birthdate in the Bible.
"We do commemorate his death at Easter time and we have a specific date according to the Jewish calendar."
Convinced that Satan rules the world, they do not vote, hold public office, serve in the military or salute national flags.
National holiday celebrations promoted nationalism and would affect the worldwide unity of Jehovah's Witnesses, Mr Wills said.
"We remain neutral so that in all countries we maintain the same beliefs."
Voting was, however, a personal decision.
"Each individual must decide as we cannot. And we do not tell anyone not to serve in the military."
Although the movement discouraged drinking, dancing, smoking and card playing, they were not forbidden.
Mr Wills said mainstream Christians criticised Witnesses because "we challenge their doctrinal beliefs, and our zeal could be upsetting to some".
A US study on Christian faiths indicated that among Christians losing their faith, the biggest fall-out rate was among Jehovah's Witnesses. About two-thirds of those raised in the faith left when they reached adulthood.
In New Zealand, the movement began in 1903 with just two individuals and now has 13,000 active Witnesses who form part of the world's 113 branches.
According to Statistics Department census figures, there were 17,826 Witnesses in 2001 and 17,910 in 2006.
A committee looked after the affairs of each branch and meetings were held in about 100 "Kingdom Halls", Mr Wills said.
The Witnesses have had their share of problems.
Nazis persecuted and outlawed them in 1936.
They were declared illegal during 1940 in New Zealand and Australia. The NZ attorney-general said at the time that they were devoting themselves to "vilification of religion, of their fellow-citizens, of the state, and of the Government".
In 2006, the Uzbekistan government outlawed the Witnesses, accusing them of "aggressive" missionary activity and other violations.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.
Disclaimer


Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.

http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11325-jehovahs-witnesses-cult-sect-or-true-christian-believers.html











 Getting Started
About Us
FAQ
What's New?
Legal
Contact Us




•Home

•Getting Help

•Contact Us

•Group Information Archives




•Today's Cult Headlines

•Mind Control

•Cult News.com Weblog

•Message Board

•Links

•Books

•Help Us











       



 Print M Email
Jehovah's witnesses: cult, sect or true Christian believers
Otago Daily Times, New Zealand/January 22, 2009

Who are the Jehovah's Witnesses and why are they resented by mainstream Christians? Reg Ponniah of NZPA reports on the movement in New Zealand.
Jehovah's Witnesses known for their door-to-door thumping evangelism - chances are you might have had a visit from them on Christmas Day.
Jehovah's Witnesses have long been a tightly knit and secretive movement and have been accused of unorthodox teachings, which have often angered mainstream Christians.
They believe their faith teaches the only true interpretation of the Bible, that Jesus is not God and the world will end soon.
The most controversial of their beliefs is their refusal to allow followers blood transfusions even when patients' lives are at stake, claiming God forbids it.
National convenor John Wills said they believed blood was sacred and was to be used in the way that God intended.
"The Christian congregation was required to avoid the taking in of blood even to eat it, drink it or when transfusion was involved, so we hold it sacred and treat it that way," Mr Wills told NZPA.
The Witnesses have been rejecting transfusions of whole blood since 1945. Blood products like red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma have also been forbidden.
However, the United States and Canadian courts have ruled against the Witnesses in cases involving life-threatening situations.
Last year, a judge in Vancouver ruled against a Jehovah's Witnesses couple who opposed blood transfusions for their premature sextuplets, saying children's rights overruled their parents' beliefs when lives were in danger.
In London in November 2007, a young mother died after giving birth to twins because her faith prevented her from accepting a blood transfusion.
Mr Wills said many doctors now acknowledged the dangers of blood transfusions, and more bloodless surgery was being done.
The movement accepted non-blood alternatives, and advances in bloodless surgery in the US had also reduced medical dangers for Witnesses.
Mr Wills said NZ Witnesses refused blood transfusions quite frequently.
"We have a support system in hospital liaison committees throughout NZ who act on behalf of the patient when a difficult situation arises." How different are the Witnesses from mainstream Christians? Their central belief was that "Earth is man's home", Mr Wills said.
"We put a lot of emphasis on the prospect of seeing a new administration under God's government, under God's kingdom which probably is different from the Heaven or Hell alternative generated by Christian churches." Witnesses also believe the world is going to end soon.
"We don't mean the planet Earth, we mean human rule being replaced by God's rule and God's power and kingdom." And they reject the belief that Jesus is God.
"We do not feel that the Bible has support for the Trinity that Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit makes up the third one." However, Witnesses accept Jesus as God's son which "is clearly stated in the scripture".
They do not believe in a church or its hierarchy.
So, what's with the door knocking exercise to "spread the word"? Mr Wills said the Bible provided "the premise for our preaching work".
"We go out to the people rather than bring them in and by ringing the bell...we get to people on a one-to-one basis and quite often people prefer that informal way." He accepted the door-to-door preaching could annoy ordinary people.
"Most people are not happy with being interrupted in what they are doing and emotions range from keen interest, tolerance, disinterest or suspicion." In 2006, a British woman was ordered by police to take down a sign on her garden gate which read "Our dogs are fed on Jehovah's Witnesses".
The woman, who insisted the sign was a gentle joke, said her late husband put the sign up more than 30 years earlier, when Witnesses called on Christmas Day.
Mr Wills said the movement did not celebrate Christmas because it did not believe Jesus was born on that day.
"There was no record of Jesus' birthdate in the Bible.
"We do commemorate his death at Easter time and we have a specific date according to the Jewish calendar."
Convinced that Satan rules the world, they do not vote, hold public office, serve in the military or salute national flags.
National holiday celebrations promoted nationalism and would affect the worldwide unity of Jehovah's Witnesses, Mr Wills said.
"We remain neutral so that in all countries we maintain the same beliefs."
Voting was, however, a personal decision.
"Each individual must decide as we cannot. And we do not tell anyone not to serve in the military."
Although the movement discouraged drinking, dancing, smoking and card playing, they were not forbidden.
Mr Wills said mainstream Christians criticised Witnesses because "we challenge their doctrinal beliefs, and our zeal could be upsetting to some".
A US study on Christian faiths indicated that among Christians losing their faith, the biggest fall-out rate was among Jehovah's Witnesses. About two-thirds of those raised in the faith left when they reached adulthood.
In New Zealand, the movement began in 1903 with just two individuals and now has 13,000 active Witnesses who form part of the world's 113 branches.
According to Statistics Department census figures, there were 17,826 Witnesses in 2001 and 17,910 in 2006.
A committee looked after the affairs of each branch and meetings were held in about 100 "Kingdom Halls", Mr Wills said.
The Witnesses have had their share of problems.
Nazis persecuted and outlawed them in 1936.
They were declared illegal during 1940 in New Zealand and Australia. The NZ attorney-general said at the time that they were devoting themselves to "vilification of religion, of their fellow-citizens, of the state, and of the Government".
In 2006, the Uzbekistan government outlawed the Witnesses, accusing them of "aggressive" missionary activity and other violations.

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.
Disclaimer


Abusive Controlling Relationships

•All articles A-Z

•General Information

•Search Tools

•"Bible"-Based

•Commercial/Business

•Chanelling Groups

•Hate Groups

•Human Potential

•Islamic Groups

•Jewish Groups

•Neo-Eastern

•"New Age"

•Political Groups

•Satanic Groups?

•Sci-Fi/UFO Groups

•Theosophy Groups

•Therapy / Counseling

•Other Groups on File



About Us
Getting Help
Group Information Archives
Today's Cult Headlines
Mind Control
Message Board
CultNews.com Weblog
Links
Books
Site Map




Cult Education Institute
Trenton, New Jersey 08618
609.396.6684 / feedback
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1999 - 2014 Cult Education Institute.


http://www.culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11325-jehovahs-witnesses-cult-sect-or-true-christian-believers.html