A Jehovah's Witness family comes to your door, and having always been impressed with the courage, commitment, and downright sincerity of these individuals, you refrain from closing your door this time. You sympathetically turn your attention to them. To your surprise, the well dressed family is very articulate and validates their "doorstep sermon" by showing passages from the Bible.
The spokesman taking the lead comfortably executes answers to complex questions.You might recall, as the JW spokesman continues to relate one point to another, how you used to go to church and never felt like you belonged and, moreover, felt confused about the hypocrites, lack of unity, and overwhelming problems facing the church. And you will never forget John Doe, the church appointed elder. Your thoughts focus back to the now assertive presentation the JW gentleman is giving you, but before they do, you catch a glimpse of the adult-like children, well postured and dressed so clean. You are very impressed with the spokesman's Bible knowledge and appreciate the concern of this nice family at your doorstep. Besides, a challenge to study the Bible seems fresh and interesting. After a weekly home "Bible study" (book study) with the Jehovah's Witnesses, you decide to heed to your new Witness friends' advice to try attending one of their local Kingdom Hall services. You attend, and never before in all your life have you ever been greeted with so much warmth, friendliness, and concern. Truly this must be God's organization, you conclude.
Why Do Many Churchgoers Become JWs?
It is a sad fact that many persons (including churchgoers) have heard of the Jehovah's Witnesses but few know what the Witnesses really teach and sincerely believe. The author has often heard positive connotations such as honest, friendly, dependable, well-behaved and orderly surface from community members when the topic of Jehovah's Witnesses is discussed. If your pastor asked your congregation for a show of hands as to how many members believed that the Watchtower Society is a cult, what would occur? Do you think you would see hands very slowly go up as fellow members looked about for informational cues as to the appropriate answer to the pastor's question? Yes, that scenario hits home.
Many unsuspecting persons (many of whom are regular church members) have no tools or information to even think about how to refute a non-stop bombardment of Scriptures and patterned "doorstep sermons." Drawing people away from Christian churches is the basic thought and drive behind a JW's attempt at new converts. Even regular churchgoers who do not feel secure in their beliefs fall prey--not to mention those who are temporarily or permanently inactive. Professor Edmund Gruss, referring to the causes of the rapid JW growth, writes in his book, Apostles of Denial: "The average Christian does not have a firm grasp on what he believes, and if he does, it is likely that he cannot defend his belief scripturally."1
In a major but not well-known sociological study of JWs in Great Britain, James A. Beckford (1975) uprooted the possible predisposing conditions leading someone to favorably accept the Watchtower Society's message. Ironically, "conventional Christian upbringing" ranked number one. Referring to the JWs surveyed, Beckford concluded, "for the most they had earlier expressed their God-centered religious views in regular attendance at Sunday School or church." The rationale, according to Beckford, is that a background of being a regular churchgoer facilitates a common ground--a belief that God does exist and that religion is important. "From the convert's point of view the early stages of contact with Watchtower doctrines involve the reaffirmation of some basic Christian beliefs, the countering of persistent objections and the setting of new beliefs in a systematized framework," writes Beckford. "The amount of really new material to be digested is initially quite small, because Publishers [JW doorstep preachers] consciously adopt the tactic of emphasizing continuity with previous outlooks."2
One could reason that this transition from a churchgoer to a JW would be accomplished even more efficiently if the church member was dissatisfied with his or her church association. It is the author's opinion that the JWs' verbal and written hatred of established Christendom would insure a lurid interest from dissatisfied church members who look for a network of similar minded people to obtain sympathy and maintain their disgruntled outlooks.
Doorstep Encounter: The Most Effective Attack?
A survey of 100 church members throughout ten states in the U.S. has shown that 87% of the church members had come in contact with a JW. Also, 25% let a JW into their house and 23% took their literature.3
Lets face it, it is worth knowing something about JWs; printing more religious material than all the Christian churches combined and with an aggressive door to door ministry, they are statistically bound to stumble within screen door distance of you at least once a year with their literature.
Just as Christian upbringing ranked most important as predisposing someone to listen to the Watchtower propaganda, Beckford concluded that the "doorstep sermon" was the most important critical event responsible for conversion into the Watchtower organization.4 In his study of the Watchtower movement in Britain, Beckford discovered that 46% of the Witness respondents surveyed made first contact with the JWs through a "doorstep sermon." This becomes important in light of the fact that only 3% of the respondents sought out to join the Watchtower organization on their own initiative.5 In his study, Beckford concluded that even the traditional hypothesis for joining a religious group, affiliation for social gratification, was for the most part non-evident among the persons who later became JWs; "rather, their initial concern had been typically to indulge their curiosity, to please a friend or to accept a challenge issued by an evangelist [JW]."6 Inoculation From Becoming A JW
Can one become inoculated from falling victim to the Watchtower movement? In practice, inoculation differs dramatically from most methods of stopping rapid growth of JWs. In applying inoculation theory, the focus would be on church members, community members, friends, relatives, and children who have not yet become JWs. Through a systematic, enveloping form of social influence the JW convert quickly becomes "brainwashed" into thinking he or she really has found the truth. Anyone who has had experience dealing with JWs knows that witnessing to JWs at times can be futile and other times self-defeating. With the view that witnessing to JWs is difficult but certainly not a dead end, a broad avenue opens--witnessing to those who are likely to become JWs. As we have seen, those who have actually heard about God in conventional churches are likely candidates. It is an interesting thought that indeed it does take some special skills and preparation to help a Witness find the real truth, and one might be more efficiently doing just as much good in reducing the JW growth rate by inoculating non-Witnesses.
The fact is, the JWs beliefs directly oppose almost every established Christian doctrine, as if to make a point by completely differing from our traditional Christian heritage. They deny: the Deity of Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, Hell, man's eternal soul, Jesus' bodily resurrection and his visible second coming. In 1935, the Watchtower's president J.F. Rutherford even eliminated the heavenly hope from most (currently 99.7%) of the JWs! Today, although there in no biblical evidence, they still stick with this belief. Hence, almost all Witnesses belong to the "great crowd" class with the possibility of eternal life on earth (if their works are deemed worthy). They are deprived of: heaven, being "born again," having Christ as their mediator, and belonging to the Body of Christ. Nor are they allowed to partake of the elements in communion. Also, as most people are aware of, all JWs are instructed not to participate in holidays such as Christmas, birthday celebrations, blood transfusions, government functions and saluting the flag, as well as much more.
Because of the Watchtower's drastically different beliefs from established Christianity, one could conclude that if the churchgoer could just come to know true Bible doctrine, then he or she would become well inoculated from Watchtower heresy. And if the churchgoer knew the mere basics as to why he or she believes the core truths set forth in the infallible Word of God, then one would be strengthened with a "booster shot" to combat any "doorstep sermon. It is the author's opinion that this would go a long, long way in truly leading individuals to the path of righteousness and inoculating them from all Watchtower propaganda and dramatically reducing the growing membership of the Watchtower organization. All too often the JW convert has heard of Christ, has a Bible, and has even attended church; yet the new convert does not fully believe in Christ, has not completely read or even studied the Bible, nor does he or she technically belong to the Body of Christ (according to their own admission!).
"Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." Hebrews 5:13,14.7
NOTES:
1. Edmund C. Gruss, Apostles of Denial (Pres. and Ref. Publishing Co., 1970), pp. 259, 260.
2. James A. Beckford, The Trumpet of Prophecy: A Sociology Study of Jehovah's Witnesses (New York, A Halsted Press Book, 1975), p. 183.
3. Robert A. Morey, How to Answer a Jehovah's Witness (Minneapolis, Minnesota, Bethany Fellowship, 1980), p.9.
4. Beckford, p.185.
5. Beckford, p.160.
6. Beckford, p.179.
7. Hebrews 5:13, 14 (NIV).
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