Daily Archives: October 2, 2019

Beliefs

Leave a reply

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/beliefs.html

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States: 1930s and 1940s

Leave a reply

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States:

1930s and 1940sEdit

During the late 1930s and the 1940s, Jehovah’s Witnesses attacked the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian denominations so vigorously that many states and municipalities passed laws against their inflammatory preaching.[8]

World War II

During World War II, Witnesses experienced mob violence in America because they were perceived as being against the war effort.[9]

Pledge of AllegianceEdit

Main articles: Minersville School District v. Gobitis and West Virginia v. Barnette
Mandatory flag pledges in public schools were motivated by patriotic fervor in wartime America.[citation needed] The first known mandatory flag pledges were instituted in a number of states during the Spanish–American War. During World War I, many more states instituted mandatory flag pledges with only a few dissents recorded by the American Civil Liberties Union. It was not until World War II was drawing to a close that the practice was officially challenged in the court system.
In 1935, Rutherford proscribed flag salutes, stating them to be a form of idolatry “contrary to the Word of God.”[10] This stance drew mob violence against Witnesses[clarification needed] and many children of Witnesses were expelled from public schools. The Witnesses’ apparent lack of patriotism angered local authorities, the American Legion, and others, resulting in vigilante violence during World War II. Men, women and children were injured and in some cases killed in mob attacks.[citation needed]
In 1940, the case of Minersville School District v. Gobitis received publicity in a lower federal court. The US Supreme Court ruled in an 8–1 decision that a school district’s interest in creating national unity was sufficient to allow them to require that students salute the flag. After the court’s decision in the Gobitis case, a new wave of persecution of Witnesses began across the nation. Lillian Gobitas later characterized the violence as “open season on Jehovah’s Witnesses.” The American Civil Liberties Union recorded 1,488 attacks on Witnesses in over 300 communities between May and October 1940. Angry mobs assaulted Witnesses, destroyed their property, boycotted their businesses and vandalized their places of worship. Less than a week after the court decision, a Kingdom Hall in Kennebunk, Maine was burnt down.[citation needed]
American Legion posts harassed Witnesses nationwide. At Klamath Falls, Oregon, members of the American Legion harassed Witnesses assembled for worship with requests to salute the flag and buy war bonds. They then attacked the Witnesses and besieged the meeting place, breaking windows, throwing in stink bombs, ammonia and burning kerosene rags. The Witnesses’ cars were disabled and many were overturned. The governor was compelled to call the state militia to disperse the mob, which reached 1,000 at its peak.[11] In Texas, Witness missionaries were chased and beaten by vigilantes, and their literature was confiscated or burned.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt appealed publicly for calm, and newspaper editorials and the American legal community[who?] condemned the Gobitas decision as a blow to liberty.[citation needed]Several justices signaled their belief that the case had been “wrongly decided.”[citation needed] On June 16, 1940, in an effort to dispel the mob action, the United States Attorney General, Francis Biddle, stated on a nationwide radio broadcast:
Jehovah’s witnesses have been repeatedly set upon and beaten. They had committed no crime; but the mob adjudged they had, and meted out mob punishment. The Attorney General has ordered an immediate investigation of these outrages. The people must be alert and watchful, and above all cool and sane. Since mob violence will make the government’s task infinitely more difficult, it will not be tolerated. We shall not defeat the Nazi evil by emulating its methods.
In 1943, after a drawn-out litigation process by Watch Tower Society lawyers in state courts and lower federal courts, the Supreme Court reversed its previous decision, ruling that public school officials could not force Jehovah’s Witnesses and other students to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.[12]

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-in_12.html

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States…

Leave a reply

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States:

BackgroundEdit

See also: History of Jehovah’s Witnesses
In the 1910s and 1920s, the Watch Tower Society, then associated with the Bible Student movement, was outspoken in its statements against other religious groups and of the Catholic Church in particular.[4] The Bible Students believed religion to be a “racket and a snare” and refused to be identified as a specific denomination for some time. It was not uncommon for members to carry placards outside churches and in the streets, proclaiming the imminent destruction of church members along with church and government institutions if they did not flee from “false religion”. The Watch Tower Society’s 1917 book, The Finished Mystery, stated, “Also, in the year 1918, when God destroys the churches wholesale and the church members by millions, it shall be that any that escape shall come to the works of Pastor Russell to learn the meaning of the downfall of ‘Christianity’.”[5]
Citing The Finished Mystery, the United States federal government indicted the Watch Tower Society’s board of directors for violating the Espionage Act on May 7, 1918 for condemning the war effort. They were found guilty and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment; however, in March 1919, the judgment against them was reversed, and they were released from prison. The charges were later dropped.[6] Patriotic fervor during World War I fueled persecution of the Bible Students both in America and in Europe.[7]
In 1917, following the death of Charles Taze Russell—the founder of the Bible Student movement—Joseph Franklin Rutherford became president of the Watch Tower Society, and a leadership dispute within the society ensued; those who remained associated with the society became known as Jehovah’s witnesses in 1931.

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-in_39.html

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States: Negative attitudes towards Jehovah’s Witnesses

Leave a reply

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States:

Negative attitudes towards Jehovah’s WitnessesEdit

In his 1964 study of prejudice toward minorities, Seymour Martin Lipset found that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the most disliked of all religious minorities he researched; 41% of respondents expressed open dislike of them.[2] In 1984, authors Merlin Brinkerhoff and Marlene Mackie concluded that after the so-called new cults, Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the least accepted religious groups in the United States.[3]

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-in_17.html

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States…

Leave a reply

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States

Throughout the history of Jehovah’s Witnesses, their beliefs, doctrines, policies and practices have engendered controversy and opposition from governments, communities, and religious groups. Many Christian denominations consider their doctrines to be heretical, and some religious leaders have labeled Jehovah’s Witnesses a cult. Members of the denomination have also met with objection from governments for refusing to serve in the military, particularly in times of war. Many individuals consider their door-to-door preaching to be intrusive. These issues have led to persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in various countries, including the United States.
Political and religious animosity against the Witnesses has occasionally led to mob action and government oppression. According to former United States Solicitor General, Archibald Cox, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States were “the principal victims of religious persecution … in the twentieth century,” and added that, “they began to attract attention and provoke repression in the 1930s, when their proselytizing and numbers rapidly increased.”[1]

Contents:

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-in_49.html

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada: Canadian Bill of Rights

Leave a reply

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada:

Canadian Bill of RightsEdit

Main articles: Canadian Bill of Rights and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
In order to obtain religious freedom the Jehovah’s Witnesses popularized the idea of a Canadian Bill of Rights and established numerous libertarian precedents before Canada’s highest courts (see Human rights).
On June 9, 1947, they presented a petition to Parliament for the enactment of a Bill of Rights with 625,510 signatures. John Diefenbaker became an advocate of the Canadian Bill of Rights and eventually introduced the Canadian Bill of Rights to Parliament during his tenure as Prime Minister.
The Canadian Bill of Rights was the precursor of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedomswhich is part of the Canadian constitution.

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-in_23.html

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada: Duplessis Era

Leave a reply

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada:

Duplessis EraEdit

From 1936 to 1959, Jehovah’s Witnesses faced religious and civil opposition in Quebec. Historically, the Roman Catholic Church had been the dominant institution in the life of the province of Quebec and a major influence on French Canadian culture. It nurtured the young people of Quebec, in language and faith; and at the same time it endorsed the legitimacy of British rule and of the established economic order.
For generations, the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec worked with the government, schools, and the courts to maintain the values and attitudes that supported the Church. This encouraged people to vote for politicians who favoured the status quo, the existing political, economic and social order.
Under the premiership of Maurice Duplessis, politics and the Church were intertwined as the latter continued to maintain a firm and influential hold on the people of Quebec. Throughout his political career, Duplessis courted the support of the Church.
After World War II, the Church came under attack by the Jehovah’s Witnesses who challenged its doctrines. They were determined to seek Catholic converts. In response, the Duplessis regime mounted a campaign of persecution against Jehovah’s Witnesses and communists. The result was a legal struggle between the Duplessis regime and lawyers such as Frank Scott and Pierre Trudeau who argued in defence of the rights of minorities.
The clash between Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church became an issue of the competing ideas of freedom of speech and the freedom of religion. Jehovah’s Witnesses went to court to establish the right to distribute their literature on the streets of Quebec. They also became political dissenters because during the Duplessis era, a challenge to the Church was tantamount to challenging the government. Any limitation of the Church’s authority would mean limiting Duplessis’s authority.
Duplessis’ efforts to rid the streets of Jehovah’s Witnesses took the issue all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The legal issues concerned freedom of speech as much as it concerned freedom of religion. The Supreme Court held that there can be no freedom of religion without freedom of speech.

Saumur v. The City of QuebecEdit

Main article: Saumur v. The City of Quebec
In 1953 the case of Saumur v. The City of Quebec (1953) 25 CR 299 (in which a Jehovah’s Witness challenged a Quebec City bylaw prohibiting public distribution of literature without a permit) left the question of religious freedom undecided, with some judges actually arguing that: “both Parliament and the provinces could validly limit freedom of worship providing they did so in the course of legislating on some other subject which lay within their respective powers.”
This decision was part of a series of cases the Supreme Court dealt with concerning the rights of Jehovah’s Witnesses under the Duplessis government of Quebec. Previous to this there was the case of R. v. Boucher [1951] S.C.R. 265 that upheld the right to distribute pamphlets. Subsequent to Saumur was the case of Roncarelli v. Duplessis [1959] S.C.R. 121 which punished Duplessis for revoking a Jehovah’s Witness liquor license.

Other casesEdit

In several other cases, including Chaput v. Romain (1955) and Lamb v. Benoit (1959), Jehovah’s Witnesses successfully sued the police for damages. In Chaput v. Romain, police had raided a home where a religious service by Jehovah’s Witnesses was being conducted, seized bibles and other religious paraphernalia, and disrupted the service despite not having a warrant and no charges being laid. In Lamb v. Benoit, a Jehovah’s Witness was detained for a weekend for distributing seditious pamphlets on city streets, and was offered freedom from jail if she agreed to sign a release form absolving police from charges of wrongful detention. After she refused, she was charged with sedition but later acquitted. In each case, the accused were successful in defending their rights in civil court.

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-in_14.html

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada: World War II

Leave a reply

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada:

World War IIEdit

During the late 1930s, Witnesses were tried for sedition because their literature attacked the clergy and political leaders of the country.
In 1940, one year following Canada’s entry into World War II, the Jehovah’s Witnesses denomination was banned under the War Measures Act. This ban continued until 1943. During this period, some of their children were expelled from school; other children were placed in foster homes; members were jailed; men who refused to enter the army were sent to work camps. In 1940, twenty-nine Witnesses were convicted and sentenced to terms averaging one year.
In his book State and Salvation, William Kaplan wrote:
In July 1940 the government of Canada banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Overnight it became illegal to be a member of this sect. The law, passed under the War Measures Act, was vigorously enforced. Beatings, mob action, police persecution, and state prosecution confronted the Jehovah’s Witnesses as they ignored the ban and continued to go about their work spreading the word of God… The struggle was bitter indeed. Jehovah’s Witness children who refused to sing the national anthem and salute the flag during patriotic exercises in public schools were often expelled from class, and in a few cases, removed from their parents’ care and placed in foster homes and juvenile detention centres. Men of military service age who refused to fight spent the war trying to get out of alternative service camps established across Canada for conscientious objectors. Jehovah’s Witness spent a good deal of time in the courts during the war years; they challenged government policies with which they disagreed, and were arrested in the hundreds and charged with being members of an illegal group.[2]

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-in_76.html

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada: World War I

Leave a reply

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada:

World War IEdit

During World War I Jehovah’s Witnesses were targeted because of their anti-war attitudes and refusal to take part in military service. Rather than being banned directly, Jehovah’s Witnesses had to deal with censorship of their literature during the war and the court’s refusal to recognize them as a legitimate denomination, thus rendering unable to claim the status of conscientious objectors.

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-in_2.html

Examining the Scriptures Daily—2019 Wednesday, October 2

Leave a reply


October

Examining the Scriptures Daily—2019

Wednesday, October 2

Be hospitable to one another.​—1 Pet. 4:9.
The apostle Peter wrote the above to the culturally diverse congregations in Asia Minor. They were facing “fiery trials.” What could help Christians everywhere to get through those stressful times? (1 Pet. 1:1; 4:4, 7, 12) Note that Peter urged his Christian brothers and sisters to be hospitable “to one another,” to those whom they already knew and associated with. How would being hospitable help them? It would draw them together. Consider your own experience. Have you had the pleasure of being invited to someone’s home? Did that occasion not leave you with warm memories? When you entertained some from your congregation, was your friendship not deepened? By extending hospitality, we get to know our brothers and sisters in a more personal way than we can in other settings. Christians in Peter’s day needed to draw ever closer as conditions grew worse. The same is true for Christians in these “last days.”​—2 Tim. 3:1. w18.03 14-15 ¶1-3

from Blogger http://meekspaceng.blogspot.com/2019/10/examining-scriptures-daily2019.html