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Propriety is something very important within the Jehovah’s Witness culture and worship as it should be. But, the Witnesses take it to a whole new level. Many things that are part of Christian worship in other churches are viewed by Jehovah’s Witnesses as inappropriate and are noticeably absent at the Kingdom Halls of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Among these things that you will not see at Kingdom Halls are live musicians: no organists, no pianists and certainly no guitarists or drummers. Years ago, live pianists were at least an option. My wife used to play the piano at our Kingdom Hall and for the circuit assemblies. On a few occasions we even had a small orchestra at our circuit assembly. For congregations without a pianist, records and later cassette tapes and CD’s were available. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, there seemed to be a concerted effort by the circuit overseers to remove pianos and pianists from the Kingdom Halls and to utilize the recordings that were supplied by the Watchtower Society.
Several reasons were given for removing the pianos and pianists. First was that in some congregations the quality of the piano or that of the pianist was not up the standard that would be honoring to Jehovah. Second was that using the Society’s recordings contributed to unity within the organization. Finally, it was said that having live music might draw undue attention to the musician rather than to Jehovah. Today, all of the music for Jehovah’s Witness meetings are recordings that are supplied by the Watchtower Society. Along with the music, the content for the meetings is also supplied by headquarters as are the song numbers that are to accompany that content.
During the singing at the Kingdom Hall, you will also see no raising of hands or other expressions of worship that are seen in many churches. There are also no spontaneous expressions of agreement during the sermon, which is referred to as the “public talk” or “public discourse”. The only “amen” you will normally hear at the Kingdom hall is at the end of the prayers that are said at the beginning and end of each meeting. Raising of hand in worship and saying “amen” during the public talk would be viewed as inappropriate by the Witnesses.
As I see it now, what is called worship at the Kingdom Hall is very restrained, mostly devoid of emotion, and dry and dead.
I generally avoid using terms such as mind control cult when talking about Jehovah’s Witnesses, but every so often the writers of the Watchtower publish something that makes it hard not to. Although I was a Jehovah’s Witness for over two decades and have been out now for over a dozen years, it still amazes me the degree to which Witness leadership seeks to exercise control over their followers.
The November 15, 2009 Watchtower study article (page 6 par 19) contains an example of this:
When we are being represented in public prayer, we need to display reverential “fear of God.” (1 Pet 2:17) There may be a proper time and place for some actions that would be inappropriate at a Christian meeting.(Eccl 3:1) For instance, suppose someone sought to have all in a group link arms or hold hands during prayer. This might offend or distract some, including visitors who do not share our beliefs. Some marriage mates might discreetly hold hands, but if they embraced each other during public prayer, those who got a glimpse of such conduct might be stumbled. They might think or get the impression that the couple was focusing on their romantic relationship instead of reverence for Jehovah. Out of deep respect for him, let us therefore “do all things for God’s glory” and avoid conduct that could distract, shock or stumble anyone.- 1 Cor 10:31,32; 2 Cor 6:3.
The first step to understanding this paragraph is grasping the concept of “being represented in prayer.” Not all Jehovah’s Witnesses are allowed to pray at meetings. Only “spiritually mature” men are allowed to open or close meetings with prayer lest some spiritually less mature man (or God forbid, a woman) might say something not in keeping with current Witness teaching or something that is otherwise inappropriate.
The idea of being stumbled over one thing or other is a common theme in Jehovah’s Witness teaching and culture. Jehovah’s Witness leadership take perfectly valid warnings about stumbling from Jesus and Paul and effectively employ them to their own ends. If they want to prevent the rank and file Witness from engaging in some practice or from adopting some form of dress or grooming, all they have to do is mention that someone might be stumbled over it. By doing that, they implicitly give permission for all Jehovah’s Witnessnes to be stumbled over it. At that point all the true Witnesses will refrain from that behavior.
By doing it that way they have effectively banned the practice or mode of dress without doing so explicitly. They have avoided the appearance of a mind control cult while exercising the same amount of control over their followers as would any cult.
In their sixth and final point, the writers of the Awake! article tell us:
6. When the laity are Biblically uniformed, they can be easily be misled by clerics. Indeed, history contains may examples of such abuses.
I have to agree with this point. I agree that Biblically uninformed and misinformed Jehovah’s Witness laity have been mislead by their clergy – both paid and unpaid. Now, having said that, I will say that this point is really moot. Whether we are Jehovah’s Witnesses or Congregationalists or Baptists or Methodist or are non-denominational, we need to take responsibility for our own Biblical literacy. If we abdicate that responsibility and leave it to others whether it be an organization or elders or pastors, we are just setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment.
The problem with the Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they are taught that the way to be Biblically informed is to stick with the organization’s program of “Bible” study. The organization does not really foster spiritual growth, but keeps its adherents in a perpetual state of spiritual immaturity and spiritual dependence on the organization for their spiritual food. The same does happen within Christendom, but only within very unhealthy churches. There are a lot of very healthy churches out there and I have been blessed to have been able to fellowship with many of them. Those healthy churches foster spiritual growth in the individual Christian and within the church as a whole. While the scene in Christendom is not perfect, it is not nearly as bad as the writers of the Watchtower and Awake would like to paint it.
In the third and fourth points that they present, the writers of the Awake! article bring up the subject of finances and the clergy. First, point number three:
3. A paid clergy class can impose a heavy financial burden on the laity, especially when the former have lavish lifestyles.
This is a sweeping generalization that was presented with neither evidence nor example. How many of the clergy really have lavish lifestyles? Yes there are a few. In 2007, accusations of financial improprieties spawned an investigation of TV preachers including Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer and Paula White by Senator Charles Grassley who is the ranking Republican on the Seanate Finance Committee. But are these really typical of the clergy? Clergy such as those being investigated by Senator Grassley are very rare. Most clergy are not on television and do not enjoy a lavish lifestyle.
Rather than relying on generalizations based on a small minority, I did some research on just how much pastors in mainline denominations are paid. The Massachusetts United Church of Christ’s “Clergy Compensation Booklet” for the year 2000 contains salary guidelines for 2001. The salary guidelines range from $24,000 – 36,000 per annum for a pastor with 0-3 years experience serving in a church with 0-150 members to $45,000 to $67,500 per annum for a pastor with over 10 years experience in a church with over 1000 members. The Illinois UCC guidelines for 2009 call for a base salary for a newly graduated pastor serving a church of up to 75 attendance of $32,130 and up to $46,130 for a pastor of 15 years experience serving a church of 400+ average weekly attendance. Salaries such as these will hardly support a lavish lifestyle.
In an ancillary point, the writers try to draw a distinction between Christian clergy and Jehovah’s Witness overseers.
Christian overseers, on the other hand, care for their financial needs by doing normal secular work, thus setting a good example for others.
It is true that elders in local congregations are not paid. But neither are the elders in most churches that I know of.
The “Christian overseers” that are mentioned here evidently do not include circuit and district overseers and members of the branch committees and the governing body. All these are compensated for their work as overseers and are not engaged in any sort of secular work.
The circuit overseer is the overseer that the rank and file Jehovah’s Witnesses are most familiar with. He visits each congregation about twice a year, each visit lasting a week. At the end of each visit, the circuit overseer submits his expenses for the week to the congregation he is visiting and they reimburse him for those. He is also provided with a monthly stipend, a leased car (a Buick, last I knew), health insurance, and housing. And, as I mentioned earlier, these are members of the Order of Special Full-Time Servants and as such have taken a Simple Vow of Poverty which allows them to receive their compensation and other contributions from congregations and their members tax-free.
Along with their monthly stipend, their leased car and their other benefits, circuit overseers are often greeted by some in the congregations with the “green handshake”. I knew of a couple of families in my old congregation who would slip the C.O. a hundred at each visit – tax-free, of course.
Bivocational Pastors
A phenomenon among Christian denominations that goes almost without notice by the Jehovah’s Witnesses is that of bivocational pastors. These are pastors that also have secular jobs. Now that I have looked into this, I’ve found there are more of them than I ever realized. There are enough among Southern Baptist churches that there is a Southern Baptist Bivocational Ministers Association. In a 2002 press release “Bivocational Ministry Emerging As Option” that organizations says “In fact, only 60-65 percent of churches have what bivocational ministers prefer to call “fully funded” pastors.”
I work with two bivocational pastors. Both have challenging positions as engineers where we work along with their pastoral duties. I was recently chatting with one of them about his schedule. He works secularly from 9:00 to 5:00 (or later) then his pastoral appointments begin at 6:30 PM and his day doesn’t end until midnight or 1 AM. Then of course, Sunday is extremely busy.
Point number 4 that the writers of the Awake! article raised speaks to the motivation of the clergy.
4. Because a clergyman may depend on others for financial support, he might be tempted to dilute the Bible’s message in order to please the parishoners.
Yet another generalization that is presented without any evidence. This is an assertion that they have made before, but with no examples. While this may occur, is it really the norm? I would say that it is much more common that a Jehovah’s Witness elder would be careful to preach and teach what he was expected to knowing that to do otherwise could cost him his family and friends rather than a few bucks.
In summary, while the Jehovah’s Witness leadership and those who write for them attempt to call into question the motives and work of the clergy, from what I have seen, most of them are people who are answering a calling to their ministries and working hard to do with is right.
Now, let’s get back to the article in the August, 2009 issue of “Awake!”
The article raises 6 points where they say that the churches have deviated from the Bible and where harm has been the result. The first point reads:
1. The separation of a clergy class implies that one must have a special calling to be a minister of God. Yet, the bible says that all true Christians should serve God and praise his name. (Romans 10:9, 10) As for ministering within the congregation, Christian men in general are encouraged to reach out for the privilege, which is the custom among Jehovah’s Witnesses. – 1 Timothy 3:1
The clergy-laity distinction does not imply anything like that. It does imply that different people are called to different kinds of ministries, some of which involve leadership. This is what Ephesians 4:11 tells us. :
Eph 4:11 (NASB) – And He gave some {as} apostles, and some {as} prophets, and some {as} evangelists, and some {as} pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
And while we are on the subject of callings and ministries, let’s also include the fifth point that the writers of the Awake! article make. I think it is very closely related to the first:
5. The clergy-laity distinction tends to cause lay people to relegate religion to the clergy, while the laity just turn up for weekly services.
While this may be the case in some churches, it is very different from what I see in the churches where I am involved. The pastors are not the only ones involved in ministry. Lay people serve as Sunday school teachers, ushers and greeters. Others are involved in music and technical ministries. At my church, we recently had several of our youth travel to the mid-west to minister to the elderly in a nursing home, another group went on a short-term mission to Guatemala and last Sunday we heard from a woman in our church who had traveled to Ethiopia to minister to orphans there.
Besides those ministries that are more or less tied to a church, there are many other opportunities for ministry within various communities. For several years I was involved in the Christian Motorcyclists Association. CMA is one of several ministries that serves the motorcycle community. A few years ago, I came across 8 different ministries at Bike Week in Laconia NH. There are also aircraft, boating, hiking and various sports related ministries where Christians minister to others within the community of the sport or activity they enjoy.
Along with all that there are also ministries that reach out to people of various professions, ages and ethnicities.
From what I have seen, the churches that are thriving are the ones where the clergy actively encourage the laity to be involved in various ministries. Many churches will periodically have ministry fairs where each ministry has a table or a booth where members of the congregation can find out more about the ministry and how they can be involved.
But all of this ministry activity by lay people in churches receives scant attention from the writers of Watchtower publications.
In the next part we will cover what the Awake! article says about the clergy and finances.
Do Jehovah’s Witnesses Have Clergy?
As we examine what the Jehovah’s Witness’ leadership have to say about the clergy of the Christian churches, we need to look at whether or not they have their own clergy.
Part of their criticism of the clergy is that they constitute a class that is exalted above the laity. Watchtower publications will tell you that Jehovah’s Witnesses are a classless society and that all Jehovah’s Witnesses are ordained ministers, becoming such at their baptism as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Although all baptized Jehovah’s Witnesses are ordained ministers, their leadership is very hierarchical. The Jehovah’s Witness organization is organized geographically into zones, branches, districts, circuits and congregations with zones covering the largest area and congregations the smallest. In each division there are those who hold positions of oversight. The governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses oversees the whole organization.
Having served as a congregation elder for 10 years and now having been involved in other churches, it seems to me that the congregation elders, circuit overseers, district overseers, branch overseers and the governing body constitute a clergy class. While congregation elders are unpaid, all the others are compensated monetarily and with other benefits such as health insurance, leased cars and living expenses.
Overseers other than congregation elders are also members of the Order of Special Full-Time Servants and as members of this religious order have taken a Simple Vow of Poverty which allows them to receive their compensation and other contributions from congregations and their members tax-free.
While congregation elders are not paid, I would say that they are, in effect, clergy. They are said to be appointed by holy spirit, they hold ecclesiastical tribunals to decide judicial matters, the rest of the congregation are bound to support the decisions of these tribunals while not being privy to the evidence, and they are provided material by headquarters that is not provided to the rest of the congregation.
Jehovah’s Witnesses and Clergy Privilege
Despite their proclaiming that they have no clergy class, congregation elders have on several occasions invoked clergy privilege when called upon to testify against child molesters in their midst. Such was the case near me in New Hampshire when congregation elders refused to testify in the cases of Gregory Blackstock and Paul Berry.
So, they try to have it both ways. On the one hand they want to allow some of their leaders to enjoy the privileges that accrue to the clergy of other religious organizations, such as tax advantages and clergy privilege, while on they other hand they try to characterize their leaders as not being “clergy” in order to differentiate themselves from the churches of Christendom. As with so many other areas with Jehovah’s Witnesses, it is a distiction without a difference.
The August 2009 edition of the “Awake!” magazine contains an article entitled “Should There Be a Clergy-Laity Distinction?” This article is rife with inaccuracies and generalizations. I will attempt to cover these in a series of posts.
Before considering the content of the Awake! article, it’s important to establish how Jehovah’s Witnesses view the Christian churches and their clergy. To say that the leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses is critical of Christian churches and their clergy is a huge understatement. Consider this 1994 quote from a 1958 speech by the then-vice-president of the Watch Tower Society:
14 Exposure of the clergy by the Jeremiah class has been powerful. For example, at the 1958 Divine Will International Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses in New York City, the vice president of the Watch Tower Society presented a statement that said in part: “Without any double talk or hesitation we declare this root cause of all the crime, delinquency, hatred, strife, prejudice, . . . and mad confusion to be wrong religion, false religion; behind which is man’s unseen enemy, Satan the Devil. The men most responsible for the world condition are the religious instructors and leaders; and the most reprehensible of these are the religious clergy of Christendom. . . . After all these years since World War I, Christendom stands in a relationship toward God like that of Israel in Jeremiah’s day. Yes, Christendom faces a destruction more frightful and devastating than that which Jeremiah saw happen to Jerusalem.” – The Watchtower, March 1, 1994, p 11, “Jehovah’s Judgment Against False Teachers”
The writers of the Watchtower apply the term “reprehensible” to the clergy time and again. Here are a few examples. In the first two, the Watchtower called the clergy “the most reprehensible”,
20 As the most reprehensible ones among the people of Christendom, the clergy and religious leaders will drink the potion of death: “For from the prophets of Jerusalem [prefiguring Christendom] apostasy has gone forth to all the land.”—Jer. 23:15. – The Watchtower, Sept. 1, 1979, p. 28
and,
Today, the most reprehensible group is identified as “the man of lawlessness,” made up of the self-exalted clergy of Christendom, who have taken the lead in opposing and persecuting Jehovah’s Witnesses.—Matthew 9:36; 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4. – The Watchtower, Jan. 15, 1988 p. 12
In 1990, the February 1 issue contained two articles devoted to the subjects of “God’s Judgement Against the ‘Man of Lawlessness’” and “Exposing the ‘Man of Lawlessness’”. In these, the Watchtower says that the clergy are more reprehensible because of their claiming to be Christian.
12 Christendom’s clergy are more reprehensible in shedding blood than other religious leaders. Why? Because in addition to taking God’s name upon themselves, they have taken Christ’s too. They thereby obligated themselves to follow the teachings of Jesus. (John 15:10-14) But they have not followed those teachings, thus bringing great reproach upon both God and Christ. The responsibility for bloodshed by the clergy has been both direct, in the Crusades, other religious wars, inquisitions, and persecutions, and indirect, in condoning wars in which members of the churches killed their fellowman in other lands. – The Watchtower, Feb. 1, 1990, p. 17, “God’s Judgment Against ‘the Man of Lawlessness’”
and, the second article:
13 Jesus said that the “good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14) As part of this worldwide witness, God’s servants are under obligation to make known his judgment against false religion, especially the clergy of Christendom. These are more reprehensible in God’s sight because they claim to be Christian. They must be exposed so that those who want to serve God can be freed from their influence and can take the proper steps for survival. As Jesus said: “The truth will set you free.”—John 8:32. – The Watchtower, Feb. 1, 1990, p. 23, “Exposing ‘the Man of Lawlessness’”
So, putting this all together, the Watchtower tells us that the clergy are “self-exalted”, that they “have taken the lead in opposing and persecuting Jehovah’s Witnesses”, that they bear responsibility for bloodshed directly for the “Crusades, other religious wars, inquisitions, and persecutions”, and indirectly “in condoning wars in which members of the churches killed their fellowman in other lands.”, that they are “more reprehensible in God’s sight because they claim to be Christian.”
While some of the clergy of both the past and the present may be responsible for some of the things the Watchtower accuses them of, the Watchtower attaches blame to all of the clergy based on the principle they explain here:
38 However, it is not to be forgotten that the “man of lawlessness” is not a single individual religious leader like the pope of Rome or the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Athens, the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul) or other religious patriarch. The foretold “lawless” one is a composite “man,” the whole religious clergy of the professed “Christian” church. Of course, what one prominent member of this clerical “man” does attaches blame to all the other members of the clergy class for their agreeing with what is done or not protesting against it or for acquiescing in it and remaining with the clergy organization. They all share a community responsibility and culpability for what a member of the clergy class does in a representative way as when speaking or acting for the whole group. It is what the clergy class as a whole does or joins in doing through the centuries of time that fulfills the prophecy concerning the “man of lawlessness.” – God’s Kingdom of a Thousand Years Has Approached!, pp. 380-381, par. 38, “Bringing the ‘Man of Lawlessness’ to Nothing”
So, according to the Watchtower, all the clergy share the responsibility for what any of the others did. Please take note of this principle of “community responsibility” that the Watchtower invokes against the clergy. It will come up again in a future post.
When I was a Jehovah’s Witness, I viewed those who were assured of their salvation as being very presumptuous. Looking back now, that only makes sense because I did not have the testimony of the Holy Spirit. At that time, I did not think that the words of Romans 8:16 applied to me since I was not one of the 144,000 “anointed”.
Romans 8:16 – “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,”
Of course, at that time, I was right that those words did not apply to me, but it was not because I was not one of the 144,000 anointed Jehovah’s Witnesses, but that is another story. The point here is that assurance of salvation is one of the core differences between Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christians. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have it, Christians do. Why is this important? Reading the following quote from “This We Believe” really brought it home for me. Hopefully it will for you too.
The Holy Spirit assures us that God is our Father and loves us. God has poured out his love into our hearts. (Rom. 5:5) Romans 8:15-16 says that when we cry “Abba, Father,” the Holy Spirit is witnessing to our spirit that we are God’s children. Few experiences can provide more power in our lives than to have the assurance of salvation.
Think of what it could do for us:
We would be joyous in our service for God, but not driven in our works, or mistaken in the notion that our works would save us.
We would be delivered from frantic preoccupation with taking our spiritual temperature minute by minute.
We would be free and spontaneous in our witness, exercising patience, and understanding as well as speaking with conviction and challenge.
We would not get overwrought with our friends about future security, for we would be assured of our present relationship with Christ – who loves us with an immeasurable love. – This We Believe, pp 201,202
(Originally published Oct 18, 2008 on blog.docbob.org)
Here’s another quote that really hit me:
As long as Jesus is one of many options, he is no option. As long as you can carry your burdens alone, you don’t need a burden bearer. As long as your situations brings you no grief, you will receive no comfort. And as long as you can take him or leave him, you might as well leave him, because he won’t be taken half-heartedly.
But when you mourn, when you get to the point of sorrow for your sins, when you admit that you have no other option but to cast all your cares on him, and when there is truly no other name that you can call, then cast all your cares on him, for he is waiting in the midst of the storm” – The Applause of Heaven by Max Lucado, p. 58
I’ve been reading Shane Claiborne’s book “The Irresistible Revolution” lately. In it, he quotes Soren Kierkegaard:
“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christian are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is ever dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”
If you haven’t read “The Irresistible Revolution”, I highly recommend it – well, with one reservervation. If you are comfortable in your Christian walk and want to remain that way, if you don’t want to be challenged – you may want to avoid it. It is a book that has, and will continue to, challenge and change my view of what it means to be a Christian.
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