An Insular People—No Part of the World: Part 1
An Insular People: No Part of the World: Part 3

An Insular People: No Part of the World: Part 2

See Part 1

Sweeping the Western world is a kinder, gentler view of minorities. More tolerance is in the air, less judgment, more fairness. There is more understanding of human quirks. The emphasis is on human rights; every person of every minority has them—unless that minority is in favor of separating from the world. That is something not tolerated. BitterWinter is running a so-far ten part series on the cult-reprogramming movement and the human rights abuses it itself commits.

It is far too long for me to plow through (for now). If anyone else wants to read through, go for it. I posted part 10 because it has links to all the prior posts. JWs might not even be included in the discussion; rather its coverage is on ‘deprogramming’ from all ‘new religions.’ I won’t agree with any of these ‘new religions’, most likely, but neither do I agree with the mainstream status quo. The new religions just represent people trying to find meaning in life. If the status quo mainstream supplied answers, none of these ‘new religions’ (called such because religious scholars wish to avoid the incendiary term ‘cults’) including Jehovah’s Witnesses, would succeed in gaining a toehold. As long as they don’t break the law (and not law specifically designed to entrap them), leave them be, Bitter Winter says.

On social media somewhere, one question designed to provoke asks: ‘What questions should one ask when meeting with someone from a cult such as ‘The Way’ or the ‘Hare Krishnas?’ ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘You should instead undertake to explain to this person how life in the mainstream leaves so little to be desired that it must not be allowed for them to deviate from the main road. Tell them why venturing outside the box is not permitted.’ All these newer religions, in their own way, strive to be ‘no part of the world.’ This is not allowed today. In contrast, if they want to become a new gender, that’s fine, because the overall world is moving to accommodate that.

More specifically for Jehovah’s Witnesses, HRWF just ran an article to report that in Russia it is preferable to be a rapist or a kidnapper to being a Jehovah’s Witnesses, as judged by the sentences imposed for punishment. Rapists and kidnappers are given shorter sentences.

This lack of all sense of proportion also tells me that the real crime of JWs is to be ‘no part of the world.’ It even tells me that their real prosecutor isn’t someone found in the ranks of humans at all—even though people can be crazy, they are not that crazy. In the past, remaining ‘no part of the world’ has caused the Witnesses trouble politically, as though all must participate in the issue of deciding which brand of human rulership will prevail; no one is allowed to sit it out. But now, in this new age of ‘inclusion,’ trying to become morally no part of this world becomes a crime as well. 

Though it is dicey using the tactics of Russian courts, even the Russian Supreme Court, as an example of judicial tactics in general, it is also true that the lunacy of the anti-cultists tends to spread, and with it the methods they employ. Anti-cultism itself is a Western import to Russia, just as communism was a century before. The book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses: Searching for the Why,’ tells of how scholars employed by one Russian court found problems in the New World Translation Bible used by Jehovah’s Witnesses with Psalm 37:29: “The righteous will inherit the earth and will live in it forever.” This verse , the experts discerned, is actually an expressed threat toward unrighteous persons. It is “about dismissiveness (contempt, aggression) toward a group of persons on the basis of religious affiliation.” It furthers the “‘propaganda of inferiority’ on the basis of religious identity.” (The experts left untouched the matter of all Bibles saying the same thing.)

In other words, they are sticking up for the unrighteous in that strange land!

It is not allowed to be ‘no part of the world.’ If the world includes ‘unrighteous’ people, you had better work to accommodate them.

To be continued: here

 

******  The bookstore

Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

Comments

The comments to this entry are closed.