The range of political beliefs among Jehovah's Witnesses

[JW Insider]

Sometimes when people discuss religion or politics with someone, we are apt to wonder just how anyone can believe things that seem so crazy to us, while at the same time, the other person is wondering the same thing about our own beliefs.

So I start this new thread on politics under a JW Club, because we are supposed to have a kind of love-hate relationship with the topic of politics. We stay neutral, but that's often just enough distance to get things wrong. And we stay alert for issues that might end up being of Biblical significance, so that most of us stay informed at least through mainstream news sources.

However, there are other views far from the mainstream, that some Witnesses hold to. Most political issues have become very complex due to the fast-paced movement of world events since the dawn of a military industrial age and a lightning fast information age on top of that.

The mainstream media sources in most nations have an agenda in support of the ruling classes and/or elite classes within the nation. Several add a layer of "information" on top of that with a partisan political agenda -- very easy to spot in nations with only two major political parties. An agenda within an agenda. Outside of mainstream media, however, the sources are chaotic and sometimes extreme, full of outlandish interpretations and conspiracies, too. The chaos is even stoked by entities hoping to push audiences back to mainstream sources, where we feel a certain rational consistency of messaging. Of course, that "messaging" is often just propaganda inoculating us from studying situations for ourselves. This keeps us from realizing that mainstream media is also full of chaos and conspiracies, but constant repetition of messages makes it seem correct. If it doesn't quite seem correct, we feel that things are just too complicated to ever get the whole truth anyway. So we give up and pretend the mainstream media is the best we can do, or we hang onto some conspiracy that seems to explain everything.

In this topic I plan to give a few of my own views about various political topics. It's easiest to structure these views around comments that have already been made from others. Especially comments where I take nearly the opposite view. This should help to highlight the wide range of possible interpretations. There are plenty of such comments in the recent/current "Babylon the Great" topic, so I will probably get a few ideas from there over the next few weeks. This isn't to pick on anyone's views in particular, but I find myself disagreeing with @Arauna and @Kosonen on a range of topics. I also completely agree with them on a range of topics. But this might show how people can take several or more different paths of interpretation from some of the same "evidence" or information.

It might be a while, because I haven't figured out where to start yet. So anyone should feel free to make suggestions or jump in before I do.

[Melinda Mills]

Nice to hear from you.  You could probably start by explaining what is politics and what is partisan politics. But I still expect you to be neutral.

 

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

I think American JW's get more wound up with politics that here in the UK. For all the time I was a JW we never spoke about politics, apart from one single brother that I will mention later, but that was just his personal 'theory'...

For my part I have no interest in politicians or political parties. I don't vote for any of them. But I did vote to leave the EU. My feelings were that leaving the EU was an action. It wasn't about the political party or the PM, it was about an action that the UK could take. A bit like the W/t outlook on climate change. Do your bit to make things better whilst still being 'no part of the world'

But sorry @Arauna  I do think you get very 'involved' in worldly affairs. Your own business of course. To me it does not take such a deep look to see how bad the 'world' is getting, and we know it's Satan's world anyway. 

@JW Insider Maybe you could start off by saying why JWs actually need to look into world politics and worldly affairs ? 

OK, now this one brother that has a 'theory'. He is a young man, single, probably has too much spare time to think on things. His idea is that the Russians have the remains of Noah's Ark. He has some video footage of what he says are Russian troops breaking up the remains and transporting it to Russia. His idea is that the remains would make more people believe in God and that Russia as a whole wants to remove all beliefs from people. Is that political ? Is it even important ?  I only mentioned it as you were writing about folks having crazy thoughts and beliefs. 

[Melinda Mills]

OK, let me start.

Politics is the set of activities associated with the governance of a country, state or an area. It involves making decisions that apply to groups of members. It refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance—organized control over a human community, particularly a state. Wikipedia

(Romans 13:1, 2) Let every person be in subjection to the superior authorities, for there is no authority except by God; the existing authorities stand placed in their relative positions by God. 2 Therefore, whoever opposes the authority has taken a stand against the arrangement of God; those who have taken a stand against it will bring judgment against themselves.
 

 

[Srecko Sostar]

19 minutes ago, Melinda Mills said:

Politics

also:

the relationships within a group or organization that allow particular people to have power over others:

I don't like to get involved in office politics. - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/politics

 

 

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

 Maybe you could start off by saying why JWs actually need to look into world politics and worldly affairs ? 

I didn't want to give the impression that there is a need, only that we probably have a general expectation that politics can show just how bad things are in the world and therefore we all have some interest. Some of the details can be used when trying to get other persons interested in the message about the Kingdom. It is rather rare, I think, for most Witnesses to take much of a specific interest in a political issue, except where something might effect us personally -- in countries where a ban on Witnesses might be in the works, or formal recognition, for that matter.

The level of interest of Kosonen or Arauna or myself is not typical at all in my experience. I can discuss politics with no one except my own family and even here there are obvious practical limits.

But you might not believe the level of politics in the 1910s through the 1940's among Bible Students and early Jehovah's Witnesses. It was driven by hundreds of articles that delved into political matters at great length and great depth. Russell wrote a letter to the U.S. President to tell him that Filipinos are lazy and the Japanese are hardworking. The articles on Hitler even before he took power were already taking up pages of the Golden Age. There are densely packed articles on Germany and Hitler that went on for several pages with a level of detail and quotations from secular sources that would be unheard of today.

@Melinda I am not referring to politics in its most practical sense, about getting things done in a state, or city, or community. I am referring more to the divisive ideologies of national politics that keep people arguing about foreign policy, drive prejudices, create conflicts between nations, produce nationalism, etc.

 

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

I think the worst type is family politics, especially mother in- laws  

@JW Insider Yes what you have written there about Russell, in my opinion, would show that he was not inspired of God, nor did he have God's guidance. I believe I've read on here that he wrote unkind things about 'people of colour' too. 

[JW Insider]

36 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

 Yes what you have written there about Russell, in my opinion, would show that he was not inspired of God, nor did he have God's guidance. I believe I've read on here that he wrote unkind things about 'people of colour' too. 

It was much less common with Russell to get political. And his statements about people of color were mostly better than his contemporaries. Somewhat progressive for his time. But Rutherford had been a political person before becoming a Bible Student. He even worked on a U.S. presidential campaign.

[Anna]

It was political opinion, (although based on scriptures in his mind), that got Rutherford and his associates in trouble and throw in prison in 1918 on charges of sedition....

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

But you might not believe the level of politics in the 1910s through the 1940's among Bible Students and early Jehovah's Witnesses. It was driven by hundreds of articles that delved into political matters at great length and great depth.

Yes, it always surprises me when I read snippets from publications of that period. The other day I was clearing up some stuff in the garage and found some more old books that belong to my mother in law. As always I can't resist reading a few pages. It's obvious that Rutherford was very in the know as regards politics. And so was Russel (from reading old 1913 WT). It's evident though that the reason they were discussing politics was not because they somehow wanted to be a part of the world as @4Jah2me insinuates, but because the political scene convinced them of the fulfillment of Bible prophecies, and also that we are living in the time of the end.

[TrueTomHarley]

10 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Russell wrote a letter to the U.S. President to tell him that Filipinos are lazy and the Japanese are hardworking.

Paul commented how “this witness is true” and he was referring to the prophet among them who wrote that Cretans were “always liars, injurious wild beasts, idle gluttons.”

10 hours ago, JW Insider said:

except where something might effect us personally -- in countries where a ban on Witnesses might be in the works, or formal recognition, for that matter

Emily Baran cites a few places in Wt publications post-WWII which reiterates the phrase “iron curtain.” This didn’t sit well with the Soviet government, who considered it not an iron curtain at all but a protective barrier.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

 

The true test of any association of people, be it a Nation, a Tribe, a Family, or a religious organization is this:

How many people are trying hard to get in ... and how many people are trying hard to get out.

The Soviets knew their "iron curtain" was not a protective wall to try and keep people out ... it was a prison wall to try and keep people in.

[TrueTomHarley]

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

The Soviets knew their "iron curtain" was not a protective wall to try and keep people out ... it was a prison wall to try and keep people in.

“For their own good” the true believers among them would have said.