Jehovah's Witnesses practices
Jehovah's Witnesses' practices are based on the biblical interpretations of Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916), founder (c. 1881) of the Bible Student movement, and of successive presidents of the Watch Tower Society, Joseph Franklin Rutherford (from 1917 to 1942) and Nathan Homer Knorr (from 1942 to 1977).
[1] The group disseminates instructions regarding activities and acceptable behavior through The Watchtower magazine and through other official publications, and at conventions and congregation meetings.
[3] The denomination requires adherence to a strict moral code, which forbids premarital sex, homosexuality, gender transitioning,[4] adultery, smoking, drunkenness and drug abuse, and blood transfusions.
[5] Elder committees maintain discipline within congregations, exercising the power to expel members who breach the denomination's rules and to demand their shunning by other Witnesses.
[7] Members are expected to participate regularly in evangelizing work and to attend congregation meetings and conventions that present material based on Watch Tower Society publications.
[10] Sociologist Andrew Holden claims meetings create an atmosphere of uniformity for Witnesses, intensify their sense of belonging to a religious community, and reinforce the plausibility of the organization's belief system.
[13] The form and content of the meetings is established by the denomination's New York headquarters, generally involving a consideration of the same subject matter worldwide each week.
Witnesses are urged to prepare for all meetings by studying Watch Tower Society literature from which the content is drawn and looking up the scriptures cited in the articles.
[28] The Memorial, held after sunset, includes a talk on the meaning of the celebration and the circulation among the audience of unadulterated red wine and unleavened bread.
[31][32] Prospective members are told they have a moral obligation to serve as "publishers" by "regular and zealous" participation in the Witnesses' organised preaching work, disseminating Watch Tower doctrines as evangelists of "the Truth".
[34] Watch Tower publications describe house-to-house visitations as the primary work of Jehovah's Witnesses[33] in obedience to a "divine command" to preach "the Kingdom good news in all the earth and (make) disciples of people of all the nations".
[37] Witnesses are told that they should put the interests of "God's Kingdom" first in their lives and that other secular and recreational pursuits should remain secondary to spiritual matters.
[38] Witnesses are frequently instructed through Watch Tower Society publications, and at meetings and conventions, to increase the quality and quantity of their preaching efforts.
Witnesses have, in the past, used a wide variety of methods to spread their faith, including information marches, where members wore sandwich boards and handed out leaflets, to sound cars (car-mounted phonographs), and syndicated newspaper columns and radio segments devoted to sermons.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jehovah's Witnesses focused on alternative methods of evangelism such as online web applications, telephone, email, SMS texting, and postal mail.
[48] Jehovah's Witnesses make extensive use of Watch Tower Society literature, including books, magazines, booklets and handbills, to spread their beliefs and to use as textbooks at their religious meetings.
The change in policy was first announced in the United States in February 1990, following the loss of a case before the US Supreme Court by Jimmy Swaggart Ministries on the issue of sales tax exemption for religious groups.
[57] Individuals seeking to be baptised as Jehovah's Witnesses are required to follow a systematic, catechistical Bible study course, usually in their home, for several months.
"[63] He also found a striking contrast with other churches in the common attribution of responsibility for conversion to "a spiritual guide [...] the person who acted as the intermediary with the Watchtower movement and who supervised the initial process of learning and reforming".
Outside the congregation, a female minister wears a head covering when she leads spiritual teaching in the presence of her husband, according to the Christian complementarian view.
[68] According to the Watch Tower Society, some courts in the United States have recognized that full-time Jehovah's Witness appointees, such as "pioneers" and those in the faith's religious order, qualify for ministerial exemptions regardless of gender.
Later, without disclosing names or private details, one of the elders gives a separate talk ensuring that the congregation understands the sin, its dangers, and how to avoid it.
[85] Marking is practiced if a member's course of action is regarded as a violation of Bible principles, reflecting badly on the congregation, but is not considered a serious sin for which the individual may be formally shunned.
[107] Dutch anthropologist Richard Singelenberg has suggested the Watch Tower Society's prohibition on blood transfusions—as well as its edict against fellowship with outsiders—are rooted in the religious desire to maintain a communal state of purity worthy of divine favor.
[109] Based on their interpretation of Ephesians 6:10–20, they believe their "spiritual war" is fought with truth, righteousness, the "good news of peace", faith, the hope of salvation, God's word and prayer.
Watch Tower publications define the "world" as "the mass of mankind apart from Jehovah’s approved servants" and teach that it is ruled by Satan[116] and a place of danger[117] and moral contamination.
The Watch Tower Society has stated that voting in political elections is a personal conscience decision,[120] though a Witness who takes any action considered to be a "violation of Christian neutrality" may face religious sanctions.
[126] Witnesses are urged to minimize their social contact with non-members, even if they possess "decent qualities",[127][128][129] because of perceived dangers of worldly association.
[136] Sociologist Ronald Lawson has suggested that it is the group's intellectual and organizational isolation—coupled with the intense indoctrination of adherents, rigid internal discipline and considerable persecution—that has contributed to the consistency of its sense of urgency in its apocalyptic message.
Larger construction projects, including building regional Assembly Halls and Bethel offices, factories, residences, warehouses, and farm facilities, are also performed almost entirely by volunteer members.
