My old friend Jeff Boldt recently wrote an article here on Covenant about a surprising encounter with a Jehovah’s Witness in Egypt. I agree entirely with his critique of Witnesses’ heretical doctrine, and yet I’d like to complicate the story a little. To be clear, my allegiance is with Jeff and the orthodox Christian tradition that both he and I endeavor to uphold. I aim not to offer a rebuttal of my theologically astute friend, but a companion reflection that proposes what I will call a teleodicy of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) and their persistence.
Teleodicy (telos: “purpose” or “end” + dikē: “justice” or “judgment”) is an attempt to justify God’s providential purposes or ends, like how theodicy tries to explain God’s allowance of evil and suffering. Thus, I ask: how do we explain the remarkable flourishing and persistence of a heretical Christian sect like the JWs, especially in unexpected and undoubtedly hostile places like Egypt? Dare I ask, what divine purpose, if any, is served by their expansion and witness? Could it be that God wills their persistence for our sake because we have something to learn from them or, for that matter, from other groups that are clearly and unambiguously heretical?
Last summer a pair of JWs arrived on my doorstep and I invited them into my home for dialogue. While most find them annoying, I for one stand in awe of their astonishing evangelistic zeal and commitment to their own cause, which no one can deny. Though they are best known for their door-to-door evangelism, JWs are also noteworthy for having no paid, professional clergy. At the local level, all elders, ministerial servants and “pioneers” (their term for full-time evangelists) serve without salary. They are also famous for building new Kingdom Halls rapidly. I saw firsthand the construction of one of their most recent builds in Canada: in Iqaluit, Nunavut on Baffin Island, where building costs are astronomical and logistically daunting.
By contrast, in my experience pastoring Anglican congregations, many vestry meetings were consumed with worries about paying for building repairs and utility bills we could ill afford. Add to this the awkwardness of the fact that my stipend was conspicuously the largest budget item on a financial statement often in the red. With such financial pressures, it was hard to redirect our focus towards engaging the wider community with the good news of Jesus. So, while I do not consider their evangel to be good news, I nonetheless find myself in awe-struck envy of the stewardship and evangelism of JWs.
In my home that day, I commended my two new JWs friends for their hard work, their commitment, and their enterprising spirit. I also shared with them an honorable episode from their history that I had recently learned from Alec Ryrie’s lectures. Ryrie points out that in Nazi Germany, most Christians either willingly collaborated or reluctantly compromised with the Nazi regime. What is less well known is that the religious group that most thoroughly and consistently resisted the Nazis were the JWs. On October 4, 1937, they distributed hundreds of thousands of pamphlets throughout Germany identifying Hitler as the beast of the Book of Revelation, chapter 13. This of course led to intensified persecution of JWs. I told my JW friends that they should be very proud of this, and they were.
Though zeal is no indicator of truth, the lesson I take from this story is that when a group intentionally cultivates a distinct identity, it is better able to foster cohesiveness and commitment, and to withstand worldly pressure by witnessing courageously. Anglicans and other Christians in the West would do well to take heed of this example.
I believe that JWs, like other heretical groups, may be a thorn in our flesh sent from the hand of the Almighty to provoke us to jealousy, stirring us from our complacency to a more fervent faith, lest we be spit out God’s mouth for being lukewarm (Rev. 3:16). If God grafted in Gentile believers to provoke his covenant people Israel to jealousy (Rom. 11:11), could it be that misguided, heretical offshoots—JWs, Mormons, even arguably Muslims who also make claims about Jesus—were broken off for our sake and for a similar end? Speaking of morally-upright, self-righteous persons of his own day, the 19th-century Baptist evangelist C.H. Spurgeon preached,
They are … intensely religious in their way, although that way is not the way of truth. They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. They are righteous people, self-righteous people, people that have done no ill, but, on the contrary, have laboured to do a great deal of good. They are running, and running well, but they are not running in the right road. They are labouring, and labouring hard, but they are not labouring in the right style; and so they will miss their reward. Many of these people are around us, and very admirable people they are in many ways; but their condition causes us the utmost anxiety … I say most solemnly, “My heart’s desire and prayer for such is, that they might be saved; for I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”
One cannot help but think of Paul before his conversion: his zeal was beyond reproach, yet it was not leading anyone to God, but away from his Christ. Once more, zeal is no marker of truth. I submit that God permits the flourishing of JWs and other such groups, not because their teaching is true, but because their zeal serves his greater purpose of awakening the Church to its mission. Their persistence, then, is not an accident but a summons for us to be roused from sleep (Rom. 13:11), providentially ordered by God to stir his people to the zeal he desires for us.
When Christians see the fervency and persistence of JWs and others, perhaps God’s will is for our souls to be rekindled with zeal for the Name above all names (Phil. 2:9), whose glory we behold in the Word made flesh who dwells among us (John 1:14). “Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Jehovah, have we waited for thee, to thy name, even to thy memorial name, is the desire of our soul” (Isa. 26:8 ASV).
The Rev. Christopher Dow is Chaplain of Wycliffe College, University of Toronto where he oversees worship life, pastoral care, and field education for the seminary community. Previous appointments include rector of St. Jude's Cathedral, Iqaluit and Dean of the Diocese of the Arctic, and parishes in Toronto and Saskatchewan.
