Jehovah’s Witnesses are well-known for proselytizing door-to-door and handing out their literature on metropolis streets. Much less recognized to most of the people, their adherents have been required for the previous century to make common stories to their congregation’s leaders on what number of hours they put into such ministry.
These hourly stories had been a key metric for a congregation’s non secular vitality and a think about deciding who rose to management. Former adherents inform of strain to fulfill these quotas and guilt after they didn’t.
However in a historic shift, that observe ended this month.
For the primary time since 1920, leaders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses have eliminated the hours-reporting requirement for rank-and-file adherents.
“Our ministry involves much more than counting time,” Samuel Herd, a member of the denomination’s Governing Physique, stated in asserting the coverage change to applause on the October annual assembly of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, a authorized entity central to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ work.
Herd stated the Governing Physique is “confident that you dear ones will continue to render whole-souled service,” motivated not by obligation however devotion to God, whom they name Jehovah. However he acknowledged leaders must adapt.
“You will have to know the flock well,” he stated. “Evaluating a congregation’s spiritual health or a brother’s qualifications to serve (in leadership positions such) as an elder or ministerial servant will not simply be a matter of computing averages, time spent in the ministry, literature placements and so forth.”
The video of the assembly, held in Newburgh, New York, was publicly posted by the group in early November, although leaked recordings circulated for weeks earlier on unofficial web sites.
“This is one of the biggest changes I ever remember” within the group, stated former elder Martin Haugh of York Haven, Pennsylvania.
Removing of the hours requirement applies to “publishers,” or rank-and-file adherents concerned in lively ministry. They’ll now solely must file month-to-month stories saying whether or not they’ve carried out any evangelistic exercise and Bible research, with out specifying hours.
Those that join extra intensive service, generally known as “pioneers” or “missionaries,” will proceed to report their hours.
Hours fell because the pandemic
Skeptical former adherents, nevertheless, are speculating totally different motives are at play — that adherents’ ministry hours have dropped so noticeably, significantly because the pandemic.
When numbers had been rising, “it was always brought up at meetings or in their publications to show the growth of the organization,” stated Mitch Melin of Washington state, a former adherent now working to deliver consciousness to what he calls the “darker side” of the group, equivalent to its management of Witnesses and the observe of shunning sure members. He speculated that “if they’re declining, it might be embarrassing to show” the numbers.
Jarrod Lopes, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses based mostly at their world headquarters in New York state, disputed this notion. He stated ministry time had been growing yearly till the pandemic, peaking above 2 billion hours worldwide. Whereas the hours are beneath pre-pandemic ranges, he stated they started rising from 1.4 billion in 2021 to 1.5 billion hours in 2022 as Witnesses resumed door-to-door visits and different ministry.
Former elder Haugh, who left over what he noticed because the denomination’s mishandling of sexual abuse and different issues, stated the hours requirement was as soon as central in adherents’ lives.
“It showed you how loyal you were to Jehovah by how much time was put in,” he stated.
Haugh recalled how a regional supervisor yelled at elders if their congregation’s efficiency lagged. Haugh stated marriages broke up over spouses’ totally different ranges of dedication, and individuals who had been judged as failing at ministry would spiral into melancholy. “Now they don’t have to have that stigmatization that they’re not putting in the hours,” he stated.
On a current weekday afternoon, Jehovah’s Witnesses had been handing out literature to passers-by at numerous downtown places in Pittsburgh — the nineteenth century birthplace of the motion.
These interviewed stated they deliberate to do as a lot ministry as ever and hadn’t centered on the hours. “It doesn’t affect our day-to-day life,” stated Chuck Ghee, an area elder. “We give the best out of our heart.”
Revising the date of the tip time
The Governing Physique additionally devoted a part of the annual assembly to revising its interpretation of biblical prophecies in regards to the finish occasions — a paramount focus of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The Governing Physique now accepts that even within the last countdown to Armageddon, nonbelievers may nonetheless settle for the reality and be saved. That reverses a earlier understanding that, as soon as an apocalyptic Nice Tribulation will get underway, it might be too late.
That announcement, not but formally made public, has additionally been circulating on-line on the identical unofficial websites that distributed genuine recordings of the introduced coverage change on monitoring hours.
“Will all those living during the Great Tribulation have a full opportunity to decide either for the kingdom or against it?” Governing Physique member Geoffrey Jackson stated on the annual assembly.
“We don’t know, and we don’t need to know because we’re not the judges,” Jackson stated. “We know that Jehovah and Jesus are merciful, that they will always do the right thing.”
Earlier leaders of the group had raised expectations for apocalyptic occasions in particular years, equivalent to 1975, which did not materialize. Present instructing nonetheless places a powerful emphasis on the tip occasions, however with out predicting particular dates.
Governing Physique member Jeffrey Winder stated on the annual assembly that God reveals fact step by step and that the physique is pleased to have its understandings corrected.
“Knowing this, we are not embarrassed about adjustments that are made, nor is an apology needed for not getting it exactly right previously,” he stated.
Lopes declined to touch upon the unreleased instructing movies earlier than their scheduled launch in January, following their translation into greater than 200 languages spoken by adherents. Whereas he neither confirmed nor disputed the movies’ authenticity, he did say unofficial websites impinge on copyright after they distribute Watch Tower movies with out authorization.
Assaults and authorities bans
The modifications come at a turbulent time for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Worship gatherings in India and Germany suffered deadly assaults prior to now 12 months from former members. Believers in Russia, the place the denomination is banned, face persecution.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses faces intense scrutiny worldwide over the dealing with of kid sexual abuse. A Pennsylvania grand jury has charged 14 males since 2022 with sexual abuse inside the group.
The denomination counts 8.7 million adherents worldwide, with 1.2 million in america.
The modifications in instructing and the observe of recording hours, taken collectively, could be seen as a “relaxation of the sectarian identity of the group,” stated Mathew Schmalz, a professor of spiritual research on the Faculty of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
On the one hand, “it’s hard to see the Witnesses becoming a mainstream church, because it would lose some of its appeal to being the possessors of biblical truth” to the exclusion of others, Schmalz stated. Then again, the group needs “to have the public take them seriously as a religious organization.”
Former elder Haugh stated the modifications don’t make up for failures in reforming the dealing with of abuse or for battling former adherents and critics in court docket and different venues. “They may be nicer to their own members, but they’ve become even more against their former members,” he stated.
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