The Watchtower has quietly notified Kingdom Halls throughout the United States to take special precautions and preventive steps to reduce their members’ exposure to the dreaded and fast-moving Coronavirus epidemic spreading throughout the United States. On March 7, 2020, Mike and Kim released a video that quotes the most recent Watchtower “elders letter” that instructs local Jehovah’s Witness elders on how to manage the threat to members and visitors to their congregations.
We stumbled across another of our “lost in the growing stack” of past news tips and came across this gem of a report from Lower Saucon Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. It’s not so much about the news and the fact that the Watchtower was selling another Kingdom Hall, but rather their reasoning and explanation for taking that rather drastic step. The organization’s statement indicated their move was to free up “additional funds for the church’s relief work in the U.S. and abroad.” We ask, “What “relief work”? And exactly where will that “relief work” be provided?
The following article was first published in August 2017 at medium.com/@r.m.weisgerber and was brought to our attention some time ago. We wanted to share it with our readers because it describes the experiences and feelings of growing up in a JW family from a child’s point of view – even though that child is now a mature adult.
Jeff Truesdell reported in People Magazine on January 13, 2020, that Oxygen Channel will present a new two-part documentary that examines alleged child abuse within the Jehovah’s Witnesses and covered up by the Watchtower. “The Witnesses” will premiere Saturday, February 8 and 9, 2020. Trey Bundy will appear in the documentary.
Montana court reverses $35 Million Jehovah’s Witness case. Jehovah’s Witnesses held to be non-mandatory reporters. Watchtower reverses its fine. The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously reversed $35 million in damages against the Jehovah’s Witnesses, ruling the church did not violate Montana’s mandatory reporting statute when it did not report child sexual abuse by a Thompson Falls congregation member to local authorities.
In a news article published by The Belfast Telegraph and reprinted by Moose Gazette on November 27, 2019, reporter Charles Henry reported that “A woman abused as a child by a fellow Jehovah’s Witness during Bible study classes bravely spoke out about her “life-wrecking experience.” Laura Waring courageously waived her right to anonymity after her attacker pleaded guilty to a string of child sex charges.
NBC NEWS in Yakima, Washington reported that “A man who pleaded guilty to raping two underage girls he met at the Jehovah’s Witness congregation they all belonged to has been sentenced to five years in prison. Elihu Rodriguez, 32, of Yakima, Washington, was given five years, the maximum sentence prosecutors had recommended after Rodriguez agreed to plead guilty to three felony counts of child rape in the third degree in September 2019.”
The limits of religious freedom: America must come to grips with when faith groups limit personal liberty — “When Pastor Robert Jeffress, a member of President Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board and the White House Faith Initiative, recently dismissed climate activist Greta Thunberg by saying that rainbows are evidence that polar ice caps aren’t melting, my heart sank…”