Month: March 2021

Watchtower moves where the money is. Years back Watchtower allowed Jehovah’s Witnesses members in Mexico to carry government cards claiming they’d received military training and were enrolled in the army reserves. Some of the Watchtower members who carried the military card were circuit overseers and pioneers appointed by Watchtower. Some were missionaries. Only Witnesses in that country were allowed to do that, as that action violated Watchtower’s policy on political neutrality. Why did Watchtower allow that? Was it because back then Watchtower was not registering itself as a religion with the Mexican government?

Because had Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to obey the Mexican law requiring men to receive military training and join the army reserve, then Watchtower’s cover as a nonreligious charity would have been blown. That is if they refused because of their religious beliefs attached to Watchtower. And then Mexico would have treated Watchtower as the religion it really was. Watchtower claimed it was a nonreligious charity then.

Why didn’t Watchtower want to be treated as a religion in Mexico? Back then religions were prohibited from buying properties. So instead of renting properties like religions did, Watchtower bought properties, as a nonreligious charity. Once that law changed allowing religions to buy properties Watchtower registered as a religion in Mexico.

The hypocrisy of that act is not the worst thing about it. You see during this same time period African Jehovah’s Witnesses in the country of Malawi were prohibited by Watchtower from purchasing a 25 cents government card. Even though there was only one political party in Malawi at the time. The result of not buying that card caused Witnesses in Malawi to get raped and imprisoned. Some had their homes burned down. Some might have been killed. Watchtower was aware of what was happening to its members there, because Watchtower sent messages to every Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation, asking members to write Malawi’s government requesting it stop the atrocities.

So while Watchtower let Witnesses in Mexico violate its policy on political neutrality, and join the army reserve, Watchtower let Witnesses in Africa get raped, jailed, have their homes burned down, and maybe even killed rather than allowing them to buy a 25 cents government card. I’ll never forget one of the statements Watchtower put in its literature that was sent to all congregations around the globe. Watchtower wrote brothers and sisters in Malawi were being jailed, stripped naked, and naked brothers and sisters were put in the same cell with their pubic hairs tied to each other. Their jailers doing that wanted to see if the Witnesses would have sex with someone they weren’t married to.

Yes Watchtower knew that was going on, because they told us it was happening in Malawi. But do you think they told us that brothers in Mexico were carrying government cards claiming they received military training and were registered in the army reserves? No! If we did that Watchtower would have disfellowshipped us.

Was there any financial incentive for Watchtower to waive its neutrality policy for the brothers and sisters in Malawi? No! Was there a financial incentive for Watchtower to waive its neutrality policy in Mexico? Yes! Could that be the reason for the double standard?

1. Information about Mexico taken from Ray Franz’s books, In Search of Christian Freedom & Crisis of Conscience