Leah Remini’s season three of Scientology and the Aftermath officially begins on November 27th, but on the 13th, she released a two-hour special on the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They decided to do this because Remini has been asked to cover the controversial religion since many find them very similar. I have also been asked to cover the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but since it is such a complicated religion, just as Scientology is, I have decided to stay focused solely on aspects of Scientology for all my previous blog posts.
One interesting point that was made in Tony Ortega’s blog post about the special was how Remini is well versed with all of Scientology’s policies, as she was in the church for 30 years, and how different it was to do a special on another religion that she has had no former involvement with. Remini explained how what you learn from those you interview shapes what the special is about. She learned this from Alex Gibney talking about his documentary Going Clear. He had no former connection to Scientology, and learned how he wanted to make his documentary based on talking to the people he planned on making it about.
Jehovah’s Witnesses is a Christian denomination. According to Christianity.com:
“Jehovah’s Witnesses got their start in 1870 when a man named Charles Taze Russell started leading Bible studies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Jehovah’s Witnesses movement came out of the Bible Student movement, which was also founded by Taze. When Taze began disputing some of the traditional views within Christianity, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were born.”
While I know next to nothing about the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Lloyd Evans, a former member of the church and author of a book called The Reluctant Apostate has told Remini, “Take Scientology, add eight million members, and you’ve got Jehovah’s Witnesses”, according to this Hollywood Reporter article.
A few things touched on during the special were the JW’s belief that Armageddon is coming, their strong stance against blood transfusions, suicide within the religion, and their “two-witness” rule.
Armageddon refers to “the final war between human governments and God”. They are taught to believe that Armageddon is coming from their earliest memories and the only way to survive is to perfectly follow their scripture. This includes following many strict rules such as not smoking. Other rules can be found here. These rules are not confirmed but were “compiled by former members based on experience and in Watchtower publications”.
Denying blood transfusions has been a famously controversial belief of JW’s. In the special, one panelist “noted that a Jehovah’s Witnesses publication, Awake! magazine, once published a list of ‘youths who put God first’ by dying instead of accepting a blood transfusion”. Another panelist talked about how the denial of a blood transfusion led to the death of his brother.
Suicide is very common within the religion even though it is forbidden. One panelist attempted to commit suicide because he believed he was too flawed to survive the Armageddon. Another panelist shared that her mother committed suicide after being depressed for a long period of time. Two panelists who are siblings shared that they reunited with their parents, who are still members of the church, at the funeral of their brother who committed suicide.
Lastly, the “two-witness” rule. This truly shocked me when I read about it. The “two-witness” rule is not disputed by the church. This is how they deal with child abuse allegations. There must be a confession by the alleged perpetrator or two witnesses to the abuse. For there to be two witnesses during a child’s abuse is extremely rare, which allows the church to disregard almost all allegations and set almost all child-molesters free. Members are strongly advised not to seek help outside of the church, which means if they have been sexually abused, they must handle it within the church. It is obvious that this rule puts many children in danger. Here is another article by the Guardian that goes more in depth on this rule.
Doing this research made me very interested in this seemingly corrupt or “cult-like” religion. There are some similarities between the two, but I have not even began to know anything about the JW’s so I feel that I cannot appropriately comment on them.
Further Reading:
If you would like to read a few reactions to the special, you can read the comments on Mike Rinder’s blog post about it. Quite a few comments are from ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses and are very interesting and sentimental.
Religion of Science... or Science Fiction? 