Dad called me at noon on Sunday. I was still in bed. We'd walked the Midnight Sun Run and were having our midnight breakfast when the subject came up. He was going to call at 10:00 but luckily, I said not to. Noon was about as long as he could wait, and that was fine. I was sort of waking up anyway, and had sort of written off the idea of going on one of our church outings this Sunday. I was thikning about cleaning the garage and other pressing but uninspiring chores.
"The Jehova's Witnesses have a service at 1:00," he said.
I said, though I didn't really feel like saying it, "sure, let's do it".
"OK, I'll be at your house in 20 minutes."
If you're going to go to Kingdom Hall as an outsider, this is the way to go. Don't think about it, just get up, get in the shower, grab a cold waffle from the distant dream of the night before, and then you're in the car on your way to the 'meeting'.
Yeah, JW's have 'meetings', not services or masses. My dad briefed me on the way that the Jehova's Witness movement started in the late 19th century as part of the Bible Study movement. There are currently about 20 million JW's world wide.
I've always dreaded seeing them walking up the driveway, joked about the JW's coming at inopportune times at home, and generally wondered what went on in the little brick building titled 'Kingdom Hall'.
As we pulled up outside, I noticed that the half dozen or so other attendees were really well dressed. Women were wearing dresses, men were wearing dark suits. My dad and I were wearing khaki's and dress shirts. Looking pretty good for only having rolled out of be a few moments earlier, but we weren't really dressed to fit in. It was about 10 minutes before the hour. I was happy to sit in the car and finish my orange juice but given the choice, dad said, 'let's go'... Again, this wasn't my natural inclination. I really felt aprehensive about Kingdom Hall. My whole life I'd sought to avoid contact with these folks, and sort of reviled them in their evangelical enthusiasm. Here we were, offering ourselves up and walking right in the front door. As I left the house, I had told Amanda where we were going in case I didn't return.
We went inside, past the folks socializing outside and through the double doors. I could feel the eyes of all we passed on our backs. We made our way to our usual vantage point, about two thirds of the way back on the right hand side. There were maybe two dozen others already inside - and again, lots of looks. All of the men were wearing dark suits. All of them. We had hardly sat down before we were welcomed evaluatively by a tall handsome fellow. And then, another welcome, and introductions and what brings you here and so on. We had maybe six or so of those, and then some of the women seated around us welcomed us and again, introductions and what brings you. As it happens, the Sunday before we'd had the JW's come by the house so it was a reason at the ready. We'd had someone give us a Watchtower and we wondered what it was all about so we thought we'd come and see. Everyone was very nice, in a warm, but somewhat guarded sort of way - and no real conversation, an awkward moment for all, to be sure.
One lady that my dad happened to know from his course on Athiesm "Athiests Among Us', a very nice slighlty built elderly lady, sat in front of us. She said that we would really enjoy ourselves and that they had a guest speaker from some other chapter down south, and the lesson from the Watchtower, we'd really enjoy that; sort of like a college course or seminar, she said. This lady had a very kind and friendly aura about her, but she's one who complained about dad's course and got it cancelled.
The Hall was very well kept, very 1980's, but didn't have that oppressive feel that the Mormon Temple or Baptist Church did. The air was fresh and the dated lecture theater style seating was comfotable. The Hall wasn't that full as we got started, maybe 55 people total, out of a possible 150 or 175. They started with a song - pretty pathetic audience participation, kind of nasally and half hearted. Like trying to get a bunch of 3rd graders to sing "God Bless America" or something. My dad leaned over to me and whispered, though much too loudly to be really a whisper, 'They're worse than the Mormons'. I cringed and laughed at the same time.
The guest lecture was boring, banal and mumbled. The speaker talked of crumbling american family values, of the dangers of music, of the dangers of choice of profession, of the wrong use of blood. The blood thing sort of threw me. I had no idea what he was talking about. He also went on at length about how difficult it was to choose a good profession. How being a delivery person seems like a good job, but what if you're called to deliver something immoral, such as blood sausage. What? He spoke about how satan was active everywhere and one had to be careful. There was good music, but there was also bad music. Earlier there was a time when it was easier to tell the difference between right and wrong, black and white, but now, it was much more difficult. He reminded everyone that this 'system' was coming to an end, and would be replaced by Jehova's system - the Kingdom of Heaven where Jesus was king. As you might imagine, most people weren't going to make it, only a few, a few who knew and practiced 'the truth'.
While this was going on, I was mostly bored out of my skull. The way in which the speaker presented was almost like he was saying something without actually saying it - the entire time. I wasn't sure if it was because I was tired, but his formulation of ideas and points was so obtuse, I wasn't sure if he was talking way above my level of comprehension, or way below - like to kindergardeners. Things to be careful of, a list of simple truths. It was disorienting in that it felt like he was saying something larger, but its meaning, to me, was incomprehensible. I found myself reading 'The Watchtower' magazine. There were four main sections, each one divided into several lessons. They all were incredibly banal, except the last. That one had to do with lessons derived from three important events in 'history'. The flood and Noah's ark, the Exodus out of Egypt by Moses and crew, and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. It even had a picture of Pharoah's army being crushed by the Red Sea as the waters closed on his army. My kind of reading. It was strange reading however, I could never decipher the point - what the purpose of it all was.
Finally the speaker finished his half hour presentation on the dangers of satan and what he presented as the complexities of avoiding satan in the modern world. I was pretty worried when the next speaker approached the podium (hand cranked the wooden lever to elevate it to the right height) and announced that the lesson would begin. To my great pleasure, however, it was anounced that we were to studying the last section and the one with the best pictures. This should be good, I thought.
Crap. It was the most boring, pedantic, banal, mindless, pseudo-inquiry of my life. The next hour consisted of reading through the several page article in the following manner. The man at the main podium was the director. He would direct another man, at a microphone, to read numbered paragraph passages. Then the director would read the prepared questions. The passages made simple statements, mostly based on bible passages about the events in question, and the questions simply asked what had just been stated. Two runners in the audience, guys in dark suits, would run microphones to members of the audience who raised their hands and answered questions. They were bearing 'Witness' to the teachings of Jehova. I got it.
Oh dear, it was mind numbingly dull. A sample: Jehova knew long before he told Noah that he was going to bring the deluge. He told Noah to build the ark about 40 years before it was going to flood, but only told Noah of the coming flood about 7 days before it arrived. Jehova is a good planner, and doesn't leave things to chance. ... What does this tell us about Jehova? ... Ooh, ooh....'Jehova is a good planner and doesn't leave things to chance'.... Well said Sister Marrion. They refer to one another as brother and sister.
So, on it went for an hour. We learned that Jehova was a good planner. That he looks after those who follow him, as evidenced by the parting of the Red Seas and the following destruction of Pharaoh's army. The most enthusiastic and insightful comment of the day was made by a lady who remarked with glee, 'Boy, those Egyptians sure were stupid, I mean, the Israelites had the tower of brilliant cloud leading them and the Egyptians were plunged into darkness and Jehova made their chariot wheels fall off and yet they still tried to cross between the waters....they could see that the Israelites had Jehova on their side and they still tried, boy were they dumb (deriding snicker)!'
And, from the destruction of Jerusalem, we learned that you have to listen to Jehova. When he says to do something, don't dilly dally - the Romans may come back and your opportunity may have passed. And that was the end of the lesson. Another quick, feeble, song, and we were out the door. We were the first ones out and hardly ten yards towards our car when I realized that one very well dressed couple were in quick pursuit. The lady smiled and waved and again with the introduction and she asked if we had enjoyed ourselves. I responded that the services had gone long and that we were late and so must be going, but thanked her and told her to have a nice afternoon. She and the fellow were nice and withdrew to walk back inside. Whew. We made it.
I read afterwards that they don't do Christmas, Easter, birthdays, or holidays other than a fancy dinner on Passover. They are concientious objectors - they believe that all governments on earth are controlled by satan and basically have no part in them. They don't vote. They belive that Satan came to earth on October 1st, 1914 and began the end times in which we now reside. They have a funny hangup about blood which prevents them from accepting transfusions, and delivering blood sausage evidently. If you openly question the teachings of The Watchtower, you are titled an apostate and 'disfellowshipped'. From wikipedia, "Witnesses are strongly discouraged from formulating doctrines and "private ideas" reached through Bible research independent of Watch Tower Society publications, and are cautioned against reading other religious literature....The Watchtower warns members to "avoid independent thinking", claiming such thinking "was introduced by Satan the Devil."
We were in Kingdom hall an hour and forty minutes. I couldn't help but feel that through this method of formulaic question and response, the brothers and sisters were 'witnessing' as a method of social belief reinforcement. The meaning behind the presentations wasn't driving toward an explicit point. It was all based on implicit reinforcement of 'truth'. It had a very cultist atmosphere. Friendly, cordial, well dressed, but culty as hell.
