Growing up as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I believed that we were God’s chosen people. Of course members of virtually every fundamentalist religion (and some not so fundamentalist) would tell you the same thing, but I was convinced it was true. Oh sure, if questioned by non-Witnesses I’d say that God is just and fair, and only He can read someone’s heart condition, and of course there’s good people everywhere. But among other Witnesses, the next comment would be that eventually (and before Armageddon), all those “good people” would become Jehovah’s Witnesses if they were to survive. We believed completely that we Witnesses would be the only ones still standing at the end of Armageddon. And when you think about, if we didn’t believe that, then how could we justify all the door-to-door proselytizing? If it didn’t matter, why bother?
I got thinking about something that shook up that attitude for me. Let me ‘splain.
At one point, Jehovah’s Witnesses were the fastest-growing religion in the world. As far as I know, they continue to grow at a rapid rate. I noticed that, by far, the bulk of that growth came from Westernized countries. In fact, the vast majority of all Witnesses live in these countries; very little of the growth and even less of the current membership comes from places like India, the Arabian peninsula or China. And yet we believed that Jesus Christ died for all mankind, and that God’s purpose is that everyone achieve salvation. We were taught that God would save those “with a good heart,” but we also were told that only JWs were going to make it. So I came to the realization that it doesn’t make sense that one’s birth location would be the primary determinant of salvation prospects. I can’t imagine a fair God stacking the deck so heavily against people who have the bad luck (from a JW perspective) to be born in a country not conducive to our particular religious belief.
Let’s put it another way. I was raised as a JW. I was 5 or so when my father starting studying the Bible with Howard Klein and Claude Gotschall, two of the members of the local congregation. I realized that I was a Witness primarily because I didn’t know anything else. I trusted my parents (as most kids do) and just kind of accepted things as they were, and made them my own. That, by the way, is one reason Witnesses don’t practice infant baptism; they figure the kid needs to get a few years under their belt, and make their own decisions. I would argue that’s true, but at 13 or 14 (the age most JWs expect their kids to get baptized, at that time), you still aren’t mature enough to have thought it through; you’re operating pretty much on autopilot. On the other hand, my father was raised a Methodist. His mother was the Methodist Sunday School teacher for something like 50 years. And yet, he switched religions and became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. As you might expect, that raised a lot of eyebrows in Forrest, Illinois; it’s a huge step for someone to abandon their parents’ faith, even in the United States. Now, take a moment and consider if Dad had been born in central India instead of central Illinois. His parents would almost certainly have been Hindu, and he would have been raised Hindu as well. Upon reaching adulthood, what would have been the likelihood of the Indian Lloyd Shaddle switching the faith of his birth to become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses? When pretty much his entire existence is focused on growing enough food for him and his family to survive until tomorrow? Virtually zero. As difficult as it was for Dad to change his religion, Indian Dad would have been infinitely less likely to do so; yet, it was my belief that in order to experience salvation he would have had to. So again, would a fair God set up a situation that nearly guaranteed that a large percentage of the world’s populace would never have the opportunity for salvation? I think not.
That thought process was my first big step in questioning my faith.
