The Witnesses

The members of the sect called Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Christ's second coming is at hand. Some Witnesses believe the coming is so imminent that they put off marrying or having children until Armageddon signals the final act. Since all governments will soon be overthrown, the Witnesses do their best to ignore governments. They salute no flag, vote in no election, fight in no war. Their work is to bear witness to the coming Christ, and they do the job by doorbell ringing and by pamphlets, portable phonographs, sound trucks and streetcorner speaking. Like the early Christians, they are no strangers to mob violence and the interiors of jails (see above).

Last week, in Communist-run Poland, where the Witnesses have a 50-year history and claim 20,000 members, the sect was officially outlawed. The charge: operating "one of the outposts of a U.S. intelligence network" with headquarters in Brooklyn. On the pretext of witnessing, the security police had claimed, the group "organized and serviced spy centers whose duties, among other things, included diversion, gathering information of military, economic and commercial importance and placing spies . . ."

At Jehovah's Witnesses' world headquarters in Brooklyn, that was an old, old story. Said Milton G. Henschel, one of its top directors: "For years our missionaries have been persecuted wherever there were dictators . . . Our people were among the first thrown into Hitler concentration camps. We are confident that Almighty God will protect our people wherever they are, and that they will continue to preach the Gospel."

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