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Jehovah’s Witnesses Granted Legal Status in Germany

Deutsche Welle, Germany
Mar. 25, 2005
www.dw-world.de

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Friday March 25, 2005

A Berlin court ruled on Thursday that Jehovah’s Witnesses are entitled to the same privileges enjoyed by Germany’s major Catholic and Protestant churches, ending a 15-year legal fight about the group’s status.

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Theologically, Jehovah’s Witnesses are a cult of Christianity. The oppressive organization does not represent historical, Biblical Christianity in any way.

Sociologically, it is a destructive cult whose false teachings frequently result in spiritual and psychological abuse, as well as needless deaths.

In order to be able to support its unbiblical doctrines, the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization has created it’s own version of the Bible. The so-called “New World Translation” is rejected by all Christian denominations.

Research resources on Jehovah’s Witnesses

The administrative court in the city-state of Berlin granted Jehovah’s Witnesses the right to collect taxes and construct buildings after rejecting the arguments of lawyers that they were not a lawful group as they prevented children from receiving blood transfusions, endangered children’s well-being through rigid educational practices, and damaged family relations.

But Berlin judges said the city-state authorities had been unable to substantiate the accusations with evidence from family courts or youth social workers. The court supported the position taken by lawyers for Jehovah’s Witnesses that reports from people who had left that society were unreliable.

“If you have out of a hundred or two hundred thousand Jehovah’s Witnesses, 10 or 15 who say something like that, well you can go to any of the churches, the Catholic Church or others too, and ask was there anything you were discontented with?” said Richard Kelsey, an American who for years has been part of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ leadership in Germany.

The head of Germany’s Evangelical Council, Bishop Wolfgang Huber, criticized the court’s decision in an interview with German radio station Info Radio.

“I am very surprised that the court did not give more weight to the arguments put by the Berlin senate,” he said.

About Apostates

Cultists and cult apologist (such as the notorious J. Gordon Melton) suggest that the testimonies of ex-members can not be trusted.

However: “Recent and less recent NRM catastrophes help us realize that in every single case allegations by hostile outsiders and detractors have been closer to reality than any other accounts. Ever since the Jonestown tragedy, statements by ex-members turned out to be more accurate than those of apologists and NRM researchers. The reality revealed in the cases of People’s Temple, Rajneesh International, Vajradhatu, the Nation of Yahweh, the Branch Davidians, the Faith Assembly, Aum Shinrykio, the Solar Temple, or Heaven’s Gate is much more than unattractive; it is positively horrifying. In every case of NRM disasters over the past 50 years, starting with Krishna Venta (Beit-Hallahmi, 1993), we encounter a hidden world of madness and exploitation in a totalitarian, psychotic, group, whose reality is actually even worse than detractors’ allegations.”
- Dear Colleagues: Integrity and Suspicion in NRM Research, by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi

Legal rights, tax breaks

The court decision allows Jehovah’s Witnesses to employ clergy, collect church tax, and establish charitable organizations. It also gives them tax breaks.

Despite the favorable ruling, the church said it won’t fundamentally change its activities.

“We have the right to preach, we have the right to assemble, and that’s what we’ll continue to do, but we will not be wanting to collect taxes,” Kelsey said.

Under the Nazi regime, Jehovah’s Witnesses were sent to concentration camps. They were also banned by East Germany’s Communists.

Jehovah’s Witnesses assume a position of complete political neutrality, will not join the armed forces, and refuse even to salute a flag, considering their only allegiance to be to God.

The Berlin ruling has wider national implications as this is the first time Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose German headquarters are in Berlin, have fought for recognition in the country. The group may now seek a similar status in Germany’s 15 other states. There are around 166,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany today.