Vol. 7, No. 4, 1990

Articles on Jehovah's Witnesses

Much of the following information was provided to Watchman Fellowship by Randy Watters of Bethel Ministries, and David Reed of Comments From The Friends.

Starting March 1st, Jehovah's Witnesses in the USA will no longer distribute books and magazines for a specified contribution.

A special announcement was made at all Kingdom Halls (Jehovah's Witness meeting places) around February 25th, outlining a new policy of distributing their literature "on a complete donation basis."

Monetary transactions for books and magazines at Witness' Kingdom Halls will also cease. Literature for door-to-door canvassing will be distributed to members without cost.

However, contribution boxes will be placed nearby for free-will donations.

Previously, Witness members purchased their literature at local Kingdom Halls and received reimbursement when they sold these items to the public.

People obtaining Watchtower literature from Witness canvassers will be asked if they would like to make a small donation. This, however, will not be a precondition of obtaining literature, as in the past.

Witnesses in other countries will continue the sale of literature as before.

Witness critics cite the January 17th Supreme Court decision which ruled that sales taxes could be levied on materials distributed by Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, as a possible reason for the change.

The Watchtower Society, parent organization for Jeho¬vah's Witnesses, had filed legal papers in the in support of Swaggart, according to UPI reports.

The Watchtower's letter, dated February 9th was obviously designed to avoid any tax problem, for the new policy is only in force in the USA.

The enormity of the potential tax liability can be seen from the following:

"The Watchtower factories in New York used 25,999 tons of paper in printing 35,811,000 Bibles, books and brochures, a 101 percent increase over 1988," (Watchtower Jan. 1, 1990, p. 24; emphasis mine).

These figures do not include production of the Watchtower and Awake magazines, which appear four times a month with an average circulation of 12 million copies each issue.

It has been estimated that the Watchtower Society is the world's largest publishing empire.

There had been a tremendous cash flow involved with the sale of Watchtower literature, roughly $2.6 million per week from the magazines alone.

An extremely large portion of this money is raised from people who neither believe in nor wish to support the doctrines of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

If only Watchman Fellowship could raise one percent of this total for the Lord's work per week!