The WTS does not consider themselves pacificts.
*** w51 2/1 pp. 67-68 Why Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Not Pacifists ***
“Jehovah is a man of war: Jehovah is his name.”—Ex. 15:3, AS; Yg.
“JEHOVAH’S witnesses! Just a bunch of pacifists!” So a great many people will exclaim with scorn. And so they have been led to think by the charges hurled at these by their enemies. But are the witnesses pacifists, seeking refuge under the cover of “conscientious objection” because they are afraid to fight? Let us here honestly search for the right and fair answer to this hot question. What have they to say for themselves?
2 At the 1950 international assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in Yankee Stadium, New York city, 10,000 foreign delegates were there from more than sixty other lands. Most of these had been subjected to great religious discrimination, embarrassment, hardship and inconvenience because they were obliged to clear themselves of the false charge of “extreme pacifism”. An indignation meeting was held Friday afternoon, August 4, at the assembly, at which the 70,000 American delegates in the presence of these foreign brothers unanimously passed a “Regret and Protest”, and at the close of the afternoon’s session a million copies of this were distributed. This 4-page paper vigorously called attention to the “Discrimination on False Charge of Pacifism” and said: “The smearing of us as extreme pacifists is without foundation and is a deliberate lie to provoke prejudice against us and this international assembly. They have done as the Scriptures prophesied, ‘framed mischief by law.’—Psalm 94:20. Extreme pacifism is not our preachment. We are not pacifists. . . . To charge that we are extreme pacifists is a lie.”
3 As defined by Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d edition, unabridged, of 1943) pacifism means: “Opposition to war or to the use of military force for any purpose; especially, an attitude of mind opposing all war, emphasizing the defects of military training and cost of war, and advocating settlement of international disputes entirely by arbitration.” Such pacifism not even the Bible itself can be charged with teaching, and neither can Jehovah’s witnesses, who stick most scrupulously to the Bible.
4 When expressing a judgment upon Jehovah’s witnesses people are inclined to think of them as a religious body less than a century old. True, this unique name came into the limelight in 1931, when, by public acclamation, these faithful Christians all over the earth adopted resolutions rejecting the contemptuous names the enemies had tagged onto them and accepting the Scriptural name “Jehovah’s witnesses”. But their history is much longer than a century. Already in the eighth century before Christ the prophecy declared to God’s chosen people: “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen; . . . I have declared, and I have saved, and I have showed; and there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and I am God.” (Isa. 43:10-12, AS) In fact, the history of Jehovah’s witnesses runs all the way back to Adam’s son Abel, whom his brother Cain killed because Abel had received favorable witness from Jehovah God. The apostle Paul, in chapters 11 and 12 of his letter to the Hebrews, shows that fact. In all that history of almost six thousand years the record fails to show Jehovah’s witnesses accusable of “opposition to war or to the use of military force for any purpose”, which is the definition of pacifism.
5 We could go through the list of Jehovah’s witnesses from Abraham onward to show they were not pacifists. The apostle Paul tells us about Abraham “returning from the slaughter of the kings” and receiving the blessing of King Melchizedek. (Heb. 7:1-4; Gen. 14:14-21) He tells of Moses who led the Israelites to the borders of the Promised Land. Then he mentions one high light in Joshua’s war to purge the Promised Land of the immoral pagan inhabitants, and adds: “And what more shall I say? For the time will fail me if I go on to relate about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David as well as Samuel and the other prophets, who through faith defeated kingdoms in conflict, effected righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, stayed the force of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from a weak state were made powerful, became valiant in war, routed the armies of foreigners.” (Heb. 11:30-34, NW) Every one that Paul there names was a fighter. Jehovah gave them victory. Only because Jerusalem proved unfaithful to God after repeated warnings by his witnesses Jehovah yielded the Jews over to the Babylonian armies and did not fight for them. He had forewarned them of punishment for disobedience, and so he let that come upon them in vindication of his word.—Deut. 28:36-67...
*** g97 5/8 p. 23 Should Christians Be Pacifists? ***True Christians love peace. They stay completely neutral in the world’s military, political, and ethnic conflicts. But, strictly speaking, they are not pacifists. Why? Because they welcome God’s war that will finally enforce his will on earth—a war that will settle the great issue of universal sovereignty and rid the earth of all enemies of peace once and for all.—Jeremiah 25:31-33; Daniel 2:44; Matthew 6:9, 10.
