THE “JUST PRETEND” RELIGION
I was rooting around on the internet today, and I came across something that gave me a unique insight into how fundamentalists have a good time. I was looking for a quick list of the ten plagues of Egypt, and I stumbled upon a website that gave ideas for things to do on a rainy day. One suggestion was to have the kids re-enact the ten plagues of Egypt. It was called “The Ten Plagues Adventure”.
Now, I can’t imagine anything much more fun than that. For example, one suggestion was to re-enact plague five (the death of the livestock) by putting stuffed animals all over the house – face up. If the kids aren’t traumatized enough, the fun of the hailstorm could be recreated by putting ice cubes all over the house and on the windowsills. That might be handy. I’m sure I’d be ready for a drink by that time. My personal favorite was the lice. Kids were instructed to scotch tape white dots all over their body and leave them for a few hours. The tape would start to irritate and itch, enhancing the visual effect of the dots. Good times.
I kept looking for the punch line, but the site was dead serious. It reminded me of my own childhood religion, with the difference being that the parents were the ones pretending. Allow me to explain what I mean.
When an organization makes a prediction, and then the prediction fails, what do they do? For a religious organization, prophetic failure can be devastating. I mean, if you say that the flying saucers are going to take you to nirvana at 2:00 pm on Tuesday, and they don’t show up, it sort of makes a mess of your doctrinal system. You need a solid fallback position, like poisoned Cool-Aid.
Well, as a Jehovah’s Witness, I have spent many an hour studying their rationalizations for why things haven’t happened. Or rather, how it is that their prophecies actually did come true, but no one noticed. It all began around the time that the religion was founded.
Starting back in the 1800s, Jehovah’s Witnesses came out with a bold prediction. They had carefully measured the great pyramids (well, actually someone else measured them, but they copied it all down), and they parsed the numbers from the books of Daniel and Revelation, and they came up with a startling conclusion – the world would end in 1914!
They proclaimed this prediction widely. When 1914 rolled around, the old world stubbornly refused to end. But, luckily for them, a world war broke out, followed by a disease epidemic. This was just too big of a coincidence to pass up. So, they feverishly went back to the drawing board, and discovered that their calculations were right after all. Their only mistake was in the form that the end of the world would take.
Apparently, hidden in between the words of those two wacky Bible books was enough information for them to deduce that in 1914, a war had broken out in heaven (an invisible war), and Jesus had defeated Satan, casting him down to the earth, where he immediately started making trouble for people, a.k.a. World War I. So, 1914 didn’t mark the end of the world, it marked the end of the “Gentile Times”. After the invisible war in heaven, Jesus was crowned to his invisible throne, where he began invisibly ruling.
The real end of the world was postponed. Over the years, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have taken several other stabs at predicting it. A major splash was made with a prediction regarding 1925. Some of you may remember the excitement surrounding 1975. And, I grew up with a slightly more vague prediction that the generation of 1914 would still be alive before the end came. Needless to say, all of them have been abandoned, but they’re still pretty sure that the end is coming real soon.
Anyway, back to the auspicious events of 1914. After taking his invisible throne, Jesus decided that he needed a visible representative on earth – you know, someone to crack the whip for him, not to mention soliciting the money, because as George Carlin says, “Jesus is coming, and he needs money”. So, around 1918, he inspected all of the religions of the earth and you wouldn’t believe what he found. Every religion was corrupt, except for one that was pure enough to handle the job. Believe it or not, that group was Jehovah’s Witnesses. So, Jesus invisibly appointed them over his earthly domain and gave them authority to take Christmas and birthday presents from children.
After this point, the pretending picked up the pace even more. They decided that all other religions of the world are evil and are symbolized in Bible imagery as Babylon the Great. They then decided that this group had “fallen”, and it was just a matter of waiting for God to mop them up. Unfortunately this stubborn group has failed to either fall or realize that they are supposed to fall. The Witnesses have waffled on this a bit, and decided that perhaps Babylon has just begun to fall, but hasn’t hit the ground yet.
Confused? Let’s keep going. The book of Revelation speaks about great trumpet blasts coming from God. According to the Witnesses, these have already happened. Did you miss them? Apparently, at seven small conventions between 1922 and 1928, the Jehovah’s Witnesses passed verbal resolutions. Each resolution was ostensibly a trumpet blast from God. I think God needs a better PR man. To this day, the world doesn’t know that it has been “blasted”; most of the “blasters” are long since dead; and even the group that claims it has pretty much forgotten.
Their calculations have also led them to the conclusion that some of them are going to heaven to rule as kings and priests. About 8,000 of these “anointed” ones are still alive. This is rather surprising, since they had all been selected before 1935, making the youngest of the group about 100 years old. When the Jehovah’s Witnesses hold their annual memorial celebration at Easter time, all six million of them get together and pretend that a few of them are heaven bound.
Today, due to the urgent times we live in, Jehovah’s Witnesses are pretending at a frantic pace. Jesus still sits on his invisible throne. Satan is still invisibly harassing the earth. Babylon the Great appears to be thriving, not realizing that it is a dead duck. The world rulers go merrily on their way, not realizing that they are insulting God by not stepping aside and handing over the reins of power to Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Witnesses claim to live in a “spiritual paradise” – probably as close as they’re going to get to their “new world”. Armageddon is still just around the corner. And, Watchtowers are a buck apiece.
But, you know, they’re not the only ones living in a fantasy world. I read somewhere that the pope claims to have the power to excommunicate angels. I guess if you are going to pretend that angels exist, you might as well pretend that one of them has been naughty and needs to be punished.
So, if your kids are looking for something to do on a rainy day, they could play the “ten plagues adventure”, or if they have really good imaginations, they could pretend to be Jehovah’s Witnesses.
And, as for me, well I have a nice little piece of invisible real estate that my local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses might want to buy. It would make a lovely spot to build an invisible Kingdom Hall.