Top Russian professor testifies on JWs and their beliefs

[Bek]

A well-known Russian professor of religious studies, Sergey Ivanenko, gave testimony during the recent trial of our six Russian brothers accused of extremism. He spoke about JWs and their beliefs objectively, but despite that, the court still jailed the brothers. 

 

I have read his testimony in Russian as published by jw-russia.org and I felt it was very encouraging to know that there are religious studies experts in Russia who are honest and objective about JWs. There was no English translation of the article, so I ran it through Google Translate, and edited it to make it more readable. I think you may find it encouraging too. 

 

Here is a translation of the abridged version of Ivanenko's testimony as published by jw-russia.org: 

 

On September 4, 2019, during the trial of six Jehovah's Witnesses in Saratov, the floor was given to the well-known religious PhD scholar, State Advisor to the Russian Federation, Sergey Igorevich Ivanenko. We give excerpts from his testimony.

 

On the creed of Jehovah's Witnesses. “Jehovah's Witnesses can be called a denomination, it is an independent movement in Christianity. It is not the most numerous - according to the latest data, Jehovah's Witnesses in the world number about 8.5m people. One of the main features of Jehovah's Witnesses is that the so-called last days have come, that is, Jesus Christ is already reigning in heaven as the rightful ruler, and Jehovah's Witnesses’ must obey him as their religious leader and teacher. Therefore, they must preach, very zealously fulfill the precepts in the Christian Holy Scriptures - the Bible and be guided by them in their daily lives. ”

 

"Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the head of their congregation is Jesus Christ, he is the Son of God. They recognize the Bible and study the Bible, call themselves Christians, from the viewpoint of religious studies they are also a movement within Christianity."

 

On the religious life and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses. “Jehovah's Witnesses have a very significant feature: they do not rely on some harsh discipline, the authority of some leaders, but try to build a Bible-taught conscience among their followers so that a person makes decisions voluntarily by following the Bible.”

 

"Jehovah's Witnesses try to follow what is in the Bible, which should be consistent with the principles that were laid down by Jesus Christ and his disciples back in the 1st century AD."

 

“If we talk about the joint profession of faith, which is expressed in studying the Bible, answering questions on biblical topics, performing songs that are also based on biblical texts, here Jehovah's Witnesses have a strong desire to rely on the Bible in everything. That is, if we are talking about religious hymns, at the very beginning of each song there is always a reference to a biblical verse on which its text is based, and which it expresses religious needs, beliefs of the believer.

 

“They also have the conviction that Christians must lead religious life through assembly. And here, too, Jehovah's Witnesses analyse the New Testament, what it says about Jesus Christ, his disciples, his followers, the first stages of the development of the Christian church ... Jehovah's Witnesses are convinced that they must also fulfill their religious life through religious gatherings. ”

 

"They emphasise that the disciples of Jesus Christ can be recognised by the fact that they will have love among themselves."

 

About the alleged ban on the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. “I don’t know of court decisions or laws that say that the internal structure of Jehovah's Witnesses is contrary to the laws of the Russian Federation, and there would be any prohibitions related to the creed or belief practices of Jehovah's Witnesses.”

 

“It was not a matter of banning worship services, of any religious actions, but it was precisely about what the Supreme Court considered as extremist activities.”

 

On the extremism charges against Jehovah's Witnesses. “Initially, some publications of Jehovah's Witnesses were recognised as extremist. According to experts, it was argued that the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses is the only true one, and the rest of the religions are false. This statement is present in other religions, but in this case claims were made against Jehovah's Witnesses. The statement about the truth of only their religion and the falsity of everyone else’s was interpreted as propaganda of religious superiority.”

 

“[The decision of the court], as a religious scholar, seems to me vulnerable from the point of view that, if desired, one can find a statement in any religious denomination that only our religion is correct and the rest are false or largely mistaken."

 

“If we say that believers consider their religion to be absolute truth, and other religions are either absolutely false or substantially false, any believer certainly believes this. And it must be present, because otherwise you will be called a hypocrite.”

 

“Jehovah's Witnesses are pacifists, they have consistently drawn a line so as not to destroy the social fabric. They are rather defending the supremacy of biblical principles ... God's laws are priority for them. But to the extent that God's laws do not contradict earthly laws, Jehovah's Witnesses are very consistent and purposefully trying to observe earthly laws. It is no coincidence that I will say: there are quite a lot of reports that it is Jehovah's Witnesses who return some lost wallets, pay fines, taxes, although they can evade them. This is the choice of their consciouses, and in this sense I would not blame them for any extremist intentions.

 

On the need for legal entities to practice faith. “Decisions of the Russian Supreme Court show that ... Jehovah's Witnesses held their most of their meetings without a legal entity and were not registered. And therefore, it’s wrong to say that any Jehovah’s Witness in a certain territory is a member of a legal entity. ”

 

“The main part of Jehovah's Witnesses’ work is carried out by those religious structures that are set up in accordance with biblical principles.”

 

“As for legal entities ... I carefully studied their charters, there are neither overseers, nor elders, nor pioneers, there are no such terms there. It usually refers to the founders - this is a limited circle of people, about 10 people. As for the purely religious activities, they reflect not the legal, but the spiritual side of the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses ... It is the same in different countries and in different regions. ”

 

“Jehovah's Witnesses took note [of the decision of the Supreme Court], that is, in their activities they clearly seek not to violate this decision of the Supreme Court. But at the same time, they will continue their activities as a religious denomination, not prohibited by the authorities. They continued their activities as individuals practising their religion. That is, from their point of view, from a religious point of view, these activities do not go against the decision of the Supreme Court. ”

 

On the preaching of Jehovah's Witnesses. “Jehovah's Witnesses are distinguished by their very active preaching. I would put Jehovah's Witnesses in first place for their preaching activity, zeal, so that every believer must be a preacher and take some time to preach. ”

 

“They usually say this: the Bible says so, a person can take the Bible himself and check. If a person agrees, he goes with them. If he disputes this, he does not go with them. There is no compulsion. But their explanation is consistent and logical in its own way. This is the attraction for some people to preach. Their preaching does not, according to my ideas, affect everyone. If a person is more mystical, wants some kind of revelation from God or some kind of supernatural spiritual forces, he will not go to Jehovah's Witnesses ... But more rational people who want to reach everything with their minds, live in accordance with this consistently - they will go to Jehovah's Witnesses. ”

 

On the Attitude of Jehovah's Witnesses to the Bible. “The peculiarity of Jehovah's Witnesses is that they use any Bible translations for both preaching and studying. They have a keen interest in spreading the Bible in different languages. In this sense, they are distinguished by being Bible-centred. Their own translation was indeed recognised as extremist in our country ... Perhaps those who made this decision thought that Jehovah's Witnesses were attached exclusively to this translation and, if taken out of the equation, Jehovah's Witnesses would give up. This is a wrong judgment. For Jehovah's Witnesses, each translation of the Bible has its own value. ”

 

On the attitude of Jehovah's Witnesses to blood transfusions. “The Bible says that“ the soul is in blood ”and therefore blood cannot be consumed. This is a food ban, but they interpret it broadly. They believe that blood cannot be consumed in any form: neither in food (they will not eat blood sausage), nor [in the form of] blood transfusion. But they agree to the use of small fractions of blood - this is a believer’s voluntary choice ... They’re not for dying by refusing a blood transfusion, but for a good treatment so that a person receives first-class medical care. A blood transfusion itself, from their point of view and from the point of view of many medical aspects, is dangerous, because you can get AIDS and something else. Bloodless surgery gives more guarantees, and often in reality - I looked at the statistics - wealthy people often prefer to do without blood transfusions, because this guarantees greater safety in terms of freedom from infections and complications. ”

 

On the collection of donations by Jehovah's Witnesses. “A person may not make any donations. Roughly speaking, he can go to the meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses all his life and donate neither a rouble nor a dollar. But he can donate - this is his choice. ”

 

Despite convincing expert arguments that Jehovah's Witnesses were ordinary Christians, not criminals, all six defendants in the Saratov case were convicted of their faith and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. The persecution of hundreds of their co-religionists continues throughout the country.

 

Sergey Ivanenko is the author of two scientific works on Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. They can be found in the section "Religious Studies".

 

Source: https://jw-russia.org/news/19092416-1155.html 

 

 

  

Edited September 29, 2019 by carlos

[Ahuvah]

Thank you Jehovah for allowing such a positive witness on your behalf.

 

We, of course, shouldn't be surprised it went this way. The initial court case was so full of facts and great witnesses that, in any other normal court case, would have gone our way. So, obviously it went that way to make it difficult for our brothers, we could have had the queen there singing our praises and they still would have gone to prison.  This does not surprise us ... saddens us yes, but not surprising.

 

BUT, on the positive, IF they hadn't gone to prison, the world would have credited it to ... ???      

We want the world to see Jehovah act in behalf of our brothers and sisters ... and he will in an amazing way - soon - I'm sure.

[Miss Bea]

These convictions have nothing to do with facts. It is who is in charge.

Honest hearted people will see the injustice, and, perhaps, their manner of giving us a bad time, (persecution) and, may ultimately serve to Jehovah’s glory. 

 

[1gemstone]

I love how Jehovah uses people who are not one of his servants to can convey the truth about his servants who our caring His will to preach the Good New about his Kingdom to all sort of people.

 

It would not surprise me if the professor is studying with us right now.

Edited September 30, 2019 by 1gemstone

[Memeber212]

Someone ordered that verdict and the judge has just delivered.

[lord-360]

Thank you for this post.

[Thomas Walker]

14 hours ago, tarcamion said:

Someone ordered that verdict and the judge has just delivered.

You have no idea. Even Putin doesn't know why the JW's are being persecuted, and the GB has identified Russia and her Allies as the KOTN. Non of the judges can look the Witnesses they sentence in the eye while they do it.

[Memeber212]

27 minutes ago, Thomas Walker said:

You have no idea. Even Putin doesn't know why the JW's are being persecuted, and the GB has identified Russia and her Allies as the KOTN. Non of the judges can look the Witnesses they sentence in the eye while they do it.

And Hitler did not know about the Holocaust. Of course, Putin knows. Nothing happens in Russia, especially that big without his knowledge. 

Do you remember when France imposed huge taxes on our religion? That was caused by FECRIS https://www.fecris.org/

FECRIS stands for European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Cults and Sects. They were established in 1994 in France and is financed by the French Government and his current vice-president is Russian, Alexander Dvorkin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dvorkin

He is the main campaigner in Russia, spreading lies about non-traditional denominations. we are not the only religion that is banned. There are only 3 legal religions (with their variations): Orthodox church, Catholic church and Islam. Russians attack and arrest Mormons, Baptists, yoga classes, etc.

Dvorkin has been diagnosed with mental issues and emotional psychopathy. Sadly, he is quite influential in Russia. From 2009 he was appointed to be a cult expert at the Ministry of Justice in Russia.

The judges cannot look in the eyes because they know it is a lie. As I mentioned in my previous post, someone from the government ordered the verdict and they delivered. This is how it works. In totalitarian countries, you get a position not because you are a competent person but because you know someone. They put you in charge but there are expectations behind it. You are supposed to remember who made you a judge and cooperate when required and you know that one day they may come and ask you to do a horrible thing.

[Bek]

The official translation of the professor's testimony is out: 

 

https://www.jw.org/en/news/jw/region/russia/Prominent-Russian-Religious-Scholar-Testifies-on-Behalf-of-Jehovahs-Witnesses-in-Saratov/