Jehovah's Witnesses: A Study on Intentional Community

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Jehovah’s Witnesses, a sect of the Adventist movement, founded in 1872 by Charles Taze Russell are one of the most unusually strict biblical literalist groups in the world. They are strict to their interpretation of scripture to a fault, as intentional communities go this, as most religion based groups, is one which depends upon the charisma of the biblical character Jesus while looking almost yearningly forward to the “end of days” a time during which the supposedly wicked will be cast into purgatory and the chosen will ascend to heaven, and the righteous will inherit the earth to live in paradise for eternity.

Jehovah’s Witnesses base their beliefs on a literal interpretation of the bible citing Revelations 7:1-8 which describes the number of those who would receive the seal of god for being his servants. “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. 2Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: 3“Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” 4 Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. 5 From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben 12,000,from the tribe of Gad 12,000 6 from the tribe of Asher 12,000, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000, 7 from the tribe of Simeon 12,000, from the tribe of Levi 12,000, from the tribe of Issachar 12,000, 8 from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000, from ...

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...n, doing Jehovah God’s will must be your main purpose in life. (What does the Bible Really Teach? Chapter 18 paragraph 16.) These ritual rules are intentionally more restrictive not only adding to liminality, as most people just cannot truly restrict themselves to the oppressive nature of biblical rule, as well as supportive of communitas because everyone who is accepted into the fold in this religious community have shown understanding of and compliance with these rules thus showing their vested interest in the community as a whole.

Works Cited

Sosis and Bressler Cooperation and Commune Longevity: A Test of the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion, 2000

Journal of Religion and Society volume 8. pg.8, 2006

The Bilbe King James Version

What does the Bible Really Teach? Chapter 18 paragraph 16.

The New World Translation of The Holy Scriptures.

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