by Aaron Eldridge 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
In some lands you have to vote by Law. In that case the JW's are expected to spoil their ballot paper, but of course no one would know if you actually voted.
I think they like to maintain the fiction that it is a mattter of choice, but if you let it be known you had voted, and, heaven forfend, started to promote political ideas, you would not feel the ground with your feet as they ejected you !
Maybe in this one nation, they realized that the Bible has absolutely NOTHING to say about this issue.
Ironic, isn't it - that the Governing Body decides the ultimate decisions for all JWs worldwide: (wait for it) -
BY VOTING.
Theocratic war strategy...
So in countries like Ghana, where it is apparently not obligatory to vote (?), JW's can go to a polling station and pretend to vote but fudge the voting card or drop a blank card in so they have not actually voted? Is that the official policy?
So in the typical western liberal democracy I live in, what would happen if some elders saw a member of the congregation walking into a polling station on voting day while they were out witnessing? If they told the elders that they didn't actually vote, just put an unmarked card in the box, what would happen to them?
Is this policy basically an admission by the Society that they never want to see another Malawi situation and so have compromised, softened their stance? That is not a bad thing.
What if in Ghana JW's had to carry one-party political cards? In Malawi in the 1970's why couldn't the Society have done something similar, saying "We do not tell JW's in Malawi whether they should carry the one party card or not, it is up to each of them to conscientiously make their own informed decision." Imagine how many lives and how much suffering could have been prevented.
Voting is an individual affair says and that the movement has never prevented any of its members from exercising his or her franchise.
Oh yes you can vote but not any political party. You have to cast a blank vote.
And dudes that's the best benefit I gained from being a JW. I have never voted and I am not going to vote for any b***.
NOLAW
I live in a country where you are REQUIRED to vote - you will get fined if you don't.
JWs DO NOT go to the voting booths - they stay away from them so it doesn't look like you're involved in the voting process. "No part of the world" and all that.
However, when you get your "please explain" letter from the govt for not voting, the JWs simply state that it's against their religious conscience to vote and they don't get fined.
Speaking from experience.
*** w99 11/1 p. 29 Questions From Readers ***
In view of the Scriptural principles outlined above, in many lands Jehovah’s Witnesses make a personal decision not to vote in political elections, and their freedom to make that decision is supported by the law of the land. What, though, if the law requires citizens to vote? In such a case, each Witness is responsible to make a conscientious, Bible-based decision about how to handle the situation. If someone decides to go to the polling booth, that is his decision. What he does in the polling booth is between him and his Creator.
The November 15, 1950, issue of The Watchtower, on pages 445 and 446, said: “Where Caesar makes it compulsory for citizens to vote . . . [Witnesses] can go to the polls and enter the voting booths. It is here that they are called upon to mark the ballot or write in what they stand for. The voters do what they will with their ballots. So here in the presence of God is where his witnesses must act in harmony with his commandments and in accordance with their faith. It is not our responsibility to instruct them what to do with the ballot.”
I never knew JWs could vote. I think the 1999 article make it pretty clear they can.
Oz
That's what the 1950 WT might have said, but I'm saying from experience as an Aussie non-voter that we were told NOT to go to the voting booths. The reason being that if we were seen there, it would be assumed that we WERE voting for a government other than Jehovah's.
Oh yes, i know the unofficial stand!
But had i known for example that i could if i chose to, i could have also defended such action to the elders or anyone else that questioned it or 'stumbled' over seeing me walk into a polling station...
two faced double tongued whackjob religion...its own members have no freekin' idea what they can and cant do half the time!
Oz
