Religion: Marching to Armageddon

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Satan's Work. The Witnesses today are impressively organized. At the top is a board of directors, which annually elects the president. Since the death of Rutherford in 1942, the president's post has been held by Pennsylvania-born Nathan H. Knorr, a Witness at 18 who developed administrative ability "in the ranks." Though Knorr, 53, is paid only $14 a month, he has complete control of all Witnesses, lives at the society's expense at Bethel Home, its ten-story headquarters on Columbia Heights in Brooklyn. Every Witness is considered a minister ("because we all preach"), but there are two major kinds: part-time "Publishers" and full-time "Pioneers." Pioneers are obligated to work a minimum of 100 hours a month, ringing doorbells in assigned areas to "place" their 15-ton daily outpour of literature. Every Witness personally pays for the literature he distributes, sending what he collects back to Bethel for more literature. Each leaflet placed may push another innocent toward salvation.

What makes Witnesses feel especially useful is opposition by the rest of the world, which they call "Satan's main work." Watch Tower statisticians report that during World War II Witnesses were attacked by 2,500 mobs in 44 states, usually because, as "ministers," many refuse to serve in the armed forces; about 4,000 Witnesses served jail terms for refusing military service. They also refuse to salute the flag (a graven image), to participate in politics or to undergo blood transfusions ("That ye abstain . . . from blood," Acts 75:29). They have won 36 of 50 test cases in the Supreme Court since 1938, achieving such rights as house soliciting and street preaching without a license, exemption from the draft, jury service. After meeting in New York City last week, the American Legion of New York State protested against all the publicity reaped by the Witnesses, "an organization which refused to raise a hand to protect its country."

Record Baptism. Undeterred, the Witnesses cheered a 103-missionary graduating class of their Watchtower Bible School of Gilead (South Lansing, N.Y.), whose members will spread the word from Sweden to Samoa. With crisp precision, they sent 7,136 converts (aged 9 to 84) in 58 buses to Orchard Beach in The Bronx for a baptism that broke the Witnesses' own record of 4,640 in 1953, eclipsed the mere 3,000 baptized on the feast of Pentecost in A.D. 33 (Acts 2:41).

Thunderously they approved daily addresses by President Knorr, who predicted that the United Nations will fail to forestall Armageddon. "The 82 members of the U.N. will not relish this pronouncement from the word of Jehovah God," he cried, and added that Communism will perish in the coming holocaust. "Have they refrained from opposing and fighting against Jehovah God and his Witnesses? They will not go free of punishment."