Religious Liberty v. Police Power: Jehovah's Witnesses

Hollis W. Barber

American Political Science Review, 1947, vol. 41, issue 2, 226-247

Abstract: It is stressing the obvious to observe that the state must often resolve conflicts between certain of its constitutional powers and certain equally constitutional private rights. Such is the age-old controversy of liberty versus authority, familiar to every social scientist. Such is the contemporary controversy between “Bible-dizzy but patently sincere” zealots of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, more widely known as Jehovah's Witnesses, on the one hand, and the police power on the other. There is nothing novel about a quarrel between religion and the police power, as witness the Mormons; but a new twist is now given by the personalities of Jehovah's Witnesses and their unique ways of practicing their faith.Much of their attitude is reflected in their slogans, “Religion is a Racket,” “Religion is a Snare,” and “Millions Now Living Will Never Die.” With a fine neutrality, they consign to the leaping flames all existing religious beliefs other than their own, although they are especially antagonistic to Roman Catholicism. Followers of “Pastor” Charles Taze Russell and “Judge” Joseph Frederick Rutherford, they are serene in their belief that the second coming of Christ is due momentarily, that there is no time to build churches, and that the “witness work” must be carried on by the direct method of calling on people in their homes, distributing pamphlets and playing records on portable phonographs describing their publications and beliefs for the edification of whomsoever will listen.

Date: 1947
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