OR, "HOW I GOT
TO BE BOYCOTTED
BY THE JEHOVAH’S
WITNESSES"
Though I am
a devout Roman
Catholic, I happen
to admire the
Jehovah’s Witnesses as
a group. Their
door-to-door proselytizing is so courageous! They
do what Christ
recommended, but what we Catholics
don’t really do
much of. And
so, I was very ashamed
when our Pastor
told a group
of us that
when the Witnesses
knock on the
Rectory door to
proselytize, he tells
them to “go
away.” I always
invite them in, to talk.
A lot of
the Witnesses are
former Catholics. I
heard one source
suggest that 60%
of them are
former Catholics. We
can’t blame the
ex-Catholics for leaving
the Church, what
with the sex
scandals throughout the
Catholic Church, right?
One day, two
Jehovah’s Witnesses ladies
came to the
door to proselytize
to me. They
were both in
their late 40s
or early 50s.
I invited them
in to “talk
Bible.” They both
looked very Italian,
so I guessed,
“Are you two
both former Catholics?” They
were both delighted
at my guess,
and answered in
the affirmative. The
subject of the
discussion was the
Christian Trinity concept,
which the Witnesses
reject. I argued
as follows.
“All here agree
that there is
a God; and
that He is
perfect; and that
He is in
some very fundamental
way an Altruistic
Lover -- a
lover of others.
“But if you
think about it,
that creates a
bad problem. If
before any creative
activity God is
a unity --
one, in all
senses, and not
a trinity -- a fundamentally
altruistically-loving God, before
any creative activity,
is a God
Who lacks a
love object, and
Who therefore has
a need to
create a love
object.
“But a God
with a need
is imperfect.
“The Trinity answers
the dilemma. A
one God with co-eternal ‘parts’
inside of Him
comprising ‘Persons’ in
some mystical way
provides an eternally
altruistically loving God
with co-eternal love
objects, eliminating any
‘need’ to create,
so that there
is no imperfection.”
The ladies were
deeply struck by
this argument. I
was told, later,
that they repeated
it to their
Witness Bible study
group, declared the
Witness doctrine of
a non-Trinitarian God to be
wrong, and announced
that they were
returning to the
Roman Catholic Church.
The Elders in
their congregation were
deeply shocked by
their public defection.
One sunny Saturday
morning, as my
wife and I were packing
for a trip
to Colorado, a
black Cadillac showed
up at our
house. Four grim
black-suited Elders stepped
out, and asked,
“Are you Mr. Dawson ?”
“Sure,” I answered,
as I jokingly
thought to myself,
“Men in Black?”
“We’re the Elders
at Jehovah’s Witness
Hall on da-di-da-da
Road in da-di-da-da
Township. You convinced
two of our
members to return
to Catholicism. We’re
here to tell
you why you are wrong.”
And they launched
into a very
angry Scripture quoting
spree. I invited
them in, but
they rather nastily
declined. I noticed
that the girl
who drove them
to my house,
who stayed in
the Cadillac, was roaring
with laughter as she sat
behind the wheel
of the car.
They never let
me get a
word in, edge-wise.
After they finished
yelling Scripture at
me, they re-entered
their car and
the car disappeared
down the street.
For the next
ten years, Witnesses
moving from house-to-house, proselytizing to
neighbors, carefully walked
around my “place
of sin.” I
missed them. I
really did.
