background
Status: 03/10/2023 1:07 p.m
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have existed for more than 100 years – more than eight million people are members today. The religious community was not only subjected to persecution, but also repeatedly provoked severe criticism with its teaching.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses affected by the rampage in Hamburg have been active in Germany since the end of the 19th century. The group, which emerged in the USA in 1870, first appeared under the name “Bible Researchers”, since 1931 the religious community has been known worldwide as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Her most famous publication is the “Watchtower”. According to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they have around 8.7 million members worldwide, in Germany there are around 170,000. The head office is in New York, the German management is based in Selters im Taunus.
“It has eight million members worldwide,” Florian Breitmeier, NDR religion expert, about the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith community
tagesschau24 11:00 a.m., 10.3.2023
Believe in the end of the world
Although the community sees itself as Christian, it differs markedly from those of the major churches. Like other churches, they reject the Trinity – God, Son, Holy Spirit. Church traditions and customs such as Christmas or infant baptism are rejected by Jehovah’s Witnesses as unbiblical. There is also no ecumenism with them.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have their own translation of the Bible, in which God is called Jehovah – this designation does not exist in the original text of the Bible. Their teaching is based on a literal interpretation. The focus is on the expectation of the end of the world, the apocalyptic battle of annihilation “Armageddon”, in which God will eradicate all “evil”.
Experts see totalitarian structures
According to their own beliefs, a limited number of 144,000 people can go to heaven after death and form a world government with Jesus. These are people with a heavenly hope for Jehovah’s Witnesses – other believers have an earthly hope in what critics see as a two-tier society in the faith.
Church and state sect experts accuse the religious community of totalitarian structures. According to the Evangelical Central Office for World View Questions, Jehovah’s Witnesses expect unconditional obedience, and leave no room for critical questions or concerns.
Groundbreaking judgment in 2000
Jehovah’s Witnesses respect the law but are critical of government structures. They refuse military service. They were therefore persecuted during the Nazi era, and they were also banned in the GDR.
The religious community in Germany has only had legal recognition as a corporation under public law since 2017 in all federal states. This was preceded by a year-long legal dispute in which a judgment by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2000 became groundbreaking.
At that time, the Karlsruhe judges decided that Jehovah’s Witnesses were law-abiding – an essential prerequisite for state recognition, which is associated with the right to collect church tax, for example.
State as “part of the world satan”
The Jehovah’s Witnesses referred to this decision in the fight for recognition as a public corporation. Many courts rejected this recognition because the followers of Jehovah’s Witnesses should neither actively nor passively participate in elections.
They also see the state as “part of the world satan”. The Federal Constitutional Court did not see this as a contradiction to compliance with the law, since the Jehovah’s Witnesses also accept the state as a “transitional order tolerated by God”. The non-participation in elections is also covered by the constitution for Karlsruhe.