Melville Cooke

It is Sunday afternoon. Or any afternoon on any day of the week. You are at home. There is a knock at the gate; an unexpected knock, gentle but insistent. A peep through the window shows not a bailiff, determined to get that sofa you just happened to forget to pay for, or a beggar. There are some neatly dressed figures, at least one with an umbrella and another with a thin black case, just outside the gate.

And up goes the Witness alarm. The repeated knocks are ignored or the gospel hostilities begin. When the visitors have been dismissed by either method, you wonder if signing up for that Witness Protection Programme is an option. Or if there is a company which will put a 'Protected against Jehovah's Witnesses' sign on the gatepost.

That 'you turn' away from the witness of the Jehovah's Witness does not include me. As much as I am not into Christianity, I appreciate the Witness' diligent approach to spreading their message, going from door to door, from dog to dog, rejection to rejection, and I am gently firm, with a smile. I simply tell the truth - that I am not interested, I respect their fortitude and since I do not believe in Christianity there is no basis for a discussion.

Works every time.

Jehovah, my provider

(There was, though, one young miss who knocked on my door in the mid-1990s who made me think damn, "Jehovah, he is my provider". I got a Watchtower, I believe. Nothing else.)

In a predominantly Christian country, the sometimes open hostility towards Jehovah's Witnesses still surprises me. There will be differences of opinion and interpretation in any religion, but the reaction goes beyond mere rejection of just what he meaneth when he sayeth when he sayeth what he meaneth. It is often a reflex reaction like the general unease someone wearing a turban would get in an airport two years after America's 9/11.

Which is why, as amusing as I find it, it is still sad that many a Jehovah's Witness hold up the standard three copies of Watchtower at a place where hardly anyone will pass. For what it's worth, they may as well have gone out to one of the toll roads where the speed limit of 110 kph (go over that and you may well end up at KPH), stand up at the side of the road and hold out the books for those whizzing by. It is sad that they should feel so rejected that they do their duty, resigned to their fate, but still manage to hide their faith.

Repulsiveness

And what is it that they believe that is so repulsive that they should be repulsed with such regularity? On the website www.watchtower.org (ahh, if that Witness lass from an era past had placed me in her Watchtower I would not need to log on to know the ins and outs of the faith, as I would have had a leg up on my investigations), it says that 1914 marked the end of Gentile times and the beginning of Christ's millennium rule. It also says that the earth will remain forever (as does the last line of the Lord's Prayer) and there will be a limited number in heaven, which is fine by me but bad news for those who want to fly free first class, drink milk and honey and have a big free laundromat in the sky for their white robes.

The matter of the Witnesses rejection of blood transfusions invariably comes up. It would be incredibly cruel for a child to be allowed to die for want of some red fluid, but an adult has a choice. And if they are willing to die for what they believe in, more power to them. Christ could reportedly have summoned the hosts to get him out of that crucifixion jam.

And I have repeatedly heard Christians refer to the Jehovah's Witnesses as a cult. Is it because they started relatively recently, in the 1870s? Or is it because, like all other denominations, they cultivate an unwavering and uncompromising belief in not so much Christianity, but their peculiar version of the religion?

Can I get a Witness?