The Watchtower and Jehovah's Witnesses have courageously fought many legal battles in the United States during the last eight decades. Dating back to 1918, when The Watchtower's 2nd president and seven others were incarcerated in Atlanta Federal penitentiary on trumped up charges of sedition, the Watchtower has been involved in literally hundreds of court cases. Most of the cases centered on securing our 1st amendment rights of freedom of speech and religion during the intense wave of persecution that came upon us immediately before and during WWII.
Because of the far-reaching legal precedents handed down back then, Jehovah's Witnesses have been credited with causing the Supreme Court of the land to more fully ensure the constitutional rights of every American citizen. (For those interested, the recently published book, Judging Jehovah's Witnesses, recounts many of the legal battles that Jehovah's Witnesses bravely fought during that difficult period.)
Now, though, the Watchtower is embroiled in another sort of legal battle—for a much less noble cause. Regrettably, instead of boldly championing the cause of religious freedom and the protection of our God-given rights of individual conscience, in recent years the Watchtower's legal team has been engaged in discrediting the legal claims of our own members who were the victims of child abuse and molestation at the hands of their fellow Jehovah's Witnesses.
It is a far cry from the days when Jehovah's Witnesses on trial would use the witness stand as an opportunity to give a bold witness regarding the issues of Jehovah's universal sovereignty and Christ's kingdom. The only scripture that is likely to be quoted now in Watchtower child abuse cases is Matthew 18:16; when the Society's lawyers plead their case that God's Word has tied the hands of our elders by requiring two witnesses to each crime committed against our own children. Instead of pleading the cause of the defenseless children who were robbed of their innocence and dignity, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has brought the vast financial resources of its multi-million dollar publishing corporation to bear against the downtrodden proverbial "fatherless boys"—in order to crush them!
The recent case of Vicki Boer against the Watchtower Society's Canadian branch indicates that if the Watchtower has not finally hit rock bottom morally, it has for certain reached a new all-time low.
According to Silentlambs the Watchtower originally offered an undisclosed sum to the plaintiff in an out-of-court settlement. This in itself is an admission of responsibility and guilt. However, the defense lawyers attached a so-called gag order to the proposed settlement that would have legally prevented the victim from disclosing the details of the case. Vicki Boer refused the offer and the case went to court; where Miss Boer was awarded a token $5,000 (Canadian) by the judge.
But, unfortunately, it doesn't end there. The Watchtower is now seeking to reclaim part of its own substantial legal expenses from the very victim it once sought to compensate out of court! Evidently the message that the Watchtower wants to get across to future potential plaintiffs, is that any abuse victim who dares to seek restitution in the courts for their suffering will be mercilessly thrown under the grinding wheels of corporate justice! Regardless of the judge's ruling on the Vicki Boer case, all of Jehovah's Witnesses ought to pale in shame at the deplorable depths to which the Watchtower's legal department has sunken.
The Founder of the Watchtower, Charles Russell, once remarked that he would never solicit funds and that if at some point the Watchtower's finances dried up, then, so-be-it; as he would consider that as an indication from God that it was time to suspend publication. Apparently, however, the brothers do not have that same trusting relationship with God today. Instead of absorbing the financial costs involved in making things right with those who have legal claims against the organization, the Watchtower now seems intent on vindictively extracting punitive damages from the victims.
Surely, heaven itself must bristle in horror over the fact that the very organization that once produced stalwart witnesses for Jehovah who unflinchingly stood alone in the lion's den and stared Hitler down, and that successfully pleaded the cause of Christians before the U.S. Supreme Court, has now taken up the practice of bullying and intimidating sexually abused orphans! An all-time low indeed!
As Jehovah's Witnesses are well aware, the very foundation of Jehovah's throne is loving-kindness and justice. And the God of heaven has made it clear in the Bible that he expects his worshippers to take special care to look out for the interests and needs of disadvantaged widows and orphans. (Many abuse victims were actually abused by step-fathers, fathers and elders. This makes them fatherless boys and girls in the sense that the men who were supposed to protect them from evil not only failed to do so, but instead took advantage of them.)
The question we now must squarely face is this: What is the legal opinion of the Supreme Judge of the universe, regarding the way in which his witnesses, Jehovah's Witnesses, have used their God-given powers of judgment?
According to the 82nd Psalm, Jehovah has entrusted powers of judging to his earthly sons—who will themselves be judged as to their faithfulness in adhering to standards of Divine justice. When accused by the murder-breathing Pharisees of making himself a god, in his own defense Jesus quoted directly from the 82nd Psalm at John 10:34, saying to his opposers: "Is it not written in your Law, 'I said: "You are gods"'? If he called 'gods' those against whom the word of God came, and yet the Scripture cannot be nullified, do you say to me whom the Father sanctified and dispatched into the world, 'You blaspheme,' because I said, I am God's Son?"
Since God himself is the ultimate Judge, the Bible refers to mere men as 'gods' due to the fact that God confers the office of judging in his name to such men. In other words, they occupy the God-assigned office of judges. Actually, though, the Psalm that Jesus appealed to that calls mere men 'gods,' also refers to the judges of God's people as the sons of God. Psalms 82:6 says: "I myself have said, 'You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High.'"
In the case of the Pharisees, it should be noted that they were not really sons of God, as the Psalm describes. In fact, rather than being sons of God, in the 8th chapter of John Jesus denounced the Jews and their Pharisees as being "from your father the Devil." Obviously the spiritual children of the Devil can not also be the sons of Jehovah God. The significance of that fact is that, while, the 82nd Psalm applied in principle to the 1st century Pharisees, in actuality the Psalm applies to the anointed sons of God during the time immediately prior to God's great Judgment Day. How so?
For one thing, according to the 82nd Psalm Jehovah not only addresses the earthly judges as 'gods' and 'sons,' but also "God is stationing himself in the assembly of the Divine One; in the middle of the gods he judges." God's stationing himself in the assembly, or congregation of his sons, is in harmony with the revealed truth that God's habitation is the spiritual temple made up of the congregation of his anointed ones. And Jehovah's judgment starts first when he judges in the middle of his own household of appointed servants. According to Christ some of the sons of God will be judged as unfit wicked and sluggish slaves; while others will be accepted as faithful slaves. So, during the conclusion of the system of things, God does indeed judge "in the middle of the gods."
That Jehovah has entrusted his anointed sons with God-like authority to judge his people, we merely have to consult the words of the Apostle Paul, where he wrote to the Corinthians these words: "Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you unfit to try very trivial matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? Why then not matters of this life?"
It is another irony that the very thing that Paul counseled the Corinthians to avoid is now what is taking place among Jehovah's Witnesses; namely, that grievances that were not handled satisfactorily in the congregations, due in large part because of the Watchtower's misguided policy regarding child abuse, are now being taken before the secular courts.
In the 82nd Psalm Jehovah seems to speak directly to the Watchtower today when he asks the judges of his people: "How long will you keep on judging with injustice and showing partiality to the wicked themselves?"
It is an undeniable fact that the Watchtower's so-called child abuse policy has favored the wicked abusers and sent the victims away with empty platitudes to "wait on Jehovah" to set things straight. Jehovah, of course, will indeed set things straight—starting with the unjust judges of his people!
But, instead of coddling and concealing depraved child molesters in our congregations, Jehovah expects the shepherds and judges of his people to give the interests of the lowly and afflicted one top priority. That is why in the very next verse of the 82nd Psalm, Jehovah reminds his judges of his priorities, saying to them: "Be judges for the lowly one and the fatherless boy. To the afflicted one and the one of little means do justice. Provide escape for the lowly one and the poor one; out of the hand of the wicked ones deliver them."
While the Watchtower insists that it has handled child abuse cases in the best possible way, the victims tell another story. And while the Watchtower would prefer to gag the victims with hush money or arrogantly dismiss the flood of allegations as mere media lies, the very fact that the courts are taking such cases seriously should tell us that something is seriously wrong. After all, shouldn't the lowly and the afflicted be the ones to decide if justice has been done for them? If justice had been done in the congregations in the first place it is highly unlikely that the victims would now be seeking justice in the courts of the land.
Contrary to the Watchtower's insistence that justice has been served and that we have followed God's own standards, again, Jehovah's words speak to the heart of the present situation. God says of his judges: "They have not known, and they do not understand; in darkness they keep walking about; all the foundations of the earth have been made to totter." Like the Corinthian congregation, Paul's words apply with equal force to the entire organization today: "Is it true that there is not one wise man among you that will be able to judge between his brothers?"
"All the foundations of the earth are made to totter," in that our injustice is what forces God to take up our own legal case—in order to set things straight. That is why the last verse of the Psalm is an appeal to Jehovah God to rise up in judgment in order to ultimately take over the rulership of the entire world. Psalm 82:8 reads: "Do rise up, O God, do judge the earth; for you yourself should take possession of all nations."
Since the plea of the inspired Psalmist for God's intervention comes in the context of the failure of God's sons to do justice in behalf of the afflicted and fatherless boys, and since we now see the clear evidence that the anointed sons of God and their Watchtower institution fit the description of the unjust judges of the 82nd Psalm; and since, as Jesus observed in connection with the very same Psalm, that "the Scripture cannot be nullified," we ought to seriously consider the question: Can Jehovah's day of judgment be far off?
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