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Stanely Mushava :  Features Correspondent

Early morning, as the suburb retreats to its regular outline after the rush hour, an elegantly dressed gentleman shows up at the door with a stack of books and politely asks to be admitted for a Bible conversation. Over the next half hour, the cultured visitor politely but insistently presses his case for a rather uncharacteristic version of Christianity.One day being inadequate to cover an eternal drift of the conversation, the grey areas are deferred to a series of regular appointments.

Most Zimbabweans have met this gentleman and for some, religion has been a new story altogether since that odd morning he crash-landed into their homes for the heavily allusive conversation.

He is a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, known to most as Watchtowers from a colloquialisation of the sect’s flagship magazine.

Entry profiles for Jehovah’s Witnesses recruits include fitness to be deployed into homes and town centres with the message of a new earth.

For the 8,2 million witnesses worldwide, covering the world like Google with the good news of God’s coming kingdom on earth is the principal assignment.

According to Jehovah’s Witnesses supervisor of ministers John Hunguka, some members take turns to distribute free literature at 40 carts across Harare while others are enrolled full-time as door-to-door evangelists.

The post-apocalyptic, new earth campaign rides efficiently on the cultural networks of the current one, with literature in hundreds of languages distributed at every possible opening.

Seven of the languages, Shona, Tonga, Kalanga, Tshangana, Ndebele, Nambya and English are the medium of magazines, tracts and booklets distributed at street corners, offices and homes in Zimbabwe.

“The mother tongue is the language of the heart. Reaching to everyone in their language ensures the resonance of the message,” Mr Hunguka tells The Herald Review.

But the assignment has its occupational hazards.

Door-to-door evangelists are occasionally turned away, sometimes at a distance with gate signs such as “No Jehovah’s Witnesses Allowed”.

There are also the subject of popular myths and stereotypes stretched out of their peculiar beliefs and enriched over time in the grapevine.

Much has been made of their alleged cold, ascetic faith.

Jehovah’s Witnesses seem to have cultivated a paradoxical image: socially ubiquitous yet doctrinally separatist.

If the stereotypes thrive on ignorance, Jehovah’s Witnesses are out to set the record straight with an increased visibility at strategic posts.

While most people pass by oblivious of the cart at the corner of Angwa Street and Jason Moyo Avenue in Harare, an occasional passerby requests a magazine or a booklet.

The varied issues on display include biblically grounded solutions to dating pains and parenting, calculative baits for a stressed passerby.

The elegant presentation and multi-disciplinary research that goes into the literature seems to anticipate crossover appeal.

The smiling couple minding the cart by Angwa tells the reporter to have his fill of the titles by well-designed banner with the words: “What Does the Bible Really Teach?”

When I relay my intentions to speak to them about their work for a media report, the smiles quickly disappear.

“We do not need worldly distractions. This is the work of God not our personal business. Photo shoots elevate individuals rather than the ministry,” the fairer half of the preaching couple insists.

On occasion, an interested individual volunteers his address for home visits, a first step towards conversion and recruitment into the worldwide network of literature evangelists.

The Mt Hampden-based supervisor of ministers, John Hunguka, speaks at length about the biblical case for home visits.

“When we visit homes with the good news we are following the example of Jesus and the apostles. Evidence for this can be found in several scriptures including Luke 8, Acts 4, 10 and 20,” Mr Hunguka tells The Herald Review.

“The scriptures are our manual therefore we use one of the main methods of evangelisation that Jesus used,” Mr Hunguka said.

“We also take names and addresses of people who show interest in studying the scriptures with us during our street work so that we visit them on a weekly basis. We have full-time evangelists who specialise in home visits.

“We have been doing our street work for many years but recently we stepped up our operations and we have deployed more carts around Harare with literature that we distribute at no cost or obligation to the recipient,” he said.

Mr Hunguka says the media team is drawn from a pool of professionals conversant not just with the scriptures but different social concerns and academic disciplines such as science and psychology.

Most of the literature is published outside Zimbabwe but a local team of translators collaborate with the global team. Mr Hunguka says the literature evangelism effort is mainly financed by voluntary donations from members.

Although the BBC Newsday placed the revenue Watchtower Society, the literature arm of Jehovah’s Witnesses, at $950 million, the church’s website says it does not collect tithes and offerings.

“No collections are taken at our meetings, and members are not required to tithe. (Matthew 10:7, 8) Instead, contribution boxes are provided in our meeting places so that if someone wishes to make a donation, he may do so,” the JW.org website says.

The cited scripture says “freely you have received, freely give.” The denomination says its expenses are manageable because it has no paid clergy and has modest places of worship.

All the same, the witnesses attend to their teaching posts with urgency and otherworldliness urged on by their conviction about the imminent end of the world.

Pessimistic about efforts to improve the world, and convinced that everything is winding down to endgame, the witnesses invest their best efforts in preaching about the next world.

The church primes human efforts to bring about world peace for a circle of failure, citing the inherent flaw of human nature and world civilisations.

Institutions such as United Nations, its predecessor, the League of Nations and the Roman Catholic Church are routinely bashed as Babylon in the church’s publications.

Interestingly, the UN raised eyebrows when it granted associate status to Jehovah’s Witnesses, considering the latter’s scathing criticism of the multi-lateral institution.

“There is a glaring inconsistency which has emerged between the WTBTS’ frequent portrayal of the UN as an evil organisation and its behind-the-scenes attempts to curry favour with that organisation. Were individual members to be aware of any formal link they would be devastated,” a former member told the Guardian in 2001.

“By no stretch of the imagination could the WTBTS be considered to share the ideals of the UN charter unless you suppose that destruction of the UN by God is consistent with that charter,” the former member rapped the association formerly entered in 1991.

According to Mr Hunguka, Jehovah’s Witnesses’ conviction about the futility of human efforts for world peace stems from their understanding that the devil is actively fomenting discord on earth, pending God’s establishment of the post-apocalyptic world order.

“Human governments cannot bring an end to wickedness. Only God’s kingdom on earth will usher in peace and goodwill,” he said.

Mr Hunguka said the denomination does not partake in efforts to fight perceived injustice on a civic level because such efforts are historically known to replace one evil with another.

Instead, they concentrate on preaching the good news of God’s kingdom to prepare saints to partake in Jesus Christ’s coming reign on earth.

“The devil was cast out of heaven. He is on earth confusing people and causing wars and tragedies as shown in Revelations 12 until his evil influence is stopped,” Mr Hunguka said.

Jehovah’s Witnesses characterise Christendom, politically involved Christian denominations such as the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, as bad guys in the endgame.

The church controversially disallows blood transfusions and some of its members are known to have died of blood loss.

“The Bible commands that we not ingest blood. So we should not accept whole blood or its primary components in any form, whether offered as food or as a transfusion,” the Jehovah’s Witnesses website says.

The sect distances itself from the celebration of mainstream Christian festivals like Christmas as it believes they have pagan influences and are not biblically grounded.

In 2014, the local chapter of Jehovah’s Witnesses hosted 82 000 members from the world church at a convention themed “Keep Seeking First God’s Kingdom” consistent with its apocalyptic mandate.

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