In today’s episode of Interactions, we hear from George D. Chryssides of York St. John University and his Canopy Forum article “Jehovah’s Witnesses and Religious Persecution: Do Signed Declarations Help?”
In his article, Chryssides explores the ways in which Jehovah’s Witnesses have been religiously persectued and questions the usefulness of documents meant to criticize this persecution after the release of a joint statement by the US Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom in 2021. “Few people to whom I have spoken,” writes Chryssides, “including my own Member of Parliament in the UK, have shown any familiarity with the document, which raises the question of how effective such declarations are likely to be.”
Chryssides examines the antagonization that the Jehovah’s Wittness movement has faced in Russia. At the forefront of this antagonization is the self-proclaimed sectologist Aleksandr Dvorkin, who considers himself a cult expert. Chryssides explains that “Dvorkin succeeded in perpetrating the belief that new religious movements,” like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, “were dangerous.”
How did this all begin? What’s the cause of this persecution toward Jehovah’s Witnesses both in Russia and around the world? And are declarations effectual in the diminishment of mistreatment?
Read the original article on Canopy Forum.
Browse our book brochure.
In today’s episode of Interactions, we hear from George D. Chryssides of York St. John University and his Canopy Forum article “Jehovah’s Witnesses and Religious Persecution: Do Signed Declarations Help?”
In his article, Chryssides explores the ways in which Jehovah’s Witnesses have been religiously persectued and questions the usefulness of documents meant to criticize this persecution after the release of a joint statement by the US Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom in 2021. “Few people to whom I have spoken,” writes Chryssides, “including my own Member of Parliament in the UK, have shown any familiarity with the document, which raises the question of how effective such declarations are likely to be.”
Chryssides examines the antagonization that the Jehovah’s Wittness movement has faced in Russia. At the forefront of this antagonization is the self-proclaimed sectologist Aleksandr Dvorkin, who considers himself a cult expert. Chryssides explains that “Dvorkin succeeded in perpetrating the belief that new religious movements,” like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, “were dangerous.”
How did this all begin? What’s the cause of this persecution toward Jehovah’s Witnesses both in Russia and around the world? And are declarations effectual in the diminishment of mistreatment?
Read the original article on Canopy Forum.
Browse our book brochure.
