JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, who recently gained recognition as a religion under French law, say they are not a cult and that such allegations are taken seriously.
The local co-ordinator for the Jehovah's Witnesses, Luther W. Georges, says the church is preparing a statement in response to a comment made by Rev. Ernle Gordon in an article appearing in yesterday's Divine Rites series.
Rev. Gordon, rector of St. Mary the Virgin, had accused the Jehovah Witnesses, the Kingston Church of Christ and the Mormons of being cults.
The French ruling, made two weeks ago by the highest administrative court in the country, the Council of State, means the church will now be exempt from paying property taxes. In 1998 a French parliamentary report denied that Jehovah's Witnesses were a legitimate religion, and therefore not exempt from property taxes levied against their houses of worship.
The Witnesses are the third largest Christian religious community in France, says a release from the church's Public Affairs Office in Old Harbour, St. Catherine. They have practised their religion in France for almost a 100 years, says the release.
Spreading all over the world
FOLLOWERS OF a millennialist sect that began in the US in the 19th century, Jehovah's Witnesses have since spread over much of the world.
The group is an outgrowth of the International Bible Students' Association founded in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania in 1872 by Taze Russell.
The name Jehovah's Witnesses was adopted in 1931 by Russell's successor, Joseph Franklyn Rutherford, who sought to reaffirm Jehovah as the true God and to identify those who witness in this name as God's specially accredited followers.
Witnesses meet in churches called Kingdom Halls, baptise by immersion, insist upon a high moral code in personal conduct, disapprove of divorce except on grounds of adultery, oppose blood transfusions on a scriptural basis, and have won many cases in US courts establishing their right to speak and to witness in accordance to their belief.
Most members of local congregations are expected to spend five hours a week at meetings in Kingdom Hall and spend as much time as circumstances permit in doorstep preaching.
Information from the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
