In the next two weeks, the court will decide whether adults in a strict religious community have real freedom. If Jehovah’s Witnesses lose, it will cause a stir far beyond their own ranks.
Morten Marius Larsen, news director
Vart Land
January 9, 2024
The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ practice of exclusion has become well known in the Norwegian public. Several former witnesses have told painful stories of growing up in a religious community where serious sin can lead to exclusion, and where the consequences of being excluded are enormous.
That is why there is great excitement about what will happen in the Oslo district court in the next two weeks. Jehovah’s Witnesses have gone to court after the authorities decided to strip them of their registration as a religious community, state subsidies and the right to marry.
It is not the exclusion itself that is a theme. Like it or not, the authorities cannot step in and prevent a religious community, or any other organisation, from excluding someone they believe has breached their own terms of membership.
The question is, among other things, whether Jehovah’s Witnesses prevent free expression. By and large, the court must decide how free people are when they belong to a strict religious community.
A high price
For religious freedom to be real, people must be able to choose for themselves whether they want to leave the religious community they belong to. Forcing someone to remain a member is obviously a violation of freedom of religion and the Religious Communities Act.
Technically speaking, denunciation from Jehovah’s Witnesses is a simple and straightforward process. If someone renounces their membership, they cease to be a Jehovah’s Witness and this is announced at the next church meeting, according to the religious community. We know of no examples of exit certificates being shredded, or of people being physically held back from leaving the Kingdom Hall.
When the authorities nevertheless think they are preventing the right to freedom of expression, it is because the price for leaving the religious community is so high.
A number of former members say that family and friends cut off contact with them when they stopped being a Jehovah’s Witness. The stories are heartbreaking. Several of them have had their entire social network inside the congregation, and have been left on bare ground afterwards. Leaving the religious community has almost cost them everything.
The state administrator points out that avoiding contact with deregistered persons is a consistent and established practice. For those who are considering leaving the religious community, the certainty of what they risk losing will weigh so heavily that they in reality do not have the freedom to change their faith, believes the State Administrator.
Freedom of belief
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe the arguments are based on half-truths and failing logic.
It is true that cutting contact with former members is a so-called disciplinary measure in Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is based on a literal reading of Paul, who says, among other things, that anyone who is evil must be removed from the congregation. Their hope is that the deregistered or excluded person will repent and return, and then be accepted as a member again.
The religious community strongly disagrees that the practice prevents free expression. Otherwise in society, people make choices all the time, knowing that it will affect their relationships. The certainty that a choice has major consequences does not mean that one is not free to choose it, they will argue.
The court will decide on some demanding border crossings, which affect philosophy, psychology and sociology. What does it mean to be free or unfree? When does social pressure from a group become so great that it is in reality coercion? How great must the announced consequences be, before it robs adults of their freedom?
Not a business
Another point would be that Jehovah’s Witnesses are a religious community, and not a business that works to maximize profit. The principle of cutting off contact with former members is hardly something they came up with for strategic reasons, but something they are convinced the Bible tells them to do.
In court, Jehovah’s Witnesses will claim that the decision interferes with their freedom of belief, which gives them the right to practice according to their own religious beliefs. The authorities will emphasize that it is only a question of refusing them registration as a religious community, and not a ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses in general.
Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored that the authorities have made a value assessment of the faith and practice of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and judged it unreasonable. Should the authorities even make such assessments of people’s beliefs?
As of today, it is not forbidden for Norwegian citizens to break contact with friends and acquaintances. If the court upholds the State Administrator’s decision, it means that certain types of interpretations of sacred texts disqualify a religious community from receiving state subsidies in Norway – even if the actions they carry out are in themselves perfectly legal.
A strong signal
The question of the relationship between freedom and coercion in religious groups is fundamentally important. Many will still say that the authorities’ strongest card in court is the claim that children’s rights are being violated.
Since minors who are baptized can be excluded, and thus risk losing contact with the remaining ones, the authorities believe that children are exposed to negative social control and psychological violence. Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the accusations and refer to their guidance. Here it is pointed out that family ties do not end with exclusion and that parents have responsibility for their children, even if contact between them is limited.
For Jehovah’s Witnesses, and several other religious communities, it will be experienced as a restriction of freedom of belief. And a signal that society at large doubts people’s ability to make free choices when they are part of a strict religious society.
For many former witnesses, a verdict in the authorities’ favor would be a clear signal that Norway does not accept a practice that has caused them a lot of pain.
Expert: ‘Norway has a bad case’
On Monday, the trial between Jehovah’s Witnesses and the state began in Norway. Should Norway win, human rights expert Dag Øistein Endsjø believes that it is not a victory that will last. Others believe the state has a strong case.
“If Jehovah’s Witnesses lose this trial, this case will move forward. I’m pretty sure it will end with Norway being convicted in the Human Rights Court.
So says human rights expert Dag Øistein Endsjø to Vårt Land. Endsjø is currently a professor of the history of religion at the University of Oslo.
On Monday, January 8, a trial began between Jehovah’s Witnesses and Norwegian authorities. Jehovah’s Witnesses have filed a lawsuit after authorities decided to deny them registration as a religious community, as well as government subsidies for the years 2021 to 2023. Norwegian authorities believe they have been able to do this because they consider the exclusion practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses to be in violation of the Religious Communities Act.
In the trial, which will take place in the Oslo District Court over the next two weeks, Jehovah’s Witnesses will argue, among other things, that the decisions are invalid.
They are demanding repayment of over Rs 50 crore for the lost grant, interest included. In addition, they believe they are entitled to be publicly registered as a religious community
Endsjø believes that Jehovah’s Witnesses have a strong position.
“Jehovah’s Witnesses have not violated any human rights. Norwegian law cannot then set aside human rights. It is not a human right to be a member of a religious community that, for various reasons, does not want you, the religion professor explains.
– Obfuscation
“A blurring of the discussion,” says Hilde Langvann about the professor’s statement. She is the leader of Hjelpkilden, an organization that supports people in problematic religious violations.
She herself believes that none of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ human rights have been violated by the County Governor’s decision.
“Even if Jehovah’s Witnesses are denied government subsidies and registration, they are still free to practice their religion. They can still exclude members if they want to,” said she, who will testify for the state in the trial.
Langvann points out that the Religious Communities Act is a grant law. With it, the state has set some conditions for religious communities that require state subsidies and apply to be publicly registered.
“This does not affect either their freedom of religion or assembly.
Here’s the thing
In 2022, it became known that Jehovah’s Witnesses were denied state subsidies for 2021, as well as their registration as a religious community.
The religious community’s exclusion practices are in violation of the Religious Communities Act for two reasons, according to the County Governor of Oslo and Viken.
“In our judgment, the religious community violates its members’ right to free withdrawal. We believe this violates members’ right to religious freedom. We also believe that they violate children’s rights by allowing for the exclusion of baptized minors, and by encouraging members to socially isolate children who do not follow the religious community’s rules,” wrote the County Governor when they made the decision on registration.
“No one has freedom of belief within a religious community
With the decisions to refuse grants and registration, the authorities assume that Jehovah’s Witnesses have broken the law, Dag Øistein Endsjø points out.
“But Jehovah’s Witnesses have only adhered to their own guidelines about what they can do with their own members,” he said.
He points out that there is no freedom of belief within a religious community.
“However, your freedom of belief is guaranteed by the fact that you can leave a religious community.
– May feel pressured
But in Jehovah’s Witnesses, members cannot opt out freely, according to the state.
The consequence of leaving the church is that the person who has left the church is no longer allowed to have contact with family and friends in the church, as the County Governor sees it. “This practice may result in members feeling pressured to remain in the religious community,” states the decision in which Jehovah’s Witnesses were deprived of government subsidies for 2021.
This is also Hjelpkilden’s experience,” says Hilde Langvann.
“We are in contact with Jehovah’s Witnesses who have not been formally withdrawn because they will have invasive consequences for their relationships with children, parents, siblings, and spouses. Even if they are not believers, they choose to be members on paper and attend meetings , she claims.
Will require state aid to be repaid
In one of its statements to the County Governor, the religious community emphasized that a member who chooses to resign as a Jehovah’s Witness will be respected for his or her decision.
At the same time, they have added that “each individual associated with the congregation can use his or her personal religious conscience and follow the Bible’s admonition to limit or completely avoid having contact with that person.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a religious denomination. They learn that the Bible is written by God (Jehovah), with the help of authors who were under God’s direction. Therefore, the Bible is understood as God’s infallible and reliable word and the only necessary guide in all matters of life.
Jehovah’s Witnesses were established in the United States in the 1870s, initially as a Bible study group. Eventually, it developed into a religious community under the leadership of Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916).
According to their own statistics, in 2022, Jehovah’s Witnesses were active in 239 countries and had about 8.5 million members (active publishers) in 117,960 congregations. Children and others who are not active preachers come in addition.
Source: Store norske lexikon and jw.org
The freedom to leave the congregation
I look forward to testifying for the state on behalf of myself and the many I have met on my way, people with great wounds and full of need – and feel confident that the decision is legally sound.
EXCLUDED: Jan Frode Nilsen is a former member of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He will testify against his former religious community this week. Photo: Xueqi Pang
Jan Frode Nilsen, former member of Jehovah’s Witnesses
I read with great interest Kim Hein Pedersen’s defense of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ exclusion system and his personal experience of how this enabled him to get his life in order, and praise him for participating in the public exchange of words around the topic. On the other hand, the whole premise of his post is built on a wrong foundation.
He writes that the State Administrator in Oslo and Viken withdraws the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ registration as a religious community because they believe that the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ exclusion practice is against the law, and then links this to his own history where he was excluded for adultery. This is demonstrably a misinterpretation of the state’s decision. The decision is not based on the exclusion scheme itself, as Pedersen describes his story. He and I can well discuss the morality of the scheme, the biblical interpretations that have built up the practice, or the psychological aspects surrounding social and familial isolation of people in life crises, but that is not what the State has done. They mean nothing about this. Does not get involved in the practice that led to Pedersen being excluded at the time. His story is completely irrelevant. The state has concluded based on two points, neither of which is linked to Pedersen’s experience.
Social exclusion
Point 1: Exclusion and social ostracism of people who themselves want to leave Jehovah’s Witnesses
Jehovah’s Witnesses have a practice where you cannot change your outlook on life, change your religion and move to another organization without major consequences for the lives of individuals. I have experienced this myself. It took me about five years from the time I last participated in the fellowship of Jehovah’s Witnesses until I was finally expelled. During these years, I generated state support for a denomination I did not belong to, because the price you pay when you leave it is too great.
There are many people like me. That Jehovah’s Witnesses claim on their websites that this punishment can be beneficial for the excluded person, because it can make the excluded person “come to their senses”, is with respect to report hesitation. There are many of us who, for many different reasons, have made a completely conscious choice based on thorough research to leave Jehovah’s Witnesses. For people like us, the loss of contact with family will not make us come back, as Pedersen claims. Rather, it acts as the opposite, a confirmation that something was seriously wrong in there.
At the same time, it is an obstacle to free notification, as the State Administrator quite rightly points out. You are not free to opt out if opting out has major consequences for completely elementary contact with your immediate family; their own parents, their siblings, their children. Then for the vast majority it is a forced situation.
The government attorney’s claim is that with this practice, Jehovah’s Witnesses violate
Section 2 of the Religious Societies Act, and violate the individual member’s right to freely change their faith or outlook according to Article 9 of the ECHR,
Section 16 of the Constitution and Article 18 of the Declaration of Human Rights. Jehovah’s Witnesses thus violate fundamental human rights, and are therefore affected by Section 6 of the new law, precisely as the legislative assembly wanted.
Violates children’s rights
Point 2: Now that the exclusion practice does not have a lower age limit, it violates children’s rights
The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ practice of exclusion, social ostracism and public punishment – that is, that named minor members can be hung out from the rest of the congregation if violations have taken place – violates, according to the Government Advocate, Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and also Section 6 of the Religious Communities Act.
In the preparations for the faith society law is “negative social control that targets children” expressly mentioned as an example of psychological violence children must be protected against. The fact that Pedersen himself believes that he was mature when he was baptized as a 14-year-old does not change the law. 14-year-olds are children, and must be treated accordingly.
It is also a fundamental right for a child to be able to change their outlook on life and their opinions as they acquire knowledge and experiences. But in the world of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a baptism of a 14-year-old is a lifelong commitment that the child will never be able to walk away from without major consequences for close relationships and family.
It is tempting to take the opportunity to quote what Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves published in their magazine Awake! from July 2009, in the article “Is it wrong to change religion?”
Here they write: “No one should be forced to worship in a way that he or she finds unacceptable, or to have to choose between their faith and their relationship with their family.”
Jehovah’s witnesses themselves know this, they recognize this basic human right, which is to be able to change religion, follow their conscience and make the life choices they themselves feel are right, without having to choose between it and contact with their family.
Could that be true? They do the opposite. Locking us in with the message that if we choose to leave the organization, we must face the consequences, namely loss of family ties. So why did they write this? Yes, because the context of the article is about the opposite. It is about changing religion to Jehovah’s Witnesses. In such a context, the idea is that no one should be punished for changing religion.
Looking forward to witnessing
Jehovah’s Witnesses work actively, worldwide, to get other people to change their religion. But they do not allow their children to do the opposite without cutting off contact with them.
Hypocrisy? That is up to the readers to decide. I look forward to testifying again for the State on Friday, January 13, on behalf of myself and the many I have met on my way, people with great wounds and full of need, and feel confident that this is a decision that stands rock solid legally. Why someone needs such threat scenarios and punishment to find their God, as Kim Hein Pedersen says he did, we can rather discuss further elsewhere.