Eschatology as a crime

The website of the "Civil Club" commented on the decision of the Golovinsky Court of Moscow to ban the activities of the Moscow community of Jehovah's Witnesses with an article by Alexander Protopopov Very correct obscurantism .

The author of the comment fully approves the judgment. According to him, the community was liquidated for inciting religious hatred, destroying families and forcing seriously ill people to refuse medical care for religious reasons. In fact, these reasons were put forward by the prosecutor's office, but the court has not yet presented the reasoning part of the decision, and it is too early to say why this religious organization was liquidated.

However, according to A. Protopopov, "they banned the sect at all for this . " And for the fact that "the basis of the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses is the expectation of the near end of the world" , and it is not enough to expect, "it is desirable to actively contribute to the destruction of everything worldly . " There are no examples of "the destruction of everything worldly" in the article; on the contrary, it says that "Jehovists do not blow up houses and do not shoot down planes, at least not yet." "However, the whole system of spreading the doctrine and recruiting new members is designed specifically to instill in the minds of people a passionate desire to end this world. If not in general, then with its individual elements: family, property (which, of course, it is desirable to transfer to the Watchtower Society") , work ... If it occurred to someone to long for the end of the world - their right, but the state is obliged to protect society from the spread of such desires ... "

The arguments given in the article are enough to try to accuse the leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses of fraud, but not that their doctrine poses a threat to society as a whole. The article does not discuss the most painful point of the Witnesses' teaching for the public - the ban on blood transfusions (although, as inhumane as it may seem to many, such a denial for oneself or for children is provided for by Russian law) and there is no evidence that Jehovah's Witnesses, like "Aum Shinrikyo", performed some practical actions to approach the "end of the world".

It is difficult to say how A. Protopopov relates to the eschatological expectations of early Christians, but one way or another, it seems that he approves of discrimination against the followers of religious teaching for purely ideological reasons.

Sources

• Protopopov Alexander. Very correct obscurantism // Civil club. 2004. March 26.