I just had a visit from some people witnessing door-to-door. I was invited to a “memorial of Jesus Christ’s death”.
I didn’t want to encourage them so I told them I wasn’t interested and they left. But actually I am curious. It seemed like an unusual thing for a religious Christian to say. Wouldn’t it more common for a Christian to speak of Jesus’ resurrection?
Is there a theological nuance I’m missing here? Or did I just meet a couple of evangelical atheists?
I suspect you were invited to a Good Friday service. Good Friday services that I have been to tend to be somewhat somber, it’s not unusual for there to be no decoration in the sanctuary, if it’s a service of Tennebrae, there will be a dozen or so tall candles lit at the beginning, and they will be slowly extinguished . . . usually leaving one candle which is taken out quietly by the ministers to be kept for Easter Sunday.
I don’t disagree–although they may have been trying alternate wording to catch attention from people or, as Good Friday is coming up (and services for it are usually poorly attended) advertising a Good Friday service.
Easter Services hardly need advertising in my experience.
“Memorial” sounds better than “Good Friday”. I mean, we’re talking about the commemoration of a Mel Gibson style torturefest here! Regardless of any perceived positive consequences, who decided that was a “good” day?
That’s exactly what it was- You see, the Bible never contains a command to celebrate or memorialize or do anything in honor of Jesus’ birth or even his resurrection, but both Jesus & Paul tell us to enact the Lord’s Supper/Communion in memory of his death, and thus, the Witnesses do so on whenever they think Nisan 14 falls (they are usually in sync with the Jewish calendar on this, but not always).
I attended one once, no one present actually took Communion as that is for the few who still regard themselves as among the 144,000. I do wonder what the Bible Students who still adhere to the teachings of Charles Taze Russell do.
I’ve heard from numerous sources that the JWs are out this year aggressively inviting the public to the annual “Memorial.” It is a Communion service at which almost nobody partakes. The bread and wine are passed and rejected by all present - which makes me shudder a bit to think of the implications of that. It’s unusual that they are inviting people from door to door, as Memorial invitations used to be primarily directed toward those with some prior association with the JWs, either through family associations, having accepted their “Bible study” program, or perhaps being an occasional attender of their meetings. While there are 7 million or so JWs, the “Memorial” is always their most widely attended meeting of the year, and it’s not unusual to see an attendance in excess of twice the number of active JWs. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hit 20 million this year, especially if they are out actively inviting the public.
In fact, it occurs to me that this may be the reason that they are being so aggressive about inviting the public: they are seeking to mask the fact that their organization’s growth has gone flat in recent years in developed nations. One of the signs they offer of being the true religion is that God has supposedly blessed them with so much increase of membership (which begs the question of why Mormons and Seventh-day Adventists, groups which got their start around the same time as the JWs, have had so much greater increase, as their numbers each far outweigh the number of JWs). Because of the availability of the Internet, anyone can easily access facts about the JW organization that were difficult to find before the Internet was around. Facts about things like a long history of making false prophecies, many instances of giving bogus medical advice, occult associations of the leadership, and numerous scandals and cover-ups. You won’t read about any of those things in the Watchtower, but it’s all just a few clicks of the mouse away. The leadership is desperate to keep up the illusion of ongoing increase in membership, and one way of doing so may be by stepping up the level of inviting people to the Memorial. Memorial attendance is always one of their key metrics. More invitations on the street certainly translates to more attenders, which will make the numbers rise, even though in the past, there were generally not very aggressive attempts to invite the general public.
As far as the Bible Students go, the groups I have been aware of generally meet in private homes and have their Memorial services there. The meeting itself is pretty much like the JW Memorial, except that the sermon is about Jesus, not the organization, and mostly everyone partakes of the Communion. I attended a Bible Students’ Memorial service about 12 years or so ago and found it much more meaningful than the JW Memorial (though I am not a believer in either JW or Bible Student doctrines). Oddly, there is some discrepancy in how the dates are calculated, since the JW and Bible Student Memorials almost never fall on the same evening.