Minority Religions and Religious Tolerance: The Jehovah’s Witness Test

This book is founded on a simple premise: that Jehovah’s Witnesses are a crucial litmus test for tolerance.When Witnesses do not enjoy basic freedoms to practice their faith, scholars should consider what their treatment reveals about the broader state of tolerance and respect for religious pluralism and religious minority groups. They should also examine how the Witnesses’ struggle for acceptance has shaped religious freedom and the protections enshrined in law in many modern states in the twenty-first century. This is what the authors call the ’Jehovah’s Witness test’.

The contributors have run the ’JW test’ across a range of countries, from Egypt and Mexico to Russia and South Korea, addressing religious, political and medical opposition and their outcomes for modern states and societies. They bring to their conclusions a wealth of perspectives; among them are medical experts, sociologists, political scientists, historians, anthropologists, and representatives of the Witness community.

Taken together, this volume is a call for scholars to look to the treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a barometer for the overall health of religious tolerance and basic civil liberties in our contemporary world.

Zoe Knox is Associate Professor of Modern Russian History at the University of Leicester, UK.

Emily B. Baran is Associate Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University, USA.