Insight on the News

Why the Failure?

● For centuries Italy has been a predominantly Catholic country. But George Armstrong wrote in “The Guardian Weekly,” England, of April 4, 1976: “Rome has become the sixth of Italy’s 20 regions to come under the control of the Communists and the Socialists. The Communist-controlled regions now stretch from Genoa to Rome.” One might well ask: Why should a Catholic land become such fertile ground for Communism?

Doubtless religious failure has been a major cause.

Communists do not believe in God. Yet the Scriptures say: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Ps. 14:1, “The New American Bible,” translated by members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America) Apparently, then, the Roman Catholic Church has failed to instill true belief in God in the hearts of every one of its members.

The Church has failed also to teach that Christians must maintain neutrality in political affairs. Jesus Christ said of his followers: “They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world.” (John 17:16) Jesus also taught his disciples to pray for God’s kingdom. (Matt. 6:9-13) Obviously, the Catholic Church has failed to teach the people that man’s true hope for good government rests, not with any human political system, but with the established kingdom of God.

The Christian View

● According to “The Times” of London, a recent report of the Church of England’s doctrine commission states: “To speak of the Bible as ‘the Word of God’ or the ‘Word of God in the words of men’ is just as much a judgment of faith as to speak of some historical event as an ‘act of God’. It is not a proposition that can be proved. There are many Christians who wish to keep this language when talking of the Bible; there are others to whom it does not come easily.”

Hence, “The Times” says that “full personal acceptance of all the statements in the Bible . . . is not expected of members of the Church of England,” according to the commission’s report. On the surface, it may appear that the Church’s doctrine commission is merely being broad-minded and that full acceptance of the Bible as God’s inspired Word is not required of Christians.

However, Jesus Christ repeatedly quoted from the Scriptures already written by the time that he was on earth. Certainly, Jesus did not exclude any of such writings when he said: “Your word is truth.”​—John 17:17.

The Christian apostle Paul declared: “All Scripture is inspired of God.” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17) Moreover, he told Christians at Thessalonica: “We also thank God incessantly, because when you received God’s word, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but, just as it truthfully is, as the word of God.”​—1 Thess. 2:13.

Consciences Stirred

● Jehovah’s Witnesses are undergoing brutal persecution​—beatings, rape, even murder—​in the southeast African nation of Malawi. Why? Solely because they maintain Christian neutrality and thus refuse to buy political cards that would make them members of the Malawi Congress Party. (John 15:19; 18:36) But the brutality they have experienced has stirred consciences everywhere.

In fact, these atrocities prompted extended discussion in the Lower House of the German Parliament at Bonn in March 1976. For instance, responding to a question, Minister Wischnewski said, in part: “The federal government has taken the reports of persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Malawi as an occasion to have the ambassador express the German opinion to the Malawi government.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses are not asking worldly governments to act in their behalf. But they know that thinking people are appalled by such atrocities because of God-given conscience that cannot sanction heinous wrongdoing. Accordingly, the apostle Paul said that when people not possessing God’s law “do by nature the things of the law,” they “demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused.” (Rom. 2:14, 15) When will Malawi’s public officials become so conscience-stricken that they bring an end to the brutal persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses?