“Honest With His Religion”

While government departments have been very helpful to the Watchtower Society’s building project in Nigeria, some newspapers and religious leaders have tried to make trouble for Jehovah’s Witnesses over the neutrality issue. Other newspaper reporters, however, have given commendation. One writer, a lawyer, asked whether Jehovah’s Witnesses “portray themselves as really unpatriotic.” Giving his own answer, he said: “Witnesses are tax-paying and law-abiding citizens. Any . . . Witness who can be honest with his religion to the extent of obeying it at the risk of losing certain privileges will be equally honest in most other things . . . The reason he refuses to steal government money while his other colleagues . . . sing the national anthem and yet embezzle funds is because his Bible which asks him not to sing the national anthem also said he should not steal.”