‘BAN THE WITNESSES’

All this progress did not sit well with our opposers. From 1960 onward, the combined forces of Christendom’s churches, the Returned Services League (RSL), and the local media launched an orchestrated campaign to vilify and ban Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Matters came to a head when a pamphlet explaining our position on blood transfusions was distributed to selected doctors, clergymen, and government officials. Typically, Christendom’s clergy were the first to react. On August 30, 1960, the South Pacific Post trumpeted the headline “Churches Angry on Blood Question.” In the accompanying article, church leaders denounced the Witnesses as “anti-Christ [and] an enemy of the Church.”

Subsequent articles lyingly claimed that Jehovah’s Witnesses were subversive and that their teachings promoted school truancy, nonpayment of taxes, cargo cults, and even poor hygiene. Other reports falsely accused them of using an imminent solar eclipse to whip up fear and “gain control of primitive native minds.” One editorial even berated the Witnesses for “living, eating, and working with villagers.” The South Pacific Post criticized them for teaching that “all men are equal” and claimed that the Witnesses were “a menace greater than Communism.”

Finally, on March 25, 1962, the RSL called on the colonial authorities to ban the Witnesses. The Australian government, however, publically rejected the request. “This announcement had a good effect throughout the country,” says Don Fielder. “Fair-minded people could see that the claims of our opposers were simply not true.”

I recall an occasion when I was preaching near Rabaul. A Tolai man asked if he could hold my Bible to read a text for himself. When I gave him the Bible, he tore it into pieces and threw it on the ground. Rather than get angry, I reported the matter to the police commander, who immediately dispatched a constable to arrest the offender. The commander told the man: “You are a bad man. You broke God’s law and the law of the government. You must buy a new Bible for the man tomorrow, and if you don’t, we will send you to jail.” The commander then told me to come to the police station at 10 o’clock the following morning to pick up the money for the Bible. When I arrived, the money was waiting for me. Since then, many Tolai people have come into the truth.

On another occasion, I was with a group of Witnesses distributing the Kingdom News in an area west of Wewak. The others were working ahead of me. A local village leader, however, found out what the brothers were doing and collected the copies they had distributed. He must have known that I was coming, for he was waiting for me in the middle of the road, his hands on his hips, with copies of the Kingdom News in one hand. I asked if there was a problem. He held them out to me and said, “I’m in charge here, and I don’t want you distributing these.”

I took them from him. Meanwhile, villagers had gathered around. Looking at them, I asked, “If you want to work in your garden or go fishing, do you have to get official permission?”

“No!” said one lady.

Then I asked the villagers, “Do you want to read this?”

“Yes,” they said. So I redistributed the copies of the Kingdom News unopposed. Later, though, I had to defend myself before a meeting of some 20 village leaders. Happily, all but two voted in favor of our preaching work.