When my mom took me door-knocking on Saturday mornings to deliver the Watchtower magazine and a Bible message to the neighborhoods of Saginaw, Michigan, I didn’t realize I was a defender of America’s essential freedoms: speech, religion and personal liberty.
I was just a kid, who would rather be home watching cartoons on television like the other kids. At that age, being raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses was an embarrassment because it meant I was different. Getting sent to the principal’s office for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance was not a typical third-grade offense. Now, as an adult who became a journalist but never joined the religion, I can see why it’s important that Jehovah’s Witnesses are different.
Our essential freedoms are at war with each other -- a culture war. We are divided by the very principles that defined America. But when Jehovah’s Witnesses knock, they are demonstrating that the freedoms of speech, religion and personal liberty can exist in harmony. It is how a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, an abortion clinic and a gay married couple can peacefully co-exist on the same block.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are moral conservatives who only compete in the marketplace of ideas. They attempt to persuade -- not impose -- their beliefs at your door. If you say “no thanks,” they won’t go behind your back and amend the Constitution to suit their world view. The only world they want to control is their own congregation, which is their right, and joining it is a personal choice. Jehovah’s Witnesses keep religion out of politics. Their separation of church and state is absolute: they don’t vote, pledge allegiance to the flag or serve in the military.
Yet as otherwise law-abiding, taxpaying citizens, they remind us that the America worth fighting for is an America that does not force people to follow a single ideology with patriotic fervor. And as a group with fundamental religious beliefs, they remind us that it is possible to stand firm in your faith without feeling threatened by those who choose a different path.
The knocking may be inconvenient, but it is a necessary annoyance in a free society. And when their own First Amendment rights were threatened, they went to the U.S. Supreme Court a record 62 times. Jehovah’s Witnesses prevailed, winning 50 cases that expanded liberty for everyone – even groups they disagree with. Now we can all equally share our own message. Better we hear an idea we don’t like than be forced to live by it.
Joel P. Engardio, an award-winning journalist, was the writer and narrator of "Knocking," a documentary about Jehovah’s Witnesses for the PBS series Independent Lens.
