Joining the 'scarlet beast' as an NGO, 1992

Unrefuted

No good counter-argument has been published by the Watchtower.

What they teach about the United Nations

They read the UN as the scarlet wild beast of Revelation 17. They call it the disgusting thing.

For decades they attacked other churches for backing it. The Catholic Church took the brunt.

That backing was called spiritual fornication. Awake!

of September 8, 1991 (pp. 8-10) made the charge.

What they did months later

In February 1992 the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York signed up with the UN. It joined the Department of Public Information as an NGO.

It renewed every year for nearly a decade. The Guardian exposed it on October 8, 2001.

The Society asked to end the tie within days.

The reason they gave

They told branch offices it was only about a library card. They needed UN research material.

They said they pulled out once they learned the rules had changed.

What the UN says about that

The UN put its reply in writing. Paul Hoeffel, Chief of the NGO Section, wrote it on March 4, 2004.

The letter sits on un.org. To join, a group needed "the commitment and means to conduct effective information programmes about UN activities." Members were expected to back the aims of the UN Charter.

Their answer, at full strength

Signing up with that office is not joining the UN. It endorses no politics.

Thousands of church bodies do it for access. The Society says it signed nothing about the Charter in 1991.

It says it left as soon as it saw what the tie meant. And Awake!

did report on UN work, which could meet the rule without agreeing with a thing.

What to say

"Your magazines call the UN the beast of Revelation 17. Why was the Society registered with it for nine years?"

The United Nations General Assembly hall in New York, the body the Society joined as an NGO

Dürer's Whore of Babylon, 1498, one artist's reading of the scarlet beast of Revelation 17

Dürer's Whore of Babylon, 1498, riding the scarlet beast described in Revelation 17

How they answer this — at its strongest

Signing up was not joining the UN, and thousands of church bodies did the same.

The steelman runs like this. Signing up with that office is not joining the UN. It endorses no politics. Thousands of church bodies do it to get access.

The Society says it registered to use the UN library, since its magazines report on world events. It says it signed nothing about the Charter in 1991. And it says it left as soon as it grasped what the tie implied. Awake! did publish articles about UN work. That could meet the rule about information programmes without agreeing with anything.

The verdict

Strong for you. The UN's own letter answers the library-card story.

The sign-up, its length, and the exit on the day of exposure are all documented by the UN.

The library-card defense meets the UN's own letter. That letter says a member had to commit to running UN information programmes. It is a primary source, and it sits on un.org.

This is not graded admitted, because the Society still stands by its account. It is unrefuted, because that account has never engaged the Hoeffel letter. The force of the case is internal. Judged by their own rule for other faiths, they did the very thing they call spiritual fornication.

Open this case in the full study tool →