One of the smallest faiths in the U.S., known for
its conservative values and talking about the end of days, could gain a massive
fortune after the death of one of its most prominent members.
There are only about 8.2 million active Jehovah’s
Witnesses, in a little more than 118,000 congregations around the world, and
the church spent $236 million in 2015, according to the 2016 Yearbook of
Jehovah’s Witnesses, which annually chronicles the organization’s activities.
The church has no paid clergy, and its website touts a modest lifestyle — most
of the money was spent on caring for leaders, missionaries and traveling
overseers around the world.
No matter what happens with Prince’s estate, the
Jehovah’s Witnesses are poised to acquire a significant fortune sooner rather
than later. The church plans to sell its property in the Brooklyn borough of
New York for as much as $1 billion as part of its plan to move its world
headquarters to Warwick, New York, the New York Times reported this year.
Church representatives declined to be interviewed for this article, but if the
group were to become a beneficiary of Prince’s estate, the money would be added
to the amount to be gained through the property sale and potentially change the
organization’s annual budget in a drastic way.
Prince joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2001.
After he died last week, many fans flagged the apparent contradiction between
his deeply held religious views and his frequently sexual music. On the one
hand, he was the man behind songs such as “Darling Nikki” and “Sexy MF” that
were overtly seductive; on the other hand, he reportedly had few known sexual
encounters in the years after he became a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The music icon gave up drugs, became a vegan and
famously told the New Yorker that God was against gay marriage. “God came to
earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he
just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’ ” he said. Prince later
claimed those words were taken out of context, but the Jehovah’s Witnesses do
not approve of same-sex marriage and also hold other conservative social
beliefs.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses were founded as the Zion’s
Watch Tower Tract Society by Charles Taze Russell in the 1870s. Over time,
Joseph Franklin Rutherford led the group to distinguish itself from other
organizations, and its members renamed themselves the Jehovah’s Witnesses in
1931. They believe secular society has been corrupted by Satan and that the end
of the world is imminent. While they worship Jesus as their savior and the son
of God, they do not believe in tenets such as the trinity held by adherents of
the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian religions. They also do not
celebrate birthdays, Christmas or Easter.
Jehovah’s Witnesses practice their religion in a
fairly simple manner. The organization holds its services, called meetings,
twice each week at local Kingdom Halls, according to the Jehovah’s Witnesses
website. These meetings are free, open to the public and function more like
Bible study sessions than traditional Christian services.
“Like any organization, they have a leadership and
a bureaucracy. They put out a magazine every month and an annual report,” said
Rodney Stark, co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor
University in Waco, Texas. The lack of clergy allows the Jehovah’s Witnesses to
avoid “professional issues” such as clerical salaries and congregation
assignments with which many religions have to deal, Stark said.
Stark studied Jehovah’s Witnesses for years and
said the members he met were very open to sharing information about their
religious activities and practices. Many who are unfamiliar with Jehovah’s
Witnesses have misconceptions about the religion, Stark said. Some have even
called it a cult, and its members have often faced persecution in other
countries.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are probably best known for
the religious missionaries who go door-to-door or stand in transit hubs
distributing literature about the Bible.
“I suppose the most unusual thing is that members
are expected to put in a certain number of hours going around and knocking on
doors,” Stark said. “You’re asked to do more than just go to church. ... But I
don’t suppose there’s any more pressure to leave your money to the church than
any other church.”
Prince not only attended regular meetings at the
Kingdom Hall of the St. Louis Park Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses near his
home in Minnesota but also was known to put in his hours knocking on doors. A
Jewish couple in Eden Prairie, Minnesota,
once said he showed up at their door in 2003 wanting to talk about his
religion.
“My first thought is, ‘Cool, cool, cool. He wants
to use my house as a set. I’m glad! Demolish the whole thing! Start over!’ ” a
woman who said her name was Rochelle told the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. But
then Prince began talking about the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
When Prince was at meetings, the Los Angeles Times
reported that other Jehovah’s Witnesses treated him like any other member, not
a celebrity. After his death last week, fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses remembered
him as “Brother Nelson,” a “mild spirit”who participated in their meetings but
never drew the spotlight to himself.
In keeping with their modest lifestyles, Jehovah’s
Witnesses do not pay dues or tithes, although there are boxes in Kingdom Halls
where people can make voluntary contributions. “Any donations that are
forwarded to the branch offices of Jehovah’s Witnesses are used to relieve
victims of natural disasters, to support our missionaries and traveling
ministers, to help construct our houses of worship in developing countries, and
to print and ship Bibles and other Christian publications,” the Jehovah’s
Witnesses website says.
Some Jehovah’s Witnesses travel to foreign
countries to spread the word about their religion, in addition to knocking on
doors or soliciting in public places closer to home. But Stark said the number
of these traveling ministers has likely gone down in recent years as the faith
has taken root in countries around the world. Once Jehovah’s Witnesses are
established in a location, they rely on locals to spread the religion, cutting
the cost the central organization needs to bear in supporting people sent
there.
Jehovah’s Witnesses also keep costs down by using
simple houses of worship. Their Kingdom Halls are typically small buildings
without much decoration, unlike Catholic cathedrals or Mormon tabernacles.
While planning to sell its Brooklyn headquarters, the organization is also in
the process of building its new world headquarters in upstate New York.
Other expenses are related to the regional and
national conventions the Jehovah’s Witnesses hold each year, and their
expansion of Jehovah’s Witnesses Broadcasting, a streaming and video on demand
service that provides family-friendly programs, including music, dramatic
productions and Bible readings. If the Jehovah’s Witnesses were to get a piece
of Prince’s estate, the money would help the church with these expenses.
Despite some of the contrasting elements in
Prince’s music and his religion, other values appear to have been an obvious
match. For example, the Jehovah’s Witnesses list “unity” as one of their main
beliefs.
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