“He Made Out of One Man Every Nation”
PRIEST John A. O’Brien wrote about Jehovah’s witnesses in the national Catholic Action weekly Our Sunday Visitor, May 20, 1956. To show that the witnesses as a group were unattractive and undesirable, priest O’Brien said that basically their numbers were made up of poor persons, relief cases, workingmen and the mentally and economically underprivileged. Pursuing this argument, O’Brien then added:
“According to the Christian Century for July, 1955, every fifth witness is colored. The masses of newly transplanted Puerto Ricans of New York and the Mexicans of California and the Southwest have contributed substantial numbers to the sect’s membership. Indeed, the organization is making some of its most sizeable gains in backward countries where illiteracy abounds.”
Primarily the “backward countries where illiteracy abounds” are Catholic countries where the Catholic Church wields great power and controls the educational facilities. When Jehovah’s witnesses preach there they teach the people to read and write and study the Bible. Then these people start moving forward. They learn from the Bible that the Catholic Church has not taught them the truths of God’s Word. They become Jehovah’s witnesses.
Many of them may be colored or Puerto Ricans or Mexicans, but that does not make them undesirable in the eyes of Jehovah’s witnesses. Jehovah God calls them desirable, when foretelling the time that they would start coming into his organization, coming in from all nations and races: “And I will shake all nations, and the desirable things of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.” Their numbers swell the volume of the voices that sing Jehovah’s praises and fill the earth with words extolling his glory.—Hag. 2:7, English Revised Version.
These peoples may not seem desirable to the proud religions of orthodox Christendom, but they are to true Christianity, and the Bible foretold that the majority of true Christians would be drawn from the lowly rather than from the lofty: “For you behold his calling of you, brothers, that not many wise in a fleshly way were called, not many powerful, not many noble; but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put the wise men to shame, and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put the strong things to shame; and God chose the ignoble things of the world and the things looked down upon, the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are, in order that no flesh might boast in the sight of God.”—1 Cor. 1:26-29, NW.
Jehovah’s witnesses do not believe in prejudice or discrimination or segregation because of race or color. Where communities are democratic enough to allow it, Jehovah’s witnesses of different races and colors meet together in one congregation. Colored persons, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, along with all other races and colors, are in the bride of Christ and are in heaven with God. They are not segregated in heaven; they should not be on earth. But there are many things on earth that should not be. These evils will be erased from earth at Jehovah’s war called Armageddon and they will not exist in his New World of righteousness. Jehovah’s witnesses cannot convert the world, do not try to, but await God’s destruction of it. Only in the new world that follows will prejudice and discrimination and segregation completely end.
It is the good news of this incoming new world that Jehovah’s witnesses preach. When they come to your door with this message, do you listen? Do you welcome them into your home for a Bible discussion? If you are a Catholic you certainly should, according to priest O’Brien. He says it is the Catholic’s duty to do so:
“The simple, untutored sincere members who constitute the rank and file of the witnesses are hungering for food and are being fed husks. Their zeal is worthy of a better cause. We must welcome them into our homes, let them quote their dozen memorized texts, then show them from the Scriptures the blinding evidence of the divinity of Christ, the establishment of His Church on earth, His bestowal of authority upon it to teach all mankind and His promise to be with it all days ‘even unto the consummation of the world.’ No matter how pestiferous and cantankerous the misguided witnesses may be, they are the children for whom Christ died and whom He loves and wishes to have in His fold. They are our brothers, and we must love them, be patient with them, pray for them and help lead them to Christ.”
Jehovah’s witnesses hope that the Catholic people heed this advice. The witnesses will consider it a privilege to enter the homes of Catholics and present their message and also to listen to the Bible evidence that Catholics wish to present to them. It is by such discussions that truth is learned and that Jehovah gathers into his fold all persons of good will toward him, regardless of nation, race, language or color. All men seeking God are equal and desirable in his sight and in the sight of his true people, because “he made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth.”—Acts 17:26, NW.