Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 20, 1993 TAG: 9306200055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As 8,000 people dressed in their Sunday best looked on, the two children spoke into the microphone about what being a Jehovah's Witness meant to them.
In a strong, clear, unafraid voice, 10-year-old Casey Carwile declared it was "enjoyable" to study about Jehovah - the name Witnesses insist should always be used for the supreme deity - and to prepare the speeches he makes to strangers he hopes to convert to the faith.
Witnesses, including their children, consider it a sacred obligation to go door-to-door, sharing "the Truth" with others.
So, despite his youth, Casey is no stranger to speaking up and seemed totally uninhibited by the crowd in the Roanoke Civic Center.
He and his 8-year-old sister, Ginger, participated in Thursday's opening day activities for the annual District Convention of Jehovah's Witnesses.
They were the third-generation representatives in the model family of George and Ann Davis of Blacksburg.
The Davises have three grown children, all faithful Witnesses. Their two daughters married Witnesses, and their two grandchildren are being raised as Witnesses.
Steven J. Waller of the Radford congregation, who presented the Davis family, acknowledged that while everyone in the coliseum enjoyed hearing about such families, "it is difficult to achieve such results."
It takes "a lot of hard work, a lot of prayer" and a strict adherence to Witness principles on family life, he said.
Not everything was perfect growing up, the Davis children acknowledged. There had been illnesses, there was sometimes a vacuum - that their parents always tried to fill - when they didn't celebrate holidays that others did, and "one dear uncle was disfellowshiped" - excommunicated from the organization and shunned by family and others who had once worshiped with him. The uncle since has been reinstated to full fellowship.
Overall, however, the Davis family presented a rosy picture of life as Jehovah's Witnesses - a model to which the other families here could aspire.
Across the nation, 1.5 million people will attend Jehovah's Witnesses district conventions this summer. Each will have identical programs - the speakers vary from place to place, but the topic titles don't.
The year's theme - "Divine Teaching" - is selected by the Governing Body in New York. The topic of each speaker is selected for him - women are not allowed to teach in congregations or district conventions - as well as the time of each address, the hymns that are sung and the placement of prayers.
Speaker James Wengert stressed that unanimity of belief and expression is fundamental to Witnesses' faith. The teaching in local assemblies, multi-assembly circuits and district conferences is all "divine teaching," he said.
"We alone, of all the people on the Earth, enjoy" the fulfilled teaching of Jehovah, he said.
Those attending the convention were advised to alter their thinking if they heard something different from what they thought they knew. "We should all keep in step . . . with the faithful counsel of the `faithful slave,' " a reference to the faith's 12-man Governing Body.
Participants should be prepared to learn "new refinements of truth," said Wengert, who works at the organization's New York headquarters.
Wengert gave the opening address Thursday in what is the second weekend of District Conventions being held in Roanoke.
Approximately 16,000 witnesses from Western Virginia, eastern West Virginia and North Carolina have participated in the conventions.
Every Witness is encouraged to attend the sessions, which are open to the public, Donnie Hudgins said.
Hudgins, an elder in the Daleville assembly of Jehovah's Witnesses, has been an organizer and spokesman for the Roanoke conventions.
The number of Witnesses has been growing consistently - some would say explosively - over the past two decades.
That has been particularly noticeable in the Third World and in the former Soviet and Eastern Bloc nations, but growth also has been steady in the United States - where the religion was founded 109 years ago.
Hudgins' congregation has gone from 25 to 130 members in the past 15 years, he said. At least 11 congregations in the Roanoke Valley area are planning new buildings or additions to accommodate growth, he said.
Some outside observers credit much of that growth to the Witnesses' intensive proselytizing approach and a growing interest in "end times" as the year 2000 approaches.
Though Witnesses no longer predict a date for the final battle of Armageddon and the beginning of Christ's reign over Earth, they do believe that is imminent.
The centrality of teachings about the coming reign of Jesus influences much of the distinctive doctrines of Witnesses.
Drawing extensively from the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation, Witness leaders made elaborate calculations regarding the return of Jesus and the transformation of Earth into a paradise.
Witness doctrine teaches that Christ invisibly returned to the heavens above the Earth in 1914 and was installed as king by Jehovah. They believe Satan will be cast out from the Earth, and Jesus' reign will begin before all those who were alive in 1914 have died.
Consequently, the end of the Earth must be near, they teach.
Though critics, particularly ex-Witnesses, charge that predictions have been shifted through the years as prophecies about specific dates were proven false - Witnesses continue to focus on the coming Paradise.
That extends to refusing to allow their children to get advanced educations because of the nearness of Christ's reign, the critics say.
Hudgins acknowledged that Witnesses' children are discouraged from seeking higher education, particularly away from home. He said the primary reason was to avoid the potentially negative influences the children could face, not because of the end-times emphasis of their doctrine.
His own son is studying drafting in public school and may go to a nearby college, but he probably will not go away to school, Hudgins said.
Witnesses adhere strictly to what they consider biblical teaching in dealing with their children, as well as what they consider appropriate roles for men and women. Those can be adjusted by new revelation through the General Body, however.
In 1972, the body announced that Witness congregations were to be governed by elders, based on the biblical model. No specific congregational leader of that type had been allowed before.
Women's roles also are defined along what the Witnesses consider strictly biblical lines. Women are not allowed to teach or assume any leadership positions in congregations.
They are considered ministers - as are all baptized members - a role fulfilled primarily as door-to-door proselytizers, considered one of the faith's highest callings.
by CNB