ABSTRACT
The religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses practices nonviolence and neutrality in political and military affairs. During the Nazi Genocide and the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, holding to this apolitical stand of conscience exposed the Witness community to extreme danger. Though a minority, the Witnesses’ ethical choices constitute a significant case study in faith-based, nonviolent resistance to genocide. Neither genocidal regime sought the physical extermination of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a group. Yet state authorities viewed the Witnesses’ conscientious objection as an obstruction. The testimony of non-Witness observers indicates that Witnesses consistently rejected ethnic violence and behaved altruistically during the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Their evangelizing constituted expressions of resistance and altruism, evidence that the group retained its core identity despite intense coercion. This chapter discusses why scholars see the Witnesses’ response to genocide as historically distinct among Christian religions. A final reflection isolates principles that have facilitated forgiveness and reconciliation in the Rwandan Witness community.
