Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses are members of an international denomination who identify themselves as Christian and number over six million. Their headquarters are in New York, USA. It is an international organization known for its extensive preaching and publishing activities, distribution of the Watchtower and Awake! religious magazines being the most prominent.

Membership

As of August 2004, Jehovah's Witnesses have a practicing membership of more than 6.5 million individuals. According to data reported in the Annual Worldwide Statistics at the Authorized Site of the Office of Public Information of Jehovah's Witnesses: "While other religious groups count their membership by occasional or annual attendance, this figure reflects only those who are actively involved in the public Bible educational work."

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This statistic is based on the number of "active members". To be classed as an active member (or publisher), an individual who has first been approved as a publisher must serve at least one hour a month in the preaching work, or 15 minutes a month for elderly members, or those that are otherwise physically restricted. Figures for time spent per month is self-reported by the publisher and submitted monthly to the Society. In 2004 these reports totalled 1.3 billion hours.

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In the United States, an academic study at CUNY based on a telephone survey (American Religious Identification Survey) was conducted in 2001 and estimated there to be 1.331 million adults in the U.S. who self-identify as Jehovah's Witnesses (2001){{ref|USCensus}}. Jehovah's Witnesses report over 1 million active publishers in the United States, but as this includes minors it is not directly comparable to the ARIS numbers. In 1990, a larger but less detailed telephone survey based study (NSRI) at CUNY reported 1.38 million adults in the U.S. who self-identified as Jehovah's Witnesses. While this might indicate a slow decline in U.S. identification with the group, the growth in active U.S. publishers over this period makes this seem unlikely. ARIS notes that the survey did not cover non-English speakers and that small groups with a high proportion of recent immigrant members were likely undercounted. Announced U.S. Witness convention schedules for 2005 include 75 non-English conventions of 227 total.

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Jehovah's Witnesses have a small active presence in most countries and are the second or third largest religious group in many countries with a dominant religion. In no country are they a large part of the population, however. Brazil and Mexico are the only countries other than the U.S. where the number of active Witness publishers exceeds 0.5 million. The highest proportion of Witnesses in a country of substantial size is in Zambia, where 1% of the population are active Witness publishers. Growth in most developed countries is slow or negative in recent years but is offset by rapid growth in less developed lands, particularly the former Communist bloc and Latin America.

Related Topics:
Brazil - Mexico

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Jehovah's Witnesses commemorate the Memorial of Christ's death (also known as the Lord's Evening Meal) annually. Worldwide attendance at the 2004 celebration of the Memorial was 16,760,607. This figure includes not only publishers, but inactive members, relatives, visitors, and interested persons. In the U.S., 2.3 million people were present. In Zambia over 570 thousand attended or 1 person for every 22 in the population. In addition, of the approximately 17 million in attendance, only 8,570 persons partook of the memorial emblems of the unleavened bread and wine. These are those who profess they are anointed ones as expressed in Revelation 14:1.{{ref|JWStats_MP}}

Related Topics:
Memorial of Christ's death - Lord's Evening Meal - 2004 - Anointed ones

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