Jehovah's Witnesses in Colonial Mozambique

Pedro PINTO* Centro de Estudos Históricos, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Jehovah's Witnesses and Watchtower movements have been widely studied in south and central Africa, in particular in the former British and Belgian colonies.' This article analyses these religious movements in the former Por- tuguese colony of Mozambique up until 1974. The overwhelming majority of religious studies in Mozambique focused on the role of the Catholic Church and of several Protestant denominations. However, the Portuguese authorities spent a considerable amount of time and resources investigating movements such as those of the Jehovah's Wit- nesses and other similar movements, whose numbers of followers was quite insignificant. This paper attempts to understand the reasons for this phe- nomenon.2 Further, the paper intends to shed light on the policies regarding religious minorities in Mozambique, thus contributing to a more accurate understanding of the religious phenomena in this area. This paper uses the following nomenclature: the names `Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania' (WTBTS)' and Jehovah's Wit- nesses' are both used to refer to the official WTBTS organisation, with headquarters in Brooklyn (USA) and its branches in South Africa and Ma-

. I wish to thank Cristina Pedroso Ferreira, Andr6 Salgado de Matos and Eric Morier-Genoud for their comments and suggestions. 1 For interpretations of the Watchtower movements in South and Central Africa in recent historiography, see Ranger 1986, 14-19. 2 The paper draws on material located in various archives as well as interviews of Jehovah's Witnesses - see bibliography at the end of the paper for details. 3 The Watch Tower and Bible Tract Society (WTBTS) is the legal entity used by the Jehovah's Witnesses in the pursuit of their work of biblical teaching. It was founded by Charles Taze Russell in Pennsylvania (USA) in 1884. lawi. In contrast, the designation `Watchtower movements' is used to refer to independent groups drawing on personal interpretations of the religious literature produced by the WTBTS. These independent movements devel- oped during the first half of the twentieth century and were never officially recognised by the WTBTS. The Watchtower movements diverged from the orthodox position of the WTBTS, because they merged WTBTS teachings with other beliefs and because they lacked supervision by the official move- ment, mostly as a consequence of their geographical isolation.4

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society

During the 1870s, Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), member of the Con- gregational Church, organised a Bible study group in Allegheny, Pennsyl- vania (IJSA)5, with the purpose of re-establishing primitive Christianity such as that followed by Jesus and his disciples. The group became known as the Bible Students From 1879 onwards, Russell's writings were published in the magazine Ion Watch Tower and Herald of Christ Presence1 (from where the official name of the Society, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, was taken in 1881) and in Studies) in the Scriptures, a work consisting of six volumes setting out the main doctrinal guidelines of the movement (published be- tween 1886 and 1904). Russell and those associated with him spread the doctrine of redemption of mankind through Jesus Christ's sacrifice world- wide. By means of tours, assemblies, pamphlets and speeches published in hundreds of newspapers, they advocated a resolute belief in the Bible. Russell and his supporters exposed Christendom's teachings that lacked any biblical support, such as those on the immortality of the soul, trinity and hell, accusing organised religions of having twisted primitive Christianity. One of their most distinguishing traits was their millenarianism. According to calculations based on the Bible, they pointed to 1914 as the year that would mark the end of the 'seven times of the gentiles' (cf. Luke 21: 24; Dan. 4: 10-17), when Christ would assume full universal control. That pe- riod would be marked by worldwide havoc that would lead to the destruc-

4 The nomenclature is partly based on Cross 1972, 5-6 (I thank the author for his kind permis- sion to quote from his thesis). 5 Today Allegheny is part of the city of Pittsburgh. 6 In 1931 they adopted the name Jehovah's Witnesses. 7 Presently know as The Watchtower (A Sentinela, in Portuguese).