Do Jehovah’s Witnesses Beg for Donations?

In 1879, the second issue of The Watchtower, then called Zion’s Watch Tower, stated, “we believe JEHOVAH for its backer, and while this is the case it will never beg nor petition men for support”. Has the Jehovah’s Witnesses church wavered from that policy? Let’s look at the evidence.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word beg is a verb meaning “to ask for as a charity”, “to ask earnestly for”, “to require as necessary or appropriate”. And the word petition can also be a verb meaning “to make a request to (someone)”. Have the Jehovah’s Witnesses ever asked earnestly for money from its members?

Yes. They have. And they do.

Up until November 2018, Jehovah’s Witnesses had an article at the end of The Watchtower magazine requesting readers to “give to Jehovah”. While the article does not come out and say, “Please give to Jehovah”, it would quote scriptures such as those found in Acts 20:35, Proverbs 3:9 and 1 Corinthians 16:2 to encourage readers to donate. They would include different avenues to donate including providing donations via credit card, bank transfers, conditional donations, and charitable planning which includes putting the Watch Tower in donor’s wills. Are readers really donating to Jehovah, or to the Watch Tower corporation?

You can read some articles in The Watchtower coercing readers to donate here: November 2018 | November 2017 | November 2016 | November 2015

These articles are clear examples of Jehovah’s Witnesses coercing readers to donate to the Watch Tower corporation in the guise that they are giving their money to God.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have ceased including a begging article in the November edition of The Watchtower. Instead, they have found more innovative ways to beg for money. One method is to include having a quick link in the footer of the jw.org website entitled Donations. Another way, is to include a video tutorial on how to make donations electronically. They also have a series of articles entitled, How Your Donations Are Used. These articles give an air of transparency with regards to donated funds. However, they never specify how much money is donated each month or year; how much of the donated money is used for each of the activities listed; where excess funds are channelled, and no mention is made about how much is used to fund and settle court cases.

From the time that Governing Body member, M. Stephen Lett, made a video in May 2015 (see opening video on this article and also below) where he begged for money from his listeners while claiming that he was not begging for money, there have been more and more videos on jw.org requesting donations. And no person is exempt from their petitions, not even young children.