Introduction

This website is about religious movements. This is the English section which focuses on some topics that relate to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is part of the larger Dutch site “Cults: Sense and Nonsense”. The title includes 'cults', simply because everyone is familiar with this term. Nevertheless, I prefer to use "religious movements" because it is less value-loaded. And since I attempt to describe and analyse these groups from a scientific perspective, my objective is to be as detached and neutral as possible. This means I will not express an opinion about ideology and theology of these movements. That's for the reader to decide. Besides, everybody has an opinion about religious teachings so you don't need mine.

I am a social anthropologist. That means I'm supposed to study exotic tribes. Some of the tribes I study are around the corner from where I live, a large city in Holland. Admittedly, they are not as outlandish as, say, Greenland’s Inuit or Namibia’s Bushmen but I think many religious movements can be considered tribes embedded within western society. They have their distinctive habits, customs and rules. Religious beliefs and practices separate them from the larger society and neighbouring tribes. Though some members may participate in the larger society, others prefer to seclude themselves. But whatever the degree of isolation, there is always a barrier between the movement and outsiders.

Like my colleagues, and as I stated above, do not expect me to say this is 'good' or 'bad' tribe. Sure, I have my personal opinions, but that's exactly what they are: personal and not relevant for my work.

Since I'm Dutch, most of my writings are in Dutch. So if you read Dutch, be my guest and have a look at my homepage. My focus is on Jehovah's Witnesses. I did some more pieces in English which can be found on Rado's website. This part of my site includes texts on Jehovah's Witnesses and Nazism and Communism, as well as the most recent statistics on the Watchtower Society. If have questions and/or comments, do not hesitate to click the contact button.

Richard Singelenberg