OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 October 1940, Page 8

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES (To the Editor) Sir,—ls it right to compel people to salute a flag? Jehovah’s witnesses take the stand that if anyone desires to salute a flag, that is his privilege, and no one has a right to say he shall not salute it. But to compel persons in a covenant with God to salute a flag or any other image is wrong. For the Christian to salute a flag is in direct violation of God's specific commandment at Exodus 20:3-5. Would the refusal of a true Christian to salute a flag be disloyalty to the nation wherein he lives? No, not by any means. There are no people on earth that are as truly loyal as those who bcl'eve in God and Christ Jesus and who serve the Most High. Such persons obey the laws of the land because they want to do right, but the State or nation has no right to make a law compelling the covenant Christian to disobey God’s law. So far as this country is concerned, it is generally conceded that no man shall be compelled to violate his conscience in things pertaining to the worship of Almighty God. Some Israelites domiciled in Babylon refused to perform an act of worship of a national emblem erected by the King. .(See Daniel, Chapter 3). Not even the sentence of death caused them to deviate from their stand. They were delivered by Divine intervention and recognising afterwards that their course of action was not due to disloyalty, the king gave each of them a position of trust in the government. Jehovah’s witnesses take their stand upon the same principles as did those Israelites in Babylon. It should not be forgotten that many of Jehovah’s witnesses are in German and Italian concentration camps for refusing to salute the Fascist and Nazi flags. They are not refusing this ceremony because they are disloyal to the country, but because their first loyalty comes to Jehovah God.

Surely it is far more important to teach the principles for which the flag stands than to compel an outward recognition. One is not compelled to kiss one’s wife or children. One kisses them out of love. The same unforced and spontaneous love of the principles for which the flag stands, should be inculcated in the minds of the children. Compulsory saluting breeds hypocrisy. It is the cover under which those who intend real injury to the country are sure to hide. The innuendo contained in a resolution by the Timaru South Education Committee concerning the distribution of certain circulars is grossly unfair to Jehovah’s witnesses and wholly unworthy of a public body. Let it be known that Jehovah's witnesses are neither pacifists nor disloyalists. Whenever they have anything to say to the people they are neither afraid nor ashamed to put their names to their writings.—Yours, etc., J. N COCHRANE. Masterton, October 23.