Analysis Finds Jehovah’s Witnesses Have Lowest U.S. Retention Rate but Still Gain Members

Jehovah’s Witnesses trace their origins to the Bible Student Movement of the 1870s, which grew out of the independent Bible study of Charles Taze Russell. According to the Priceonomics article, Russell and his associates reached novel interpretations of the Bible and published them in periodicals including Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ Magazine. The church’s Governing Body, a group of seven men based in Brooklyn, is responsible for refining its interpretation of the Bible. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, formed in 1884 to distribute the movement’s tracts and Bibles, is still overseen by the Governing Body.

The article describes the group’s teachings and practices as follows. Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood transfusions and believe that Armageddon will occur within the lifetimes of people now living. They abstain from holidays with what the group regards as “pagan origins,” including Easter, Christmas and birthdays.

The article says evangelism is what most distinguishes the group in American society. All baptized members are considered “ordained ministers” and termed “publishers,” and they are expected to preach to the best of their ability, often going door to door. Unlike many other Christian denominations, publishers are required to report their preaching efforts to a central organization. A baptized member who fails to submit monthly reports is termed “irregular” and investigated by the community elders. After six consecutive months without a report, a publisher is termed “inactive.” Extreme breaches of conduct can result in disfellowshipping, which the article describes as banning from the community (Proverbs 11:1). The church tracks “active” publishers as its main membership statistic.

The article compares this membership model with other American religious groups. It notes that many people who identify with Catholicism, mainline Protestantism, Judaism and Buddhism attend religious services rarely or never, and that those faiths allow informal affiliation with little measurable engagement. Jehovah’s Witnesses, by contrast, track who is in and who is out, and they do not practice infant baptism, the article says, because baptism is for those already considered disciples of Christ.

Citing Pew Research Center surveys, the article says the United States has a “very competitive marketplace” in which every major religious group is both gaining and losing adherents. It reports that 63% of Americans raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses say they are no longer Jehovah’s Witnesses, the lowest retention rate among the groups it examines. It also notes that 44% of adult Americans have changed their religious affiliation and that the unaffiliated have grown the most. By the article’s reading of Pew’s analysis, Protestantism, Catholicism and Mormonism have more people leaving than joining, while Jehovah’s Witnesses are net-positive and are, in the article’s words, the largest Christian group gaining American membership.

The article estimates that Jehovah’s Witnesses gain about 30,000 members a year through baptism, some of them children of Witness families and others converts. It cites more than one million ministers in America, whom it describes as active recruiters. Using a simplified viral-growth model, the article notes that the group’s conversion rate is small, at around 3 baptisms a year for every 100 publishers. It cites JWFacts.com, whose statistics the article says match the annual Watch Tower reports, for the number of active publishers in 2002. According to this model, the steady stream of converts allows the group to keep growing, even though its recruitment efforts contribute to its attrition.

Source: Read the original report