Talk:Jehovah's Witnesses publications for evangelizing

Proselytizing?

Two suggestions/questions. 1. Should this article be renamed?
To elaborate... Jehovah's Witnesses do not describe their disciple-making as "proselytizing" because the term has come to be associated with sometimes-illegal coerced conversion rather than with informed voluntary conversion.

Note this reference to JW thought:

"All True Christians Are Evangelizers", The Watchtower, January 1, 2002, subheading "Proselytize or Evangelize?", page 11-12, "The Greek language has the word pro·se’ly·tos, which means a “convert.” From this has come the English word “proselytism,” which basically means “the act of making converts.” Nowadays, some say that proselytism is harmful. A document published by the World Council of Churches even speaks of “the sin of proselytism.” Why? The Catholic World Report states: “Under the steady hammering of Orthodox complaints, ‘proselytism’ has taken on the connotation of forcible conversion.” Is proselytism harmful? It can be. ...Are conversions forced today? In a sense, some are. Certain missionaries of Christendom reportedly offer overseas scholarships to potential converts. Or they may make a starving refugee sit through a sermon in order to obtain a ration of food. According to a statement issued in 1992 by a convention of Orthodox Primates, “proselytism sometimes occurs through material enticement and sometimes by various forms of violence.” Pressuring people to change their religion is wrong. Certainly, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not act in such a way. Hence, they do not proselytize in the modern meaning of the word."

Note this reference to laws prohibiting proselytism:

"European High Court Upholds Right to Preach in Greece", The Watchtower, September 1, 1993, page 28-29, "The Greek Constitution (1975), Article 13, states: “Proselytism is prohibited.” Consider further the Greek law, section 4, numbers 1363/1938 and 1672/1939, which makes proselytism a criminal offense. It says: “By ‘proselytism’ is meant, in particular, any direct or indirect attempt to intrude on the religious beliefs of a person of a different religious persuasion . . . , with the aim of undermining those beliefs, either by any kind of inducement or promise of an inducement or moral support or material assistance, or by fraudulent means" [ellipsis retained]

Furthermore, "proselytize" can connote either disciple-making (the results-oriented and most-literal meaning of the term) or it can connote merely public preaching without regard for whether any converts are made.

This article in particular seems to have become focused on JW publications for disciple-making, perhaps more encyclopedically stated as JW publications for potential baptizands [baptismal candidates]. It seems right to separate these particular publications (and this article) from those publications typically used only to canvass (preach publicly), address a specific issue, or for personal and congregation study; the latter may be printed in less than ten million copies each. In the current article Jehovah's Witnesses publications for proselytizing, each of the discussed disciple-making publications has generally had significantly higher visibility (each in tens of millions of copies) compared to their other publications. At any given time, JWs only name one primary study aid which they recommend to educate a student sufficiently for baptism.

The most prevalent use of the word "proselytize" refers to making converts, not merely public preaching (see {{wikt:proselytize}}). The article about laws prohibiting proselytism is in regard to Greek prohibition of the form of proselytizing that JWs perform, not about whether the method JWs use can be called proselytism. The JW preference to avoid the word 'proselytize' is not the determining factor for naming the article, and I didn't consider the term to be negative. However, after reviewing Template:Evangelize, I agree with renaming it to 'evangelizing' instead; (the terms 'evangelizing' and 'proselytizing' both seem more common than 'disciple-making').--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion/question 2. To keep this JW publications for potential baptizands material separate from their dozens of other publications, should this article explicitly refer to a new separate article with JW publications for public preaching [that is, preaching in public]?

I have a feeling that the notability of even these publications will be disputed (which has already begun with the rapid tagging), as reliable third-party sources vouching for their notability seem somewhat lacking. Therefore, I don't think their other publications for preaching would be notable enough for an article on their own.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)