The More Things Change

Mark Honeychurch - 16 October 2023

I popped into the High Court last week to sit in on a court case where the Jehovah’s Witnesses are attempting to argue that they should be exempt from the current Royal Commission enquiry in Abuse in Care. Sara Passmore and I (we’re both NZ Skeptics committee members) visited for an hour, and we seem to have accidentally sat on the “wrong” side of the courtroom. Having sat down, we looked around and realised that our side of the room was mostly men in suits (including, I think, Alfred Ngaro - more on him in the article below), whereas the other side of the room was mainly women, including one with bright pink hair.

Although I was only able to listen to about an hour of the proceedings, during my lunch break, I came away with the distinct impression that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are probably not going to win. Which, to me, sounds like a good thing. In my opinion the JWs, like other churches, should be held to account for the abuses that have occurred within their ranks. It’s bad enough that abuse in care is a thing at all, and worse that historically it’s been occurring at quite high levels. But for churches, whose members claim to be in personal touch with the Creator of everything and to hold the moral high ground as a result of this personal connection, any abuse seems not only awful, but also evidence that, just maybe, these people are no better than the rest of humanity and don’t have a hotline to God after all. Being horrific is one thing, but being just as bad while loudly and publicly proclaiming that you’re better than everyone else is even worse.

In this week’s newsletter, I look into how well the also-rans did in this weekend’s elections, Bronwyn takes another peek at the skeptical history files, and I complete my story about the Work From Home scammers, where I try to make money from them. Oh, and the Ms. Information documentary about Siouxsie Wiles is seeing a general release, so you’ll be able to watch it in the cinema soon.