George Chryssides’ Jehovah’s Witnesses is a master class in religious ethnography or the study of lived religion. Long-term, emic engagement along with copious primary source research weight this introduction with the heft of authority. An “introduction” is perhaps a misnomer as this volume details both idiosyncratic and nearly universal Witness practice and belief, historical and contemporary. Chryssides’ reflexivity and self-consciousness adds to the readability of the volume; his sympathy towards his subject walks the line between situated objectivity to apologia without crossing it.
Chapters 1 and 2 discuss researching Jehovah’s Witnesses and give a concise historical background to the movement, beginning with its origins as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Chryssides provides a review of the literature, both scholarly and lay, critical and primary. He also offers an account of his own interaction with the group and how it became a central focus of his own research. Chapters...
University of California Press