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DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/17/2003 8:35 AM (GMT -6)

Prince (yeah, the purple one) is a JW going door to door!

Read it here!
http://news.independent.co.uk/world...sp?story=453825

Prince turns doorstep preacher for Jehovah
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
16 October 2003

It's weird enough to think of Prince, the epitome of 1980s funky cool, as a Jehovah's Witness. Weirder still, though, to have him doorstep you and then proselytise.

That was what happened to a Minnesota woman, identifying herself as Rochelle. As she recounted to the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Door bell rings. My husband runs upstairs and says, 'Prince is at the door!' I said, 'No way.'" The diminutive pop star introduced himself as Prince Nelson, his real name, and, she said, launched into the standard "Jesus-loves-you" routine.

Unfortunately for him, Rochelle and her husband are Jewish and this was the night of Yom Kippur. She told Prince and his companion: "You've walked into a Jewish household. This is not something I'm interested in." But Prince was undeterred, staying for about 25 minutes and leaving a pamphlet.

Prince announced his conversion to the Jehovah's Witnesses two years ago. He subsequently released an album, The Rainbow Children, with overt sermonising.

Rochelle told her interviewer she didn't dislike her encounter with him. "There's no reason to slam him," she said. "He didn't do anything wrong; he was very kind."

Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes."

Tigress
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252

Posted 10/17/2003 8:57 AM (GMT -6)

I saw Prince on Jay Leno a few months ago and the song he sang did sound more religious in content than ever before. I had almost wondered if he became a Christian. It's too bad he didn't.

I have a cousin and her husband who are Jehovah's Witnesses and my aunt and other cousin tried to talk her out of it till they were blue in the face. They said that it's really difficult to talk with them because they don't betray any reaction. They just speak calmly and don't show any doubt in what they believe when you present evidence to the contrary.

Actually, we Christians could learn a lot from that method of witnessing. Too often we get all pushy and in a huff trying to persuade people so that we come across as dictators spewing propaganda. I wish I had the self-control to not throw a fit at people who counter my Christianity in conversation.

Tigress

"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."

-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 10/17/2003 9:13 AM (GMT -6)

One of the missionaries in Japan whom we support had a sideline ministry for a while that was rescuing Japanese from the JWs. He and others got so good at it that the JWs threatened him with lawsuits but the publicity has given the JWs a bad image in Japan and their numbers are declining now.

inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/17/2003 10:24 AM (GMT -6)

JWs, like so many other cults, prey on the spiritually weak.

Here in MX, I see the mormons relatively often around and, of course, I bumped into some mormons when I was vacationing in Italy several years ago.

dlw

Tigress
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252

Posted 10/17/2003 11:23 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by Laika

One of the missionaries in Japan whom we support had a sideline ministry for a while that was rescuing Japanese from the JWs. He and others got so good at it that the JWs threatened him with lawsuits but the publicity has given the JWs a bad image in Japan and their numbers are declining now.

How could they sue him for doing exactly what they do?! If they can proselytize, so can he!

Tigress

"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."

-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 10/17/2003 11:34 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
How could they sue him for doing exactly what they do?! If they can proselytize, so can he!

Families would come to him to perform "interventions". Once JWs get you, they get you alienated from your family and friends so you stay in their cult. "Interventions" are a bit controversial. But there's quite a few Japanese Christians now due to that ministry.

arigatou kamisama!

inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/21/2003 5:21 AM (GMT -6)

taken from Theo-Web.

Jewish-Australian comedian John Saffran last year dressed up as Prince on TV and went round doing a disco style sermon on the steps of peoples houses before handing out a pamphlet. I like to imagine he got the same looks that the real purple one is recieving right now in America.

Perhaps some song rewrites are in order:

From For You (1978):

"I wanna be your Witness"
"Why you wanna close the door in my face?"
"When we're reading Watchtower close and slow"
"Still waiting (on your porch)"

From Purple Rain (1984):

"When doors close"
"Baby I'm a Witness"

From Black Album (1994):

"SuperJehovahcalifragiswitness"
"Rock hard in your doorway"

From Chaos and Disorder (1996):

"Dinner with Charles Taze Russell"
"Onto the porch"

The possibilities are endless...

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 10/23/2003 5:16 AM (GMT -6)

A friend of mine was commissioned to do a documentary by Prince. It was (or still is?) going to consist of interviews with people, showing how relativistic and corrupt the world has become. And, as I recall, it was going to be interspersed with some of his newer songs. Once in the project, Prince began to mildly "witness" to him. My friend is a pretty informed Christian and began to 'witness' back. Prince then wanted to set up a meeting with my friend and the guy who led Prince into the JW's (its the bass player in his band -- who used to be the way-slamming bass player for Sly and the Family Stone). My friend asked if he also could bring along a friend, and Prince agreed. He asked me to join him. A date was set. I was really looking forward to it.

The day came -- I actually drove out to Prince's studio -- but Prince cancelled the meeting. He had apparently gotten wind that I was a pastor/professor and didn't think the conversation would be beneficial.

My friend was fired from the project soon afterwards.

Prince told him he couldn't work with him if they didn't see "eye to eye" on matters.

Such is life.

I really would have loved that meeting!

Doc

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/23/2003 6:23 AM (GMT -6)

I think your friend could have threatened to sue Prince for religious discrimination...

That way he may have been able to keep his job.

dlw

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