Have You Reserved Your Copy of Awake!?

In case you hadn’t heard, the upcoming issue of Awake!, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ other magazine (the one named after an Assemblage 23 song instead of a Jimi Hendrix song) has a cover story about the “new” atheism, called Atheists on A Crusade. You should turn off your irony-meters before reading the first two sentences:

A new group of atheists has arisen in society. Called the new atheists, they are not content to keep their views to themselves.

Since there’s a JW Kingdom Hall on my way home (right next to the Solid Rock Church, built out of wood), I stopped by to see what their opening hours were. Turns out that there was a service in progress. An usher or someone was helping direct traffic in the parking lot, so I asked him if I could pick up a copy of the November issue. He went to check, then came back and said that it’d be out in a couple of weeks. He took my information and promised that it’d be hand-delivered. I’m guessing they don’t get a lot of people who actually want their literature.

He asked me why I was interested, and I told him I’d seen the cover story on the Net, and wanted to read it. I confess that I didn’t tell him that I’m one of those pesky “new” atheists.

I wonder if they’ll recognize my house when they come to deliver it.