There is an old saying “Opportunity Only Knocks Once…If There Are Two Knocks It’s A Jehovah’s Witness”.

If you’ve already got the current Watchtower then there is no point heading to the international congress of Jehovah’s Witnesses at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium this weekend.

Bernd Gsell, a spokesman for Austrian Jehovah’s Witnesses, said yesterday (Monday) some 21,000 Austrians and 20,000 foreigners would attend the Thursday – Sunday event, including people from the USA, Japan, Finland, Sweden and Eastern European countries. Britain doesn’t seem to be sending enough to get a mention in dispatches.

Gsell said the congress would be held under the motto “Permanent Watch” with scrutiny of key Biblical texts about the apocalypse, which they have previously confidently predicted would occur in 1914, 1925 and 1975.

He said the studies of the passages would be “analytical and realistic” in expectation of a “Christian wait for the end of the world” rather than of a wait for disaster. Prophecies are now officially out of the window, which considering their track record is not such a bad idea.

There is a presentation this Sunday on the theme “how one can survive the end of the world,” Gsell said, adding that the “Welcome Pack” would contain a tinfoil hat and four tins of baked beans. This is, of course, pointless, as the names of the 144,000 souls who will be saved are already written. Everyone who isn’t feeling lucky is therefore free to rape, murder and pillage without fear of the consequences (unless you count 30 years in a cell with a 6’7″ bloke who will only let you call him ‘Mummy‘).

He said the highpoint of the congress would be the public baptism of 100-to-110 people on Saturday in two swimming pools to be erected for the event. They have all been vetted for clean living and so are therefore must already have their names registered with the Eternal Bouncers on the list of 144,000. That makes our odds even longer, guys.

Congress proceedings will be translated into eight languages and sign language. Even those Witnesses not fluent in sign language will know the signal for “Go Away, I’m Watching TV” which is a single extended finger.

Gsell said anyone could attend the congress, admission to which will be free of charge. The congress will begin at 1:20pm on Thursday, 6 August.

As this is from the unmissable Austrian Times, some local factoids. The 23,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses there were legally recognised as an Austrian religious denomination in May 2009, a step they had been seeking since 1978. The entertainingly named Austrian Cult Office had said in May the religious group had been given legal recognition after eight weeks of negotiations, so they can’t have been trying hard for the previous 31 years. Maybe they couldn’t get their foot in the door.