Published on Thursday, July 10, 2008
By DAVID OLSON
As many as 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses are expected to attend the first day of an American Sign Language Bible convention today in Norco, a sign of expanding efforts by religious denominations to reach out to the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
An increasing number of congregations offer worship services that are either fully in sign language or are interpreted for deaf people. The Jehovah's Witnesses, which began ASL interpretations of spoken services in the 1940s, has been one of the leaders in deaf outreach in recent decades. Deaf churches have been around since the late 1800s.
The trend in religious denominations mirrors what is happening throughout society. Television networks have added captions for the deaf and some theater performers and political candidates are accompanied on-stage by ASL interpreters.
