Charitable Explanation of Jehovah's Witnesses Beliefs

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Like the thread on Mormonism, I am looking for a brief summary the beliefs and teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I believe the “JW” abbreviation is not disrespectful so I hope you do not mind if I use it.

Ideally, the information presented will be brief summaries be balanced and not inflammatory and presented in a manner which a dumb Catholic like me can understand. 🙂

This is for information only. Please do not attempt to proselytize Catholics; that is forbidden at CAF anyway.

Here are some questions and topics to start with.

I understand the JW do not believe in the Trinity. Correct?

They do not teach that Christ is divine, right?

They use a special translation of the Bible called the New World Bible (NWB)?

The opening of the Gospel of John is different in the NWB is different saying “And the Word was with God and the Word was a god”. Is that right?

Do they baptize? Is it infant baptism or believer’s baptism.

Do they really teach that only 144,000 people will go to Heaven?

Where and when did the JW Church originate?

As long as we restrict the topic to the JW church, feel free to discuss any other aspect of their teachings, history or culture.

As we answer, please remember to be charitable and humble. 🙂 That is the best way to discuss and learn.
 
rpp said:
Like the thread on Mormonism, I am looking for a brief summary the beliefs and teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I believe the “JW” abbreviation is not disrespectful so I hope you do not mind if I use it.

Its not a problem to use “jw” because even jw’s use it sometimes.

Ideally, the information presented will be brief summaries be balanced and not inflammatory and presented in a manner which a dumb Catholic like me can understand. 🙂

This is for information only. Please do not attempt to proselytize Catholics; that is forbidden at CAF anyway.

Here are some questions and topics to start with.

I understand the JW do not believe in the Trinity. Correct?

They think that only the father is devine. They think Jesus was an angel…and jw’s think THE HOLY SPIRIT is just energy…like electricity…that shoots out from the father when the Father wants to do something that is far away from his spirit body.

They do not teach that Christ is divine, right?

They think that the Father was litteraly all alone, then he decided to make Jesus, and have Jesus help out as he made everything else.
They think Jesus was Michael the archangel before coming to earth,
then was Jesus when he came to earth, then I guess was michael again when he went back to heaven. But they think Jesus was just the oldest angel.

They use a special translation of the Bible called the New World Bible (NWB)?

Yep, that bible is definitely changed so that it looks like jw beliefs came ffrom the bible.

The jw did not have anyone qualified to translate the bible, to cover up this fact…they won’t tell you who wrote there bible translation.

The opening of the Gospel of John is different in the NWB is different saying “And the Word was with God and the Word was a god”. Is that right?

Yep they changed there bible to say that Jesus was sorta like God,
or kinda a lesser God.
LOL they had to find a way to water down John 1:1. Honestly Jw’s think Jesus was alone with the father for Zillions and zillions of years, so because he was with the Father so long Jesus acts like him.

Do they baptize? Is it infant baptism or believer’s baptism.

Oh no you have to be able to answer basic jw questions before they baptise you.
They DO NOT baptise in the trinitarian formula like they are supposed to.
They give a speech about joining the watchtower organization, then ask if you repent and things like that…then they plunge you in the water.

Do they really teach that only 144,000 people will go to Heaven?

believe it or not yes.

Where and when did the JW Church originate?
C.T.Russel started the bible students…then he died, and Rutherford took over, changed the name to Jehovahs witnesses, took controle of most of C.T.Russels congregations, and changed the beliefs. JW history is REALY SLOPY and EMBARRASSING to jw’s.

A bunch of failed predictions…changes in there beliefs, for example Jw’s used to have crosses and they did not always teach that 144,000 was going to heaven.
Jw history alone proves its not the true religion, I have never heard of any religion with a more embarrassing history.

They used to excomunicate MARRIED COUPLES for having oral sexual relations.
Only to change that belief later.

As long as we restrict the topic to the JW church, feel free to discuss any other aspect of their teachings, history or culture.

As we answer, please remember to be charitable and humble. 🙂 That is the best way to discuss and learn.
Click to expand...
 
Jehovah’s Witnesses beliefs and who are they?

The Watchtower is big money, being one of the top 40 New York City Corporations making nearly one billion dollars a year. That’s just from one of their many corporations.

Unlike in the case of Christians who are persecuted in other lands for talking about Jesus Christ, Jehovah’s Witnesses are largely persecuted for following the teachings begun during the second presidency of the Watchtower, when Joseph F. Rutherford took over in a corporate flap and began changing doctrines quickly in the Watchtower belief system. He claimed that angels directly conveyed truth to some of those in leadership. He coined the name Jehovah’s Witnesses to make them stand out from being witnesses of Jesus, a typical evangelical expression (and a Biblical one).

Rutherford dumped holidays, birthdays and the 1874 date for the invisible return on Christ, and invented an earthly class of Witnesses, since only 144,000 can go to heaven in their teaching. The rest, meaning all 99.9% of Witnesses still alive, will live forever on a cleansed earth, under the rule of the Watchtower leaders in heaven, who will keep them in line by local elders known as ‘Princes’.

If you have been witnessed to by Jehovah’s Witnesses and you reject their message, you will likely die shortly at Armageddon with all the other non-Witnesses, since theirs is the only true religion, and (if they can live up to all the rules) they are the only ones to inhabit this new earth. If you believe Witnesses seem rigid now, any non-conformist during the future cleansed earth will be directly destroyed by Jehovah. Even now a Witness will be disfellowshipped for any one of many gaffs, such as smoking, taking a blood transfusion, or even voting.

To even vocally question the teachings of the Watchtower will result in complete cutting off, with family and friends usually being forbidden to talk to them. The Watchtower is a truly Orwellian world, in a time when Orwellian societies are nearly obsolete.

By their own Yearbook accounts,Witnesses are shrinking in number in many Western countries as of the last few years, as the internet facilitates the spread of information (much of it critical of the Witnesses). Witnesses are cautioned against creating JW-related websites, largely to prevent their members from discovering the history and dirty laundry of this organization on other websites. (There are literally hundreds of former members pages in many languages.)

The Watchtower strives hard to control the flow of information to the individual Witness, and prefers that all instruction come through the magazines they carry door-to-door. Without this form of control, even as they themselves admit, they would believe just the same as other Bible believers.

My hope is that there will be a day in each of their lives when the Watchtower magazine is no longer needed, and they can go to college, vote for office, and contribute money and time to other, more vital causes in their community. More than likely they will then cease to be persecuted, except in a few societies more authoritarian than their own.

Sincerely,

Danny Haszard
Reference
freeminds.org
 
JWs also DENY that that Jesus was Resurrected in a physical body. They also deny the immortality of the soul and the existence of hell.
 
Some JWs stopped by this morning just as my wife and I were leaving. She is Catholic and really doesn’t like them for saying RCC is the Whore of Babylon. But I talked to them a while, I have to hand it to them for facing rejection as they do but continuing to try to spread the Gospel, even though it seems most don’t really understand it and just repeat it from memory according to what they are told.
 
Hi;

If you are really interested in knowing what Jehovah’ Witnesses believe; ask one of Jehovah’s Witnesses for the brochure " What Jehovah’ Witnesses Believe" or write to the Watchtower Society, and they wil send you one. You will get the information directly from them. They do not keep it a secret.
 
Another thing to bring up is that the very term “Jehovah’s Witnesses” is not Biblical, nor were Christians ever called that. Same thing goes for terms like “Watchtower”, the Church was never called that.
 
Noreb said:
Hi;

If you are really interested in knowing what Jehovah’ Witnesses believe; ask one of Jehovah’s Witnesses for the brochure " What Jehovah’ Witnesses Believe" or write to the Watchtower Society, and they wil send you one. You will get the information directly from them. They do not keep it a secret.
Click to expand...
It is true that it is relatively easy to get information from Jehovah’s Witnesses as to what they profess to believe TODAY.

However, if you want to know what they believed and taught 20 years ago, or 100 years ago, you have to go to other sources.

They rewrite their own history constantly. I was born in 1952 and raised as a JW. I became inactive in the mid 1990s. A lot of things changed over the course of time that I was an active witness.

For example, the book they are studying right now in their “book study” has had MAJOR revisions since it was first put out. And it was very different from an earlier book on the same subject (Revelation) that was released in 1969. And the book released in 1969 was very different from the book on Revelation that was released in the early 1960s. etc. etc.

The Catholic Church has all of the works of the Early Fathers online – going back to the 1st and 2nd century. The Witnesses don’t even provide their own members with the literature they published before 1950. And the CD that includes some works back to 1950 leaves out others (such as the book on Revelation published in the early 1960s).

So you really have to ask, at what time period are you talking about? My grandmother was raised as a Bible Student and then was a Jehovah’s Witness (her grandfather left the Baptist Church in the late 1800s to join the followers of Russell - the name Jehovah’s Witnesses was accepted in the 1930s). Growing up, she wore the cross, celebrated Christmas, fellowshipped with other Christians in their services, and worshipped Jesus as well as Jehovah (but not the actual Trinity). That all changed later.

Jehovah’s Witnesses will also tell you that their changes are because of improved understanding led by God’s spirit. But their teachings sometimes “revert” to an earlier version, and go “back and forth” over time.

The web site: catholicxjw.com has some very good articles about the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as a forum for talking about them.

The website the Watchtower runs does not allow for any interaction except for asking for more information. That will prompt a visit to your door by a Witness.

Major beliefs are:

Only the Father is Almighty God (Jesus after his resurrection is a “Mighty God”).

Humans do not have a soul that survives death. Humans (including Jesus himself) go out of existence for the time before their resurrection, existing only in God’s “memory”.

Not all Christians will go to heaven to be with Jesus when they die. Most of those who accept Christ now will live forever on earth. Those who died before Jesus died did not go to heaven (Abraham, Moses, Elijah, etc.) and will be resurrected back to the earth.

Participation in government or in the armed forces (of any country) puts one in opposition to God.

All other religions are, knowingly or unknowingly, serving Satan. There is only God’s side (the Witnesses) and Satan’s side (everybody else).

Pax,

Ruth
 
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