Discussing the "kingdom" with Jehovah's Witnesses

[Texas1824]

Hi. I’m new here. There’s a JW missionary who regularly visits my home on Saturdays. I see this as an evangelization opportunity so I welcome our conversations. I have read Jason Evert’s Answering Jehovah’s witnesses which is helpful. He has stated that he would like to discuss the kingdom as mentioned in the “Our Father”. How do I clearly discuss our Catholic understanding of the kingdom and contrast it with the JW view.

 

[AlNg]

How do I clearly discuss our Catholic understanding of the kingdom and contrast it with the JW view.

I don’t know, but they also come to my door. They always have a passage from Scripture that they want to discuss and they produce a lot of booklets. They believe in a numerical limitation of 144,000 (?) that will get into heaven and the remaining people will be working in a new earth. They do not believe in hell.

 

[niceatheist]

Good luck. As someone who spent the first sixteen years of his life as a JW (thankfully never baptized), I know from experience that they are not taught to have a dialogue with those they are preaching to, but to throw out enough claims, non sequiturs and other fallacious arguments, in the hopes of overwhelming those that might not know their current faith all that well.

To put it another way, they’re very good at regurgitating memorized Scriptures but with little more than the shallow understanding the Watchtower and Bible Society has banged into their heads that you’re not going to have much success. Unless things have changed mightily in the thirty years I’ve been out of it, they also view Catholics as a particular challenge, but don’t really know anything about Catholicism beyond the cruder of Protestant parodies and strawmen of your religion.

 

[BlessedMama3]

My husband was born and raised as a JW, though never baptized (baptized as a Catholic last Easter!) As others said, JWs are very resistant to anything not published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Even though he didn’t fully subscribe to the teachings of the organization, many many things were hurdles for him during his journey to the Church. He benefited from watching other ex-witnesses on The Journey Home show on ETWN … like Tom Cabeen, John Davis and Jeffery Schwehm. I believe one of then mentions a seed that was planted by one of the people they went to evangelize. So you may not be able to have long deep theological conversations, but planting seeds can bear amazing fruits. My husband personally found understanding the history of the JW faith helpful in releasing it’s hold on his thinking. He also finds the following helpful when speaking with his family: knowing scripture well and being confident in FINDING passages even if he doesn’t have it memorized, typology, and having a firm hold on early church fathers, their teachings (and how its consistent with the teachings today) and being able to show the early church alive and well and so so vibrant. Many prayers for your successful planting of beautiful seeds of faith!

 

[niceatheist]

The problem is that JWs know very little of their own history, let alone the history of Christianity. The senior leadership of the Society has spent decades hiding the more dubious and questionable aspects of their history (like the long string of failed prophecies that come from their Bible code numerology). As to the general history of Christianity, they know almost nothing, and are pretty much explicitly discouraged from even seeking out such information. They’re not unique in that, that’s a common thread to those particular strains of Christianity, that nothing good came after 100AD, so you can safely ignore, indeed MUST ignore any of the Councils, most if not all of the writings of the Church Doctors and other Early Christian theologians.

To give you an idea of just how much paranoia is instilled in your average JW, I remember going in the door to door service with my grandfather when I was about 12 or 13. We went to one door and a woman said “I’ll take your pamphlet if you’ll take mine”, and her’s was one of those pamphlets made by ex-JWs detailing all the failed prophecies and questionable activities of the Watchtower Society. To my grandfather, it was as if it was made of plutonium. He backed away, looked absolutely terrified, as if the pamphlet had some sort of Satanic aura about it, and fled the property with me in tow. He was genuinely panicked that he had come close to that “apostate literature”.

By the same token, we’d get instructions from on high every few years to replace specific older items of JW literature on our home library shelves with “new” editions, and quite often that was because the Society wanted to eradicate any passages or statements that could be used to demonstrate their own failings. I literally saw my grandfather taking copies of books he’d bought as far back as the late 1940s to be pulped, and replacing them with new and updated editions, and as I later learned, that was because the Society was willfully censoring its own previous work.

 

[BlessedMama3]

He has stated that he would like to discuss the kingdom as mentioned in the “Our Father”. How do I clearly discuss our Catholic understanding of the kingdom and contrast it with the JW view.

If the JW gentleman is indeed interested in a conversation on this topic, It may be helpful to understand how Witnesses understand this before beginning this discussion. Kind of like studying for a test, right? On their website they explain their understanding the Lord’s prayer here: ( The Lord’s Prayer—Its Meaning for You — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY ) **edit to add: obviously also important to understand the Catholic understanding of God’s kingdom. (Just one example of Catholic Answer link about it: What is the Kingdom of God? | Catholic Answers)

I have found that @niceathiest is very correct in his observation that they change and censor even their own publications. When last my husband even “semi” attended any meetings, he had his bible and songbook (this was maybe 2010ish?) They now have a newer version of both that are both different. If you look at websites like jwfacts.com or even Google search older JW publications, there are many changes. Not just “false prophesies” but change in doctrine and understanding even in the short 100+ years since Charles Daze Russell founded the Bible Students (whom Rutherford later named Jehovah’s Witnesses). They call this “new light” but New light makes things clearer in my experience, not change all together. We can look back to Clement, to Justin Martyr, Ignatius of Antioch … THOUSANDS of years ago and clearly see Catholic doctrine being expressed.

 

[adf417]

In order to save you both time my suggestion is 1st to have them fully explain what makes them think their interpretation of scripture is the correct interpretation and how do they know this to be true. Otherwise your differing interpretations will end up sounding like a dual monologue rather than a dialogue.

Below is a quote of myself from a previous thread i wanted to share.

Continuing the discussion from Resources for dealing with JWs:

My latest encounter with a JW was when i got a random letter in the mail from an un known lady expressing her wish to sit down and discuss Gods kingdom and bible passages. I wrote her back a letter graciously accepting her invitation with one condition, that is, before we both start throwing scriptures around with the intention to defind our own beliefs, don’t you think we should establish who’s interpretation we will use to be the correct one and how will we know this interpretation is the correct one. I said dont you think this would save much time?

Her answer was - that sounds reasonable and i will get back to you

Weeks went by and i sent another letter expressing my concern that i hadn’t heard from her and worried if everything ok but no response. Many weeks later i sent yet another letter which i did get a response to.

Her response was that she didn’t know how to answer my question and if i needed answers to contact one of the elders in the congregation ant they could help. I wrote her back and told her i didnt need answers as she was the one who first contacted me. I said i thought if someone like yourself. was going out witnessing God’s word that this piece of information would seem valuable to that person first and formost.

Her response was - thank you for your continued intrest in religion however i cannot continue to answer all of your questions. I am writing you to end any further communications we have. Most of the questions you have can answered by reading the bible or going to our website jw.org. I cannot continue to answer your questions as i myself cannot have all of the answers.

I politely responded with one last letter wishing her a blessed life.

Peace!!!

 

[AlNg]

like the long string of failed prophecies

Were these official pronouncements or were they discussions by members of JW? Also, were they given in exact language or could they have been meant to be taken figuratively as a warning against immoral conduct ?

 

[niceatheist]

The early prophecies were quite openly made. The infamous 1975 was made from the podium but I believe only one reference to the specialness of that year made it into the literature. The Society disavowed the 1975 date, but I’ve talked to many who heard the prediction made at the District Assembly preceding that year.

 

[AlNg]

These prophesies cannot be proven to be wrong if they used ambiguous language. For example, suppose you say that there will be horrible disaster or the end of the world in 1914, It can be argued that this prophecy did come true, because that was the year that WWI began.

 

[niceatheist]

My understanding was that 1975 was fairly explicit.

https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/1975.php

 

[AlNg]

My understanding was that 1975 was fairly explicit.

Of course you are referring to an anti-JW site. My guess is that you can still find ambiguities in the prophecies and a lack of official approval to argue in favor of the JW position.

 

[Crusader13]

Hi. I’m new here. There’s a JW missionary who regularly visits my home on Saturdays. I see this as an evangelization opportunity so I welcome our conversations. I have read Jason Evert’s Answering Jehovah’s witnesses which is helpful. He has stated that he would like to discuss the kingdom as mentioned in the “Our Father”. How do I clearly discuss our Catholic understanding of the kingdom and contrast it with the JW view.

This could be a great opportunity to evangelize and hopefully your discussions may at least plant a seed and from there it may grow into something more. You’ve apparently been doing something right, if this Witness has been regularly visiting your home.

First off, the topic of God’s Kingdom, as it applies to the teachings of the Society, is a complex one indeed. However, a quick summary would be this: The Kingdom belongs to Jehovah; Jesus Christ is the King of this Kingdom and along with the 144,000, they will rule from heaven over the earth when Jesus comes back and brings an end to this current “system of things.” The complex part is that Jesus, according to the teachings of the society, began to rule in 1914 and this is shown using the society’s “Bible Chronology”. This has lead to a serious departure from proper exegesis of Scripture and has allowed them to arrive at their current dates and timeline.

I can’t imagine that you will get through their entire bible chronology in one visit, but rest assured, if you continue to talk about this subject in future visits, you will be amazed at how deep the rabbit hole goes.

The Catholic view, at least as I understand it, shows that God’s Kingdom was the same Kingdom that was promised to David in the OT. Unfortunately, after the death of Solomon, the Kingdom was split in two and eventually destroyed in 587 BC. On a side note, the Witnesses teach that this event took place in 607 BC, because this date is crucial to their dating of 1914 as the year Jesus began to rule.

After the destruction of the Kingdom, the OT prophets began telling of the Messiah who would one day restore God’s Kingdom. Jesus did in fact fulfill the prophecies and as we read numerous times in the NT, Jesus spoke of God’s Kingdom as having finally arrived. Matthew 4:17 “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. The Kingdom of God was in fact restored, through Jesus Christ and is now present in the Church. The keys of the Kingdom were given to Peter and through apostolic succession, the Kingdom has been preserved through the Church. What we as Catholics look forward to is the return of Jesus and the perfection of His Kingdom and the passing away of this age.

This view differs from many non-Catholics, especially those who hold a Dispensationalist view of eschatology, because they view God’s Kingdom as an earthly reign, whereby Jesus will return one day and rule for a literal 1000 years, (the millennium) before the end of time. However, that is a topic for a different thread entirely.