How to deal with Jehovah Witness friends at school?

  • Thread starter Thread starter CharitableFaith
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

CharitableFaith

Guest
All of my close friends in school are Jehovah Witnesses and I’m a Roman Catholic, and what the Jehovah Witness friends do is express there faith infront of me which I don’t agree with because they refuse Jesus is God and is a angel and they say things that the church dosent agree with, and they talk about religion daily and try to prove Catholicism wrong, my question is how shall I deal with this?

God Bless!
 
Well, you can inform them that the basis of friendship is respect. You respect that their religion is different from yours, and they need to do the same. If they cannot be respectful, and stop attacking your faith then you need to find some new friends. It is a tough lesson to learn, but real friends do not treat friends the way they are treating you.
 
1ke said:
Well, you can inform them that the basis of friendship is respect. You respect that their religion is different from yours, and they need to do the same. If they cannot be respectful, and stop attacking your faith then you need to find some new friends. It is a tough lesson to learn, but real friends do not treat friends the way they are treating you.
Click to expand...
I agree, but they want to tell me " bible truth "
 
I think you first need to be aware that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are a non-Christian cult. They use a poorly-translated Bible, have made numerous false prophecies, follow non-Biblical and non-Traditional beliefs, etc.

The JWs have very exclusive beliefs. They believe that only 144,000 will go to heaven, and that sometime soon there will be Armageddon where non-JWs (“worldly people”) will be wiped from the face of the Earth. After that, all JWs (except the 144,000 that go to heaven) will live on Earth in “they new system”. Everyone else will be destroyed. If they realize you won’t leave your faith, there is a good chance they will eventually not want to be your friend. You will be dead to them because you won’t be in The New System anyway. They also shun ex-JWs, which means that former JWs lose their family and their friends. I have seen support groups for ex-JWs on the internet.

I know this because someone close to me used to be JW for his whole life, and only recently left. His mother converted as a child after her sister was killed by a car while crossing the street on Halloween night. And when he told her JW was a cult she tried to kill herself. The family are now Protestant Christians in the counter-cult movement.

I think you need to learn to counter their objections. There are lots of great resources on the “Catholic.com” tab of this site. Just use the search box and type in “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. You need to be careful to fall into the false teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

You also need to prepare yourself for the very real possibility of being shunned by them. There are some nice JWs out there who are friends with people of other faiths, but a good many of them are very cult-like and don’t want to be friends with non-JWs unless they think they can convert them over (in that case they’d be JW anyway). 😦
 
Their New World Translation is what you are likely to see. In my opinion, verses seem molded to fit their theology and not the other way around.

I follow my grandfather’s advice. When they quote something, I find with the verse quoted and read the page of the Bible before that verse and read to the end of the following page. Seldom does context appear to work for the more unusual beliefs.
 
CharitableFaith said:
I agree, but they want to tell me " bible truth "
Click to expand...
I hate to tell you, but, the only reason your Jehovahs witnesses “friends” are friendly with you is to convert (or subvert) you into their cult. All the biblical and logical arguments will have no effect on them because they and their families are thoroughly indoctrinated in their cult. If one of them leaves their cult, they are ostracized and immediately lose all their friends-and even their families.
The Jehovah Witnesses consider acquiring a Catholic convert one of their great coups and an almost guarentee of their inclusion into the 100,000 that will get into heaven.
Your best bet is to avoid these people and make other friends.
 
Since they are your close friends, I’d simply tell them “No more religous discussion” and just get on with being friends. You can preach the gospel with your actions instead of words.
CharitableFaith said:
All of my close friends in school are Jehovah Witnesses and I’m a Roman Catholic, and what the Jehovah Witness friends do is express there faith infront of me which I don’t agree with because they refuse Jesus is God and is a angel and they say things that the church dosent agree with, and they talk about religion daily and try to prove Catholicism wrong, my question is how shall I deal with this?

God Bless!
Click to expand...
 
Yes I realized this, they called me worldly for being catholic
 
CharitableFaith said:
All of my close friends in school are Jehovah Witnesses and I’m a Roman Catholic, and what the Jehovah Witness friends do is express there faith infront of me which I don’t agree with because they refuse Jesus is God and is a angel and they say things that the church dosent agree with, and they talk about religion daily and try to prove Catholicism wrong, my question is how shall I deal with this?

God Bless!
Click to expand...
I might hang out with new, apostolic Christian friends, especially Catholics. Really.
 
CharitableFaith said:
All of my close friends in school are Jehovah Witnesses and I’m a Roman Catholic, and what the Jehovah Witness friends do is express there faith infront of me which I don’t agree with because they refuse Jesus is God and is a angel and they say things that the church dosent agree with, and they talk about religion daily and try to prove Catholicism wrong, my question is how shall I deal with this?

God Bless!
Click to expand...
This seems to be a humpty dumpty situation where the pieces cannot be put back together.

But it is not aimed at just catholics, but all other faiths as well.

I am sorry for your situation, but there is one consolation. Jesus did say that your reward would be great in heaven because of persecution for his name. And being singled out because of his church is just that.

I pray that the holy spirit will give you the insight to grow from this experience and also to pray for them.
 
George_Stegmeir said:
I hate to tell you, but, the only reason your Jehovahs witnesses “friends” are friendly with you is to convert (or subvert) you into their cult. All the biblical and logical arguments will have no effect on them because they and their families are thoroughly indoctrinated in their cult. If one of them leaves their cult, they are ostracized and immediately lose all their friends-and even their families.
The Jehovah Witnesses consider acquiring a Catholic convert one of their great coups and an almost guarentee of their inclusion into the 100,000 that will get into heaven.
Your best bet is to avoid these people and make other friends.
Click to expand...
This.

They literally need permission from their leaders to be friendly to you, and it is required that their sole purpose in doing so be to try to convert you. If the church’s leaders ever get the feeling that you are too cemented in your faith, or that one of your friends is beginning to see it your way, they will simply forbid them from being friendly to you anymore. It’s a hard thing to hear, but they are not your friends and they never were.
 
I was very good friends with a JW in late elementary school through the beginning of high school. We just really got along well. However, the older we got, and the more her parents pushed her to stop hanging out with a non-JW (especially a Catholic), the less I saw of her. Eventually she just told me that her parents flat out told her to stop hanging out with me, and so it was. Ultimately, you are forming friendships that will not last- unless you convert.

I can also appreciate the difficulty of finding practicing Catholic friends. In high school I struggled to find friends who didn’t party and get drunk all the time- so I ended up becoming friends with a “straight edge” group, because all the “Catholic” kids were the ones drinking/using drugs. While there was the safety of having sober fun, these friends were the equivilent then of the occupy group now- very extreme agnostic and atheistic views that didn’t line up with my Catholic teaching. I was so focused on finding friends that didn’t drink or do drugs, that I ended up compromising vital beliefs.

The fact of the matter is that it is hard being a Catholic, and especially a young Catholic in this ever increasingly secular and New Age “do what feels good” world. You probably won’t find friends who are as devout as you are easily, so do your best to seek friends that accept you for you, rather than being surrounded by people with strong beliefs that might overwhelm your own. By being a good example, you just might be what they need to start practicing their Christian faith again. The closest friends I have made are a non-Catholic Christian and a fallen away Catholic. They never question my faith, but over the years, the non-Catholic Christian is considering converting, and the fallen away one keeps bringing up our faith more and more because she knows she can talk to me about it. And of course, there is the young man who was raised Muslim who converted because they watched my example of faith- that man is now my husband. And he’s the most devout Catholic man I have ever known in my age group.

Just keep praying to find the balance- and know when it’s time to walk away from a spiritually bad situation.
 
1ke said:
Well, you can inform them that the basis of friendship is respect. You respect that their religion is different from yours, and they need to do the same. If they cannot be respectful, and stop attacking your faith then you need to find some new friends. It is a tough lesson to learn, but real friends do not treat friends the way they are treating you.
Click to expand...
Well said 🙂
 
When I was a teacher of religion at a Catholic school, another teacher came to me and said that Jehovah’s Witnesses were badgering her sister and that she was on the verge of joining them. She asked me to speak with her. When I asked why me and not a priest, the teacher told me “she just doesn’t like priests.”

I called my friend who is a priest and asked him what I should do - he told me to “go for it.” At the same time, the principal of the school told me that if I held that discussion on school property, I would be fired summarily. Why, I don’t know.

This was a personal and vitriolic attack against me by a Catholic school principal for . . . well, what was my crime in Catholic terms?

I would have done things differently today and I would not have been afraid of getting fired.

My own advice to the OP is to “shun” those “friends” now. They are not your friends.

Alex
 
One of my old friends was a Jehovah’s Witness. He was basically my best friend, I hung out with him every single day, and then one day he left. And the next day he wasn’t there again, and the next and the next until I found out he left for some strange reason. It took me four years later to finally see him again, and he seemed fairly normal, not anti-social or anything like that. Then another two years pass and we started hanging out again. Everything was going great until he never showed up for lunch or hung out with me and my friends. I asked him why and he told me his mom doesn’t like him eating lunch with his friends. I found that odd and insulting. Because I really never tried to talk about his religion. Never said it was wrong. I said nothing… I guess his mom found out I was Catholic and decided I was a bad influence, which I’m not. I actually found what he was talking about fascinating (concerning his religion), and thought provoking. Did I agree with it theologically? No. But it was very interesting.

I personally have nothing wrong with Jehovah’s Witnesses, they’re a hardworking and nice people. But having your children ignore their friends is just odd in my eyes. I really miss my friend, but I’m afraid I’ve lost him.

Mind you, this friend of mine tried to convert me when I was in grade four (or five?), and he nearly did. I guess if I did, I would still have my best friend.

Kanuck
 
Kanuckistani said:
One of my old friends was a Jehovah’s Witness. He was basically my best friend, I hung out with him every single day, and then one day he left. And the next day he wasn’t there again, and the next and the next until I found out he left for some strange reason. It took me four years later to finally see him again, and he seemed fairly normal, not anti-social or anything like that. Then another two years pass and we started hanging out again. Everything was going great until he never showed up for lunch or hung out with me and my friends. I asked him why and he told me his mom doesn’t like him eating lunch with his friends. I found that odd and insulting. Because I really never tried to talk about his religion. Never said it was wrong. I said nothing… I guess his mom found out I was Catholic and decided I was a bad influence, which I’m not. I actually found what he was talking about fascinating (concerning his religion), and thought provoking. Did I agree with it theologically? No. But it was very interesting.

I personally have nothing wrong with Jehovah’s Witnesses, they’re a hardworking and nice people. But having your children ignore their friends is just odd in my eyes. I really miss my friend, but I’m afraid I’ve lost him.

Mind you, this friend of mine tried to convert me when I was in grade four (or five?), and he nearly did. I guess if I did, I would still have my best friend.

Kanuck
Click to expand...
Dear fellow Kanuck,

Our Lord said that if our eye tempts us to sin and therefore to hell, we are to pluck it out lest all of us be thrown into Gehenna!

If your friend tried to convert you and tried to redo you in his religion’s image - then you can rest assured that he was most certainly NOT your friend.

Alex
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top