Is there any hope for Jehovah's Witnesses?

[DelsonJacobs]

I have thought about this and spoke it over with my wife who too was once a JW. We both agree that this is not true about most JWs. I would guess maybe a 1/4 or less could be described to “know their religion inside and out.” My wife certainly did not, nor my mother, nor any sister in our hall. The elders and ministerial servants mostly know their religion very well, but still a few blindly glossed over their strange doctrines. The religion is very good at controlling the minds of its believers. Once they catch on to the “what other religion knows war no more, is doing world-wide preaching, knows what happens to the dead, etc” the average Jdub could care less about the strange beliefs about 1914, two class system, Jesus not their mediator, not receiving on Nisan 14, Michael the Archangel, early strangeness with pyramids and Beth Sarim. All they need to know is they do not participate in war and preach world wide, then they can close their brain. On my way out, I would make comments and give parts that were not JW teaching and everyone thought how great talks and comments I gave. I have run into a friend that was once a ministerial servant that did similar things, preaching apostate teaching from the platform, and they loved it. As long as you are a Jdub they trust you because they do not really know their own faith.

I believe you’ve won me over to your view…you are Logically’s odd responses.

Things were a bit different from my perspective some 20 years ago in the Watchtower, but it was a different time then. And those I associated with were pioneers and elders and ministerial servants and people who are now in up at headquarters, etc. I guess this was me basing my comments on my own limited experience.

Looking at the religion today–“simplified” Watchtower articles and publications with reading levels that have dropped so substantially since my days…and Logically’s example: not getting figures right and even joining and participating in a forum unapproved and discouraged by the Governing Body, I guess I have to accept that my attempt to see the best in these people is wasted.

I also find it odd that Logically doesn’t respond to our posts. It is easy to see when he logs in and where he is when he does. Everyone’s profile statistics shows when you were last here–so I know he comes in and must read what we say.

I am very disappointed in his example as a Witness, but I guess his is now the norm from what I am hearing.

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

We certainly deal regularly with Jesus at our Kingdom halls. He is often the subject of our Bible studies and Public talks. Often we deal with a specific aspect or quality of his and analyse what we can learn and how we can benefit from imitating it. He is the example we look to and we learn so much about his Father (Jehovah) from him. We understand the name “Christian” to mean “follower of Christ”.
All sincere JW’s would dearly love to be more like him.

In fact our preaching work we are famous for (infamous might be another word) is based on two scriptures, (Matt 24:4 and Matt 28:19,20) both words spoken by Jesus.

Some seem to have a misconception that we don’t believe in Jesus! I have had a few people say their pastors or ministers told them we don’t believe in him. Certainly not true. I suspect that idea comes from us not celebrating Christmas or believing he is not God himself. Some hear that and come to the wrong conclusion.

What do Witnesses believe about Jesus’ intervention in their day-to-day lives? Do they communicate with Him and have a relationship? And where do they believe He is right now?

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

I started studying with the JWs in the early 1980’s. I was a teenager from a really messed up family. The JWs provided stability, security, and you are so right - black and white answers. Because my family life was so dysfunctional, it was comforting to know that this system of things was ending very soon - and soon I’d live in Paradise.

I was baptized at 18 - and remained an active JW until I was in my mid-20s. I began to see through the facade. It just didn’t add up … and when I started researching the false doctrines, it all fell apart. Despite the fact that I knew it wasn’t true, leaving was very very difficult.

What is the current teaching on Armageddon? Is there a new deadline? I seem to recall that when the last deadline passed, the teaching became that Jesus has returned to Earth and is reigning invisibly. Am I correct? And if so, what is the belief about what will happen next (ie. when will non-believers be annihilated)?

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

Jehovah’s Witnesses are somewhat of an enigma. Do they claim belief in Jesus? Yes, but they don’t believe Jesus is God. They believe Jesus is St. Michael the Archangel.

What disturbs most people is that the Witnesses actively and officially preach a message that tells people that salvation is dependent on joining their religion AND that if we stay in our current faith then we are blindly serving the Devil and deserve to be destroyed by God.

But most of them live very exemplary lives. They are courteous, loving, friendly folk.

Yet they practice shunning whereby they tell those who leave their group that they are not worthy of being treated with dignity for making a different religious choice. Parents will cut off children and not speak with them, friends will disown friends, and JWs will treat ex-members as dead, pretending they are not present if they bump into them in public, even excommunicating members who wish to keep communication with ex-members–treating them the same way too.

They love the Bible, read and study it everyday.

But they deny teachings like the Trinity and the destiny of Heaven for all Christians, and they publicly and unapologetically misrepresent our beliefs on hell and the afterlife. They have even set dates for the end of the world, encouraging members to avoid marriage, college, and entering certain professions based on these dates only to change them time and again–leaving their members in poverty and lacking an education that will guarantee them a better financial life.

They are great parents, great children, great neighbors, and at the same time judgmental, misleading, and unconcerned for any but their own. They are under the control of a group of men that forbid freedom of thought, higher education, and freedom of conscience while praying to God that you and I die soon so they can live in a paradise earth over our rotting bodies.

And at the same time they are some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

So it shouldn’t surprise us if some ask from time to time if the JWs can legitimately claim a hope before God. They officially teach we cannot. So they walk a thin line that can’t be defined as more than an enigma.

You have described very succinctly the contradictions I have observed and experienced.

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

What Hope for the Jehovah’s Witnesses Based on Catholic Doctrine:
An Open Letter to Jehovah’s Witnesses from a Roman Catholic

Thanks for posting this. Have you published it before, or did you compose it for this thread?

 

[Matt_Guitar_Man]

I have thought about this and spoke it over with my wife who too was once a JW. We both agree that this is not true about most JWs. I would guess maybe a 1/4 or less could be described to “know their religion inside and out.” My wife certainly did not, nor my mother, nor any sister in our hall. The elders and ministerial servants mostly know their religion very well, but still a few blindly glossed over their strange doctrines. The religion is very good at controlling the minds of its believers. Once they catch on to the “what other religion knows war no more, is doing world-wide preaching, knows what happens to the dead, etc” the average Jdub could care less about the strange beliefs about 1914, two class system, Jesus not their mediator, not receiving on Nisan 14, Michael the Archangel, early strangeness with pyramids and Beth Sarim. All they need to know is they do not participate in war and preach world wide, then they can close their brain. On my way out, I would make comments and give parts that were not JW teaching and everyone thought how great talks and comments I gave. I have run into a friend that was once a ministerial servant that did similar things, preaching apostate teaching from the platform, and they loved it. As long as you are a Jdub they trust you because they do not really know their own faith.

This is exactly what I am trying to say. All JW’s I have interacted with without exception display not only a stunning ignorance of their own faith, to the point where I have had to show them copies of watch tower literature because they simply have not believed that the governing body taught a peculiar doctrine, but also have had nearly no knowledge at all of other faith traditions and although they are capable of reeling off so called proof texts which they mistakenly believe back up their doctrines in my experience they show an appalling ignorance of the bible, its original languages and context within the faith traditions that use it as a canonical text.
Most I have interacted with are even less familiar with the gospels and are completely obsessed with phantasmagorical Adventist conjecture that has absolutely no basis in scripture and is the product of fantasy based on the thinnest of scriptural proofs.
On top of this if one dares to question this nonsense one is arrogantly and pompously written off as a puppet of Satan??? The mind boggles.
All of this would not be to bad if they didn’t go around with the audacity to cry out that they are the only true Christians??? And represent the restoration of original apostolic Christianity, we don’t compromise on the Bible etc etc. If the original Christians were as ignorant and down right offensive as the JW’s I have interacted with there is no way they could have converted the empire in 300 years let alone 3,000,000 years.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

Thanks for posting this. Have you published it before, or did you compose it for this thread?

I composed it for this thread.

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

Where have all the Witnesses/former Witnesses gone on this thread? I am sincere in my questions, as I would like to try to understand your hearts and minds better.

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

I know how you feel to some extent. Two of my adult children have decided on Paganism. Prayer is all we really have. Truth, when asked a question, or in a discussion. And lots of prayer. It seems St. Monica would be an appropriate intercessor as well, as your patron, and others. I didn’t see it in your post itself, but in your headline you asked if it was hopeless. The answer is profoundly and absolutely NO!!! There IS ALWAYS Hope. Besides being the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Christ is also Hope. One thing that has taken me a long time to accept, is that I may not be the agent used by the Holy Spirit to convert my loved ones. In fact, I’ve accepted that I even PROBABLY won’t be the agent used by the Holy Spirit for loved one’s conversions. I have had to let that go. I just pray with the hopeful assurance that somebody, somewhere will at some point, which I may or may not even see or know about, or even be able to witness in my life time, will be an agent for Christ’s call to perfect conversion. Then, it will be up to my loved one’s to follow. They may, or may not heed Christ’s call. But the call will come. I have every faith in that. I also know that when we die, we will not despair, or worry about those who didn’t come. It will be revealed to us why, somehow, and we’ll be understanding of it. There will be no tears, sadness, or anxiety in the kingdom. So, as Saint Pope John Paul II said, “Fear not”.

May the Lord bring you peace, and may God bless and calm you.

I have prayed for your family members.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. I shall call on St. Monica, as you and others have suggested. I too have accepted that at this point, I won’t be the instrument for conversion by my words, because there is too much water under the bridge. Like you, I have just prayed that somebody or some event will lead them to conversion. My feeling of hopelessness is from not seeing any results from my prayers. But I do trust in prayer.

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

The number of Jehovah’s Witnesses who currently consider themselves to be of the 144,000 is 13,204 (as of the official count made of claimants as appears in the annual *Service Report of Jehovah’s Witnesses: 2013). *

The last time the Witnesses had 10,000 claiming to be of that number was in 2008 and 2009. The same annual report, which gets published yearly in *The Watchtower *and the Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses had claimants at 9986 in 2008 and 10,857 in 2009.

I thought that in the beginning, when the Jehovah’s Witnesses were first founded, all members believed that they were of the 144,000. Am I incorrect in that?

 

[DelsonJacobs]

I thought that in the beginning, when the Jehovah’s Witnesses were first founded, all members believed that they were of the 144,000. Am I incorrect in that?

You are correct. When the Jehovah’s Witness movement began in the late 1800s (and they were then known only as “Bible Students” until they adopted their current name in 1931), all of them professed to be of the “remnant” of the 144,000. From the beginning the Witnesses have maintained that this number of professing members among them must only decrease and that the decrease is a “proof” that we are living in the “last days” before Armageddon.

By 1935 almost 100,000 of them were professing to be of the remnant. The number decreased to about 8800 in the 1980s and early 1990s. Since then 5000 have been added to number over 13,000.

With the average age of those professing to be of the remnant at age 40 in 1914 (the year the Witnesses claim Jesus returned), that would put the average age of current partakers at 140 today. With the oldest person of the modern era being a 123-year-old Bolivian man, it is accurate to say that none of the original members of their “remnant” exist today.

With average life spans and death rates calculated, those who claimed to be of this number in 1935 all died off between 1957 and 1972, with a few living past that final year. None are alive today.

Their claim that 8800 still existed among them by the 1980s is therefore impossible. The added claim that some proved unfaithful and that the numbers after 1960 included relatively new ones to fill spots left empty is problematic. This would mean that some 23,000 to 25,000 of genuine anointed ones failed, proving unfaithful to the death.

That large number of unfaithful Witnesses with the heavenly hope does not exist on record as all funerals of “remnant” members on record claim they lived faithfully until the end.

Finally, if the number is correct, that 13,204 now comprise the full number of the “remnant,” this would make the number 144,000 impossible. Using their own records, death rates, and average age limits of humans alive today, that would mean over 150,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses have claimed to be of this number from 1879 to the present.

These numbers can be more accurate as they are based on several very basic formulas. These are rough totals and may represent underestimates.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

What I mean by “underestimates” is that the number of those who have claimed to be of the anointed among the Jehovah’s Witnesses and have died “faithfully” in the eyes of their religion is likely to be a little higher than 150,000. If I had to guess, counting from 1879 (the year the first Watchtower magazine was published), the number is more than a half a million.

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

What I mean by “underestimates” is that the number of those who have claimed to be of the anointed among the Jehovah’s Witnesses and have died “faithfully” in the eyes of their religion is likely to be a little higher than 150,000. If I had to guess, counting from 1879 (the year the first Watchtower magazine was published), the number is more than a half a million.

Who makes the final determination on how many are still left? Is it just one person at Watchtower headquarters?

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

A lot has been said about Jehovah Witnesses being “good” people with misunderstandings. I think this has been believed by both them and outsiders for too long. I grew up as a JW and I can tell you that appearances are not always as they seem. JW will appear to be upright as long as they are in front of people, they are in a game where you can become ostracized if you say, do, think the wrong thing. Behind the scenes cliques are formed with mutual understanding of you don’t tell, I won’t tell. Wife swapping is very prevalent. In the congregation I grew up in, multiple young ministerial servants and their wives were involved in sleeping around with other members of the congregation. To top it off, when I was studying with an elder to get baptized, he mentioned a story from when he was young that quite a few JW couples all went on a skiing vacation, and upon return all but his wife and him had swapped spouses while on vacation. He warned me to be careful while with other couples. This sort of thing happened a few times while I was there as well.

I have a hard time comprehending how this could go on. How did people think they could get away with it? I’ve always thought Witnesses were quick to point out inappropriate actions of their fellow members and bring it to the attention of elders.

 

[pacloc]

I have a hard time comprehending how this could go on. How did people think they could get away with it? I’ve always thought Witnesses were quick to point out inappropriate actions of their fellow members and bring it to the attention of elders.

A lot of things go on in secret. And when the ones doing these inappropriate deeds are related to elders, which is a high percent of the time, they can get away with murder if they say all the right things, such as true repentance. I knew of a daughter of an elder that was married to a ministerial servant and already had a child that was sleeping around with another married ministerial servant, that when was finally exposed didn’t even get reproved. I heard that she claimed to be drunk and out of her senses or something. These kind of things can go on for quite a long period of time before someone feels the need to go to the elders. And if there is one person they can pin the whole thing on, they will do it and let the others off with little or no discipline. These ones go on to repeat similar actions at a later time.

 

[Dave_B]

I have loved ones who have been Jehovah’s Witnesses for decades, since their early 20s. It just seems hopeless that they will ever return home to the Church, despite the prayers of many family members.

I think, according to Catholic teaching, they will be saved if they are protestants out of ignorance. I think there are more problems to worry about than other people being born in the wrong religion.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

Who makes the final determination on how many are still left? Is it just one person at Watchtower headquarters?

Originally their religion kept an annual count of members by how many showed up to their annual observance of the Lord’s Evening Meal (a communion service they observe only once a year). Like Catholicism, it is a communion only open to those who are active members.

An active count of those who partook of the bread and wine “emblems” (as they call them) at the service was therefore the annual membership count. From the 1870s to 1935 the numbers steadily grew to about 100,000 (and of course many had passed since those days before the 20th century began). In 1935, then president of the Watchtower Society, J.F. Rutherford introduced a “prophetic fulfillment” in which he declared that additional members to the group would not be those who have a heavenly hope.

Since then the Witnesses have kept a close eye on the number of emblem partakers at this annual observance because the official doctrine was that the dwindling number was an indicator of how close they were to the outbreak of Armageddon. According to Rutherford, the Holy Spirit had indicated that 1935 was the “closing” of the door to any others with a heavenly hope., so the number of partakers at each annual communion service was very, very important. The number is published yearly as part of their “Annual Service Report.”

 

[DelsonJacobs]

I have a hard time comprehending how this could go on. How did people think they could get away with it? I’ve always thought Witnesses were quick to point out inappropriate actions of their fellow members and bring it to the attention of elders.

The official policy when I left (and as I understand still is) actually counseled members to not be too quick in bringing an accusation against any man in an office of oversight.

Also, unless a crime or otherwise inappropriate action was witnessed by two or more people AND the victim(s) were willing to relive their victimization before a closed jury of church elders before their accuser (along with the two or more witnesses to the crime), no accusation could ever be considered as valid.

Those who claim to be victims of sexual abuse, for example, have thus been excommunicated because they raised accusations but did not have the “two or more” witnesses to the crime or were too horrified to relive their abuse before their attacker in a closed judgment session. Without the two witnesses or refusing to face one’s attacker, the church elders will charge the victim with lying–an offense worthy of disfellowshipping and shunning in their religion.

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

I think, according to Catholic teaching, they will be saved if they are protestants out of ignorance. I think there are more problems to worry about than other people being born in the wrong religion.

They were baptised and confirmed Catholic in their youth and then formally rejected their faith (I think maybe even destroyed their baptismal certificates). I wouldn’t consider JWs to be Protestants.

 

[Ocean_of_Mercy]

The official policy when I left (and as I understand still is) actually counseled members to not be too quick in bringing an accusation against any man in an office of oversight.

Also, unless a crime or otherwise inappropriate action was witnessed by two or more people AND the victim(s) were willing to relive their victimization before a closed jury of church elders before their accuser (along with the two or more witnesses to the crime), no accusation could ever be considered as valid.

Those who claim to be victims of sexual abuse, for example, have thus been excommunicated because they raised accusations but did not have the “two or more” witnesses to the crime or were too horrified to relive their abuse before their attacker in a closed judgment session. Without the two witnesses or refusing to face one’s attacker, the church elders will charge the victim with lying–an offense worthy of disfellowshipping and shunning in their religion.

Do they have any recourse to legal channels of justice?