Jehovahs Witnesses

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Burning4Christ

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What is the Roman Catholic Churchs position on the Jehovahs witnesses and the Watchtowers society?
 
You need to define the question better.

The Church does not recognize their baptism as valid and therefore they are not considered truly Christian. However, many of their members are very sincere people truly seeking Christ.

Personally, I think them to be a dangerous cult.
 
Well, I guess I would ask does the catholic church believe that they are Christians? What is the churches position on there theology. What are the personal opinions of those of catholic faith concerning the JW’s?

Id love to hear someone who defends there faith, see what they think.
 
I believe JW and the Watchtower Society is a New York Corp. and the largest publishing house in the country (based on number of pamphlets printed).

JW kingdom halls are the distribution franchises the distribute the published materials.
 
Burning4Christ said:
Well, I guess I would ask does the catholic church believe that they are Christians? What is the churches position on there theology. What are the personal opinions of those of catholic faith concerning the JW’s?

Id love to hear someone who defends there faith, see what they think.
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No, the Catholic Church does not see Jehovah’s Witnesses as Christians, thus it does not recognize baptisms performed by JW’s. Very early in the history of the Church she condemned the heresy at the base of the much later-arising JW’s, i.e., Arianism.
 
Russellism recognizes itself as being Arianism, and the church comdemmed the teachings of Arius.
 
Burning4Christ said:
Well, I guess I would ask does the catholic church believe that they are Christians? What is the churches position on there theology. What are the personal opinions of those of catholic faith concerning the JW’s?

Id love to hear someone who defends there faith, see what they think.
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Since the JW’s do not recognize the Trinity, the Catholic Church does not recognize them as Christians.
 
Yerusalyim said:
You need to define the question better.

The Church does not recognize their baptism as valid and therefore they are not considered truly Christian. However, many of their members are very sincere people truly seeking Christ.

Personally, I think them to be a dangerous cult.
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We all do.
 
I personally think that they are in need of prayer and witnessing to. they are most definantly heritics but we must remember that they are all being deceived by higher powers (or lower powers if you want to get to the heart of the matter). We must avoid blaming the hammer for a broken window, but rather blame the the one who has the hammer in his hand.
 
Daniel_Marsh said:
Russellism recognizes itself as being Arianism, and the church comdemmed the teachings of Arius.
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Because I am a heretic, I would like to mention something that I think is problematic for Catholicism concerning this topic.

The Catholic Church declares that JW/Arian baptism is not valid. This is a pretty clear change in Catholic practice which it would seem is directly connected to “faith and morals.”
If Arian baptism was invalid, then the majority of folks baptized in the 4th century were not really baptized. In the 4th century they did not “re-baptize” those baptized by Arians. In the 4th century there were times when the majority of bishops were Arian (and the few who were not Arian at heart generally acquiesced and embraced an Arian creed anyway).

So, either Arian baptism was valid in the 4th century and now is not.
Or
Arian baptism was not valid in the 4th century and the majority of church for a number of years was not validly baptized (and the church leaders were wrong to say Arian baptism was valid).
Or
The magisterium did err in the 20th century when it declared JW baptism invalid because it was Arian.

As a Catholic I would subscribe to the first because the others are not acceptable, but as I regularly say Catholicism must have a very strong acceptance of development.
I suspect that some Catholics might try to subscribe to the 2nd, but they should read their councils and Arians of the Fourth Century by Newman.

Charity, TOm
 
Burning4Christ said:
What is the Roman Catholic Churchs position on the Jehovahs witnesses and the Watchtowers society?
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I would say that before anyone considers answering this question, DON’T. Given the nature of the question any response would constitute passing judgement. If you are truly a disciple of Jesus you know he would not accept this.

JWs think Roman Catholics are in serious trouble and are in need of the truth. JWs think Protestants are in serious trouble and are in need of the truth. JWs think only JWs go to Heaven. The rest inherit the earth. Let’s not return judgement with judgement.
 
MH84 said:
How so? How are they dangerous? Arent they pacifists?
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Because they are very evangelistic with a message that is twisted and a lie of the enemy. Danger does not only lie in the ability for the to use force, it lies in there ablility to use words to stray people from the truth. That is more dangerous than any gun or bomb. to put it simply they are false prophets and they spread lies about the bible. There in lies there danger.
 
Burning4Christ said:
Because they are very evangelistic with a message that is twisted and a lie of the enemy. Danger does not only lie in the ability for the to use force, it lies in there ablility to use words to stray people from the truth. That is more dangerous than any gun or bomb. to put it simply they are false prophets and they spread lies about the bible. There in lies there danger.
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From a Catholic point of view, how are they any different to any bible-only Protestant religion?
 
MH84 said:
From a Catholic point of view, how are they any different to any bible-only Protestant religion?
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Firstly, because they have edited out any reference to the Trinity in their version of the Bible, the New World Translation. What kind of a denomination rewrites a Bible to support their beliefs? (John !:! comes to mind) They also believe in disfellowship, which can cut someone off from all financial support and ties to their family, they endanger people with their beliefs on blood transfusions, and while they are required to go door to door and evangelize, they are NEVER to receive literature from any other group. They are even often forbidden from going online and reading about their own denomination’s history.

They also believe that we are living in the last generation before the end of the world, and indeed, the second coming is already underway. (Although the exact date has changed like 17 times, and keeps failing to occur.) As such, they generally refuse all charity as pointless. (Saving souls, now that it’s the very last minute, is more important.) Education is pointless, and jobs are relatively unimportant. One should make just enough to survive, so they can continue preaching the gospel. Many families become impoverished due to their beliefs. While they wouldn’t likely meet the technical definition of a cult, they do have some harmful, cultlike practices, which is sad, because many JW’s are very pleasant people.
 
Here are some of their beliefs:
  1. They don’t believe in the Holy Trinity and accuse any church that does of polytheism.
  2. They don’t believe in the divinity of Christ, believing that he is actually Michael the Archangel.
  3. They believe ALL churches other than themselves are pagans.
  4. They do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead body and spirit, only spirit.
  5. They do not salute the flag, say the Pledge or pay any honor to their country.
  6. They believe observing a birthday is pagan.
  7. They believe Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas trees etc. etc are all pagan beliefs.
  8. They love to predict the end of the world and have done it at least 5 times. Their latest was done in the early 20th century stating that "millions now living (1914) will never die.
  9. Only 144,000 people will be in heaven (all JWs) everbody else will live on earth.
  10. There is no hell. When you die you will just cease to exist.
  11. No blood transfusions as that is the same as drinking blood.
  12. They will serve in the miltary but not in a fighting unit.
  13. They believe Jesus was crucified on a Stake and not on a cross.
 
  1. They believe their church is the only true church. If you are not a JW you are going to hell (they define hell as the grave).
  2. They believe that Satan was in heaven until 1914 when he was thrown to Earth. They of course offer no bibilical evidence to back this up.
  3. In the early 20th century they did not allow their members to be vaccinated call vaccines “The Devils brew”
  4. They approved of slavery until the 60’s.
 
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