When Jehovahs come calling

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Bea_sMom

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I had a visit yesterday from my neighborhood Jehovahs. I attempted once to defend my faith years ago (a miserable failure:() and have since either not answered the door or gave a lame excuse why I couldn’t give them time (e.g. my baby was sleeping yesterday). I know Catholic Answers has some great material on this but was wondering, how have you all replied to these unsolicited visits and their claims? I’m thinking I’ll just keep a supply of CA’s tracts by the door and we can exchange materials?🙂

If you have a nice, short rebuttal I can use that would be great!

Love and God bless,
Bea’s Mom
 
Can I add another question to this for all of you to answer?
Are we meant to answer the door when the Jehovahs come knocking, and defend our Faith??
I normally just say “hello, im a catholic”, I smile, and they say “no worries, have a nice day” and they go off on their way.
As a Catholic, am I meant to start an “argument” with non-Catholics?
I have been told that I cannot make the blind see, but if they come looking for sight, then I jump in and show them the Way.
Please help
Love Kellie
 
I suppose I will respond to the Jehovah Witnesses same way that I would if Catholic Youth Ministry for a New Millennium show up at my door in their quest for a New Evangelization.
 
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Shibboleth:
I suppose I will respond to the Jehovah Witnesses same way that I would if Catholic Youth Ministry for a New Millennium show up at my door in their quest for a New Evangelization.
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Which is…?? Do tell!🙂
 
Bea'(name removed by moderator):
I had a visit yesterday from my neighborhood Jehovahs. I attempted once to defend my faith years ago (a miserable failure:() and have since either not answered the door or gave a lame excuse why I couldn’t give them time (e.g. my baby was sleeping yesterday). I know Catholic Answers has some great material on this but was wondering, how have you all replied to these unsolicited visits and their claims? I’m thinking I’ll just keep a supply of CA’s tracts by the door and we can exchange materials?🙂

If you have a nice, short rebuttal I can use that would be great!

Love and God bless,
Bea’s Mom
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Don’t beat up on yourself for feeling a “miserable failure” with the JWs. I’ve had a lot of experience with these people and they are as tough a nut to crack as there is. In a lot of ways they are similar to the Arians of the 4th century.

First, keeping some CA tracts handy is OK, but my guess is that you’ll never get them to read them. “Arguing” with them is pointless, but if you have a set of well-prepared questions to challenge them with, that can be effective. The first move is to get them off their prepared agenda and to start responding to yours.

You need to understand what they believe. One of the best resources for this is a book by a Protestant apologist, Dr. Walter Martin, called The Kingdom of the Cults. Get thoroughly grounded in their beliefs so you know what you’re trying to refute.

One technique I’ve found useful is to zero in on their “sola scriptura” belief. When you really pin them down to the fact that they have to trust the apostate Catholic Church for their Scriptures that they are using as a weapon against you, this can be disconcerting and can serve to move the discussion onto your turf.

As I said, you really need to know what they believe and how they twist Scripture to their own ends. Dr. Martin is a big help. Prayer, of course, is still the best.

Frankly, I love it when these folks show up at my door. It’s a ready-made evangelistic opportunity.
 
Bea'(name removed by moderator):
Which is…?? Do tell!🙂
Click to expand...
Every time that a JW has been at my door I have invited them in and given them something to drink if they wish, most do not, and listened to what they had to say. If I disagreed with what they were evangelizing I told them why and supported my beliefs in a respectable manner.

I have four Books of Mormon that I have no idea what to do with. I can’t bring myself to throw them out and I don’t want to give them away because I don’t want to help in their evangelization.
 
It is also necessary to understand the changes that Jehovah’s Witnesses have made to the Bible. While they adhere to sola scriptura, it’s a different scriptura they are referring to!

JWs have removed all evidence of Jesus’ divinity from the Bible. They have also changed all references to The Holy Spirit to render the Spirit as just part of God’s powers. Of course, this also does away with the belief in a Triune God. They do not believe Christ rose from the dead (betcha didn’t see a lot of faithful JWs packing the movie houses for The Passion of the Christ!).

So when you are talking to JWs, you have to start with the premise that you don’t have much at all in common. In fact, since they reject salvation through Christ, I’d call them Old Testament Christians. 😉

There’s a lot more out there. Here’s one site:
biblebelievers.com/jmelton/jw.html . WARNING: The site is not particularly friendly to Roman Catholicism (that’s an understatement, actually), so beware that the apologia used against the JWs is coming from a fundamentalist point of view, so a) it won’t answer every objection we may have; and b) some of the points they raise may be anti-Catholic, as well. But it’s a start.
 
Bea'(name removed by moderator):
I had a visit yesterday from my neighborhood Jehovahs. I attempted once to defend my faith years ago (a miserable failure:() and have since either not answered the door or gave a lame excuse why I couldn’t give them time (e.g. my baby was sleeping yesterday). I know Catholic Answers has some great material on this but was wondering, how have you all replied to these unsolicited visits and their claims? I’m thinking I’ll just keep a supply of CA’s tracts by the door and we can exchange materials?🙂

If you have a nice, short rebuttal I can use that would be great!

Love and God bless,
Bea’s Mom
Click to expand...
I ususally do not give them any time, but a few weeks ago to LDS missionaries came to my door and started by telling me they came to share the true Church of Jesus Christ with me. To which I reponded “Oh you mean the Catholic Church?”

We had a nice chat at the front door and when they saw they were getting nowhere with me, they left. I did challenge them to bring me evidence from early church history that the LDSs existed.

LDS missionaries are young men and it is not a fair fight. The Elders send them out to toughen their skin. I doubt they will be back.

-Ted
 
I had been thinking a lot about this since I purchased the Beginning Apologetics series from CA. It gave me lots of information about what the JWs beleive and what they don’t. I do tend to look a the situation as a learning experience when the JWs come knocking. As long as you have the faith and the knowledge of the truth, the JW cannot get you too frustrated. I actually enjoyed speaking briefly with an elderly couple a few weeks ago. They spoke things that I read about and used that experience to learn even more about them. Don’t forget, they are formally trained to talk the talk and walk the walk. Who knows, maybe God put them on this world to give Catholics a reason and oportunity to defend and explain their faith.

God Bless.

TonyD
 
Greetings: First, don’t refer to them as Jehovah’s and here is why - that is just a translation of Yahweh, IAM, aka God’s Name. Call them witnesses, or JW’s, when you speak or write. Second, neither yourself nor others prepared on some level to deal with them are required to. It is exactly groups like these who mislead and mess up people for the Church previously to give wise counsel to avoid such people.
Yes, I do actually have a niiiiice short rebuttal. Also, on your behalf, I emailed a forum member here named J. Schwehm. The email includes link directly to this thread.

The word and title “Lord” in both testaments refer to God. There is no getting around that. “The Lord is God” there is no other. If you want, later I will go get specific passages from the Scriptures for you to write down or print out as support, but you won’t need them!
Always they arrive at your door in twos. Always one is the senior member and the other less experienced; the exception happens but rarely. Here is what you say:
(very first chance you get…)
What is the (personal) name of the Lord?

Look directly at the younger one and ask that. Look directly at the more experienced one (the first to speak, often enough) and ask that. Don’t change the words at all.

In the New Testament, even Paul in one sentence covering two verses says Jehovah (the Father, actually) is Lord AND Jesus is Lord. This undercuts their teaching that Jesus is not God. It’s simple and to the point and you will be undermining the younger’s faith if nothing else. It is so simple that the seed isn’t easily set aside.
God bless you, Father - Son - and Holy Spirit!
Theresa
 
Good luck!

You’ll never get a nice short rebuttal to a JW. They are so wacky on so many issues that they can really tie you up all day.
Unless you have time for serious study, I’d just bone up on your ability to explain the trinity and learn how to counter their arguments. The rest of the stuff (like the alleged Catholic-pagan links) you can usually reason through with them using common sense.
 
I read an exellent way to handle Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Catholic Educator’s Resources (CER) website. Karl Keating handled the “visit” perfectly. When they announced who they were and the nature of their visit, he immediately, authoritatively, and respectfully took control of the conversation. The key is that if you allow them to even start sharing their message, you are validating what they are doing. You are compelled to respect any neighorhood evangelist as a child of God, but you are not in any way compelled to respect their doctrine or message, especially when it is flat wrong. I recommend you study up on the JWs and the LDSs, because they (unfortunately) are the 2 most actively evangelizing sects in the American religious scene, and they aren’t even technically Christian (although they believe they are).

Second point to remember is they sincerely believe in what they are preaching. They are not paid salespeople. They do what they do for free because they believe they are compelled to do it. Knowing how to rebut their claims is important, but more important is to defend your faith with love and humility. Maybe you might even have a glimmer of respect for the zeal they have for sharing their faith, I wish more Catholics were the same way. I hope something I said helps, and I would go to the CER (see above) and read about Karl’s response to the JW missionaries, one of whom claimed to be a former Catholic :eek: .

Pax Christi!
 
I usually tell them, no thanks, I already belong to the one true church and that is the Catholic church…would YOU like to attend with me and read some materials that could enlighten YOU further? That about ends it right there… I’m usually interupted in the middle of something important and dont have the time to engage. But maybe keeping some info found here at this site and giving it to them is about the best thing to do if one doesnt wanna go into apologist mode. 😉
 
The last time the Jehovah’s came to my door, their response to me when I opened the door was “Do you know about the Kingdom?”
My reply: “Oh yes, I work for the King!”
I offered them tracts from Catholic Answers, which they wouldn’t take (of course), so I told them, “look, if you take mine I’ll take yours.”
They wanted to pray with me and I told them to hang on a minute while I get my rosary, to which they responded “Oh no, not the rosary!”
My response: “Why do you have a problem with the rosary?”
Their response: “It’s repititious prayer!”
My response: “So!” When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Agony, didn’t he ask His Father more than once to “Take this cup from me?” How can repititious prayer be harmful or invalid? It can’t!
They never came back again.
Hope this helps…
In His Light and Love,
Michele Tamurian
 
Once when the JW’s came calling I engaged in a very polite discussion with them. I was very blunt (but polite) in telling them about my Roman Catholicism and why it was the true faith. I told them that while I realized that they were trying to bring me to their faith that I was going to try to bring them to mine. When they offered some of their literature, I said that I would gladly accept it IF they accepted some of mine (about the RCC AND a Knights of Columbus pamphlet on the errors of the JW’s). I said that that they should take these pamphlets back with them and distribute them to their fellow JW’s and that I would gladly provide more copies if necessary. Interestingly, they politely refused my literature and really worked on me to take some of theirs. I didn’t and they didn’t, but we had a very nice discussion for approximately 45 min. to 1 hr. - all on the front porch of my house.
 
The best resource I have found for dealing with Jehovah Witnesses is Tim Staples 3 tape series, How to be a true witness for Jehovah available from St Joseph communications .
Tim’s strategy is to deal mainly with the doctrines of the Divinity of Jesus and the Trinity.
A quick prayer to the Holy Spirit and some previous study time with the tapes will prepare you well.
I also had some materials from Catholic Answers ready by the door, but this was refused.
The lady I deal with who is in her late sixties will not listen to any reasoned debate.Talking to her on a personal level she shared with me how she was left with three young children as a young woman.And it soon became clear that the Jehovah witnesses offered her support and community at this vulnerable time.
As Catholics one way we can evangelise is building up the community in our own parishes,so people will not be enticed away to other religions.And also people from other churches will feel welcome.
 
Hello all:

I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness from the time I was five years old. I became a full-time door to door evangelist for the JWs when I was 17 and I spent a year at the World Headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Eventually, my wife and I left the JWs and became Lutheran (Missouri Synod) and now we are Catholic.

I appreciate all of the interest in how to share the Truth with our Jehovah’s Witness neighbors. I wish more Christians would do that. There are a variety of ways to approach the JWs when they visit. My advice to people who ask me how to speak with the JWs is that they are to show the unconditional love of Christ to them. Each of the suggestions above are really different ways of doing just that.

If any of you are in dialogue with the JWs and need some coaching you can reach me via email at schwehmjm@lakeland.edu I have coached Christians in dialogue with the JWs in the past with some interesting results.

Keep up the good work.

Jeff Schwehm
 
I always ask them to come in and if they would like something to drink. I am also more than willing to take any paper work they may want to give me (less for them to then give to someone else). I let them talk for a while on their script, and then ask their personal story, and after spending some time with them I ask if it is ok if we talk about some areas where I dont quite agree with them, but want to make sure I understand what they are saying. I think it is so important to take the time to let them feel welcome, and to let them understand that I care for the truth.

Over a three month period with some Mormons they kept comming back and bringing people they said could help better with my questions. They all stoped comming after it worked high enough up their food chain, but I know there was two of them asking some hard questions for their leadership, because on the last visit they were asking their leadership my questions. Who knows what God will do with that, I do know this if they had not felt welcome they would not have come back, and I did make some mistakes but they came back in spite of that.
 
if anyone is interested in resources to arm themselves w/ info, i have compile–for phatmass.com–the following articles:

Jehovah’s Witnesses
Comprehensive Arguments
–Watchtower Information Service*
–Jehovah’s Witnesses
–The Incredible Creed of the Jehovah’s Witnesses
–The Watchtower’s Flickering Light
–What Do Jehovah’s Witnesses Believe?
–Helping Jehovah’s Witnesses Get the Picture
–Are They Awake on the Watchtower?
–History of the Jehovah’s Witnesses
–Stumpers for Jehovah’s Witnesses
–More Stumpers for the Jehovah’s Witnesses
–101 Questions for Every Jehovah’s Witness
–Defending Catholicism to Jehovah’s Witnesses
–Jehovah’s Witnesses as an Organization
–Talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses
–Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watchtower
–Jehovah’s Witnesses

more articles will be included in another post…
 
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