Will Jehovah's Witnesses ever form a SECT?

by Fisherman 27 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Fisherman

  VO. I fear nothing that is truth. I do not think that the jw movement is a cult. If you really want to get technical I think that all religions are cults.

  Just read the Bible. Imagine sacrificing animals, living as a nazarite or as prophet, talking snakes, people that dream about the future, listenning to God's command to kill your son.. and all that seemingly crazy stuff, not to mention the human sacrifice of jesus, sounds cultish today to a modern scientific world based on evidence and facts. BUt VO you are off topic. My post was adressing the turmoil inside the wts today and if another jw orgganization could form.
• 

  Mary

  There's actually been several offshoots of the religion that Charles Russell started. Here's a link that explains some of them:

  http://www.answers.com/topic/bible-student-movement
• 

  vomit

  Fisherman you are going to have to tighten up your own definitions because now you are ignoring evidence presented to you.
  Colloquially I would say you are mincing words.
  There will never be a denomination, because essentially to be a denomination they have to believe in the core doctrine. The core doctrine of JWs is that the faithful and discrete slave is the great crowds channel to god, they own the printing houses. The wont happen in modern times but has happened in Romania. Where the old doctrine was kept.
  There are splits factions and sects, in the same way that JWs are sects, i.e. taking some of the doctrine from the Seventh Day Adventists.
• 

  barry

  A group of Jws breaking off and forming a sect would have little impact on the WT Society as a whole.

  What needs to happen is the sect needs to be formed among card holding JWs themselves. If IT was possible for Ray Franz to get a following inside the WT society so a large number of JWs would follow his opinions this would have the effect of forcing the WT society to accomodate their opinions or be faced with a large split in the JW religion.

  This is precicely how other churches work and is a good thing because it keeps everyone honest and tolerant of others. In the SDAs my own church there are traditional Adventists , Evengelical Adventists , Liberals just to name a few and all are accepted .

  The WT society will eventially evolve into a more reasonable institution.
• 

  Oroborus21

  Fisherman,

  JWs are properly considered a sect of 19th Century Adventism

  http://www.jehovahs-witnesses.info/adventism.html

  Additionally there have been several splinter groups that could be termed a sect of Intnl Bible Students/JWs. See chart above. Most notably the Dawn Bible Students are a sect of JWs splitting after the assumption of the JW name.

  Of course such sects have their own commonalities with JWs and great differences which is sorta the point right.

  It seems unlikely given today's JW culture that there would be any significant sect formed again. There could be mass exoduses but these exJWs would likely go off in separate ways the way that individuals do today, some joining other churches and some doing their own thing.

  I believe that the best outcome for the Organization is to return once again to the Russellite model (but without much of the russellite beliefs that weigh down present bible student groups like the Dawn) of individual bible student congregations only loosely associated with each other.

  http://www.jehovahs-witnesses.info/whither.html

  -eduardo
• 

  jwfacts

  I do not think that the jw movement is a cult. If you really want to get technical I think that all religions are cults.

  Fisherman, I tend to agree that religions border on being cults. However the WTS clearly is a cult, depending on your definition. A cult really is any group that is not mainstream. More importantly is whether it is a damaging cult.

  For information on that you may find http://jwfacts.com/index_files/mindcontrol.htm interesting, as it compares the WTS to research into cults.
• 

  jgnat

  There are some African sects who claim their roots in Russelism.

  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8294(198106)20%3A2%3C130%3AASIF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V

  http://www.watchtowerinformationservice.org/index.php/stories-biographies/joseph-booth-an-african-legend/

  "Brother Elliot Kamwana was arrested
  and deported by the government at the instigation of the Calvinistic
  Scotch missionaries of Bandwe, Lake Nyasa, who
  were greatly surprised that their work of years could be so
  quickly lifted to the higher plane of our teaching."
  (Russell 1909)

  In 1912 the enthusiasm was spent. Kamwana’s "Watch Tower movement"
  split apart and spread to Rhodesia, Tanganyika and the Congo.
  Meanwhile, in 1910, Booth’s allegiance switched to the Seventh
  Day Baptists.

  The African Watchtower movement, called "Chitawala"
  in Rhodesia and "Kitawala" in the Congo persisted as an independent,
  multifarious movement. It was eschatological, anti-European and
  violent. There were numerous murders, riots, drowning of
  "witches" and small native rebellions.

  Around 1930 the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the main offshoot
  from Russellism, arrived and tried to recapture the movement.
  They failed but did make many converts from it. This has given
  the Witnesses a "grass roots" aspect not enjoyed by other Western
  religions in Africa.
• 

  Fisherman

  JGnat:

  Hmmmmm. Interesting info. I am never too proud to learn something.