by R.F. 103 Replies latest jw experiences
- What do you call worshipers of Zeus?
- What do you call worshipers of Mithra?
- What do you call worshipers of Christ?
- What do you call worshipers of Jehovah?
The answer to these questions should help delineate the difference between a Christian and a JW...
Lol. Are Buddhists necessarily worshippers of the Buddha? Lutherans worshippers of Luther?
I am waiting for the non trinty of the Catholic church to start here in the states,oh but they blew it by keeping Easter. Oh well!
Jesus and Jehovah chooses who the true christain really are out all nations and tongues. They will also choose the evil, apostasy, weeds, and antichrist.
Humans love to label each other.
I am going stay out of the "JWs Christian or not" dispute and just say that their brand of religion isn't for me. Nevertheless, after leaving the Watchtower I began attending Episcopal services and in April 1991 I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church.
I'm sorry to everyone for any possible confusion. I will say that I didn't intend to say that JWs aren't Christian. The point I was trying to understand was of who here have gone to other Christian faiths. I have noticed many here had turned to atheism and agnostism. I just wanted to know that out of curiosity. Once again, sorry for any confusion.
Didier:
Poor show. You know fine well what I'm getting at.
Buddhists don't worship at all, per se, claiming a philosophy instead. Lutherans would still claim to be Christians in the first instance, with the "Lutheran" appendage merely declaring their strand of theology. JWs specifically worship "Jehovah" in contrast to every Christian denomination that acknowledges their worship of Christ.
Why trade in one form of slavery for another?.........Christian, Buddhist, Islam, Hindu.etc....etc.......Think for yourself.
Didier:
Poor show. You know fine well what I'm getting at.Buddhists don't worship at all, per se, claiming a philosophy instead. Lutherans would still claim to be Christians in the first instance, with the "Lutheran" appendage merely declaring their strand of theology. JWs specifically worship "Jehovah" in contrast to every Christian denomination that acknowledges their worship of Christ.
Ross,
Your unusual aggressivity tells me that the case you are trying to make is a bit too narrow for your own kind self.
1. You arbitrary choose to read "worshipof Christ" into the definition of "Christianity".
2. You could just as well read another criterium, like discipleship -- "following Christ's teaching".
My counter-examples were deliberately picked from perspective # 2; which, I believe, is at least as firmly grounded in the NT as # 1 (understatement).
Denying the "Christian" label in principle to people who try to follow Jesus' teaching as they understand it (and I don't mean JWs particularly) because they don't "worship Christ" (and, afaik, Jesus is never depicted as asking for being worshipped) seems rather dogmatic for an "unorthodox Christian," don't you think?
Are Jehovah's Witnesses Christian? I think it depends on who is asking the question and why.
I wrote a long answer to this question in Word and I can't seem to paste it for some reason. Does anyone know why that is? Can't we paste from Word? Is this a new change?
I can't be bothered retyping it. :-(
Slim
Are Jehovah's Witnesses Christian? I think it depends who is asking the question and why.
1. From a theological perspective Jehovah's Witnesses fall outside of orthodoxy, but who gets to decide orthodoxy? The biggest church? That which most churches agree on? If you believe in God then surely he is the only one who can decide. If that is the case then why not leave the matter with God? Of course it is ironic that leaving such matters in 'God's hands' is the one thing fervent religious believers of many persuasions are most reluctant to do. They feel compelled to demonstrate to all who will listen that they have a hotline that tells them they know what God is thinking on this or any other issue.
2. From a historical perspective are Jehovah's Witnesses faithful to primitive Christianity? A secular scholar could no doubt find lots of discrepancies and differences. I am not sure he would find any fewer differences between many other groups claiming to be Christian and early Christianity though. Besides, movements develop. Marxists today hold additional basic assumptions that Marx did not come up with, yet they still have the lineage. Is history the answer? Often History (the subject with a capital) is the problem not the answer.
3. From a sociological perspective one could argue Jehovah's Witnesses more closely resemble early Christianity than mainline Christian groups today. They are strict, exist in a high degree of tension with the societies in which they survive, and they maintain an eschatological urgency which mainline Christianity has largely lost.
Those are three empirical strategies for determining whether JWs are Christian, but they are ultimately inconclusive in my opinion. Or worse still, if they do prove conclusive then it will lead to oppression. Instead look at where the power lies whenever someone asks the question 'are JWs Christian'? Trite solutions about Christians following Christ and Jehovah's Witnesses being 'Jehovists' are a diversion. It seeks a semantic solution to an issue that has rather to do with power relationships. The question 'are Jehovah's Witnesses Christian?' rarely or never has anything really to do with history or even theology. It is simply shorthand for "Do JWs have the truth?" or "Are JWs decent people?" or "Are they genuine or are they a fraud?" or” Are JWs acceptable?” You can see what a dangerous line we are going down.
Taking into consideration the power relationships involved I propose that we accept JWs are Christians in some discussions and tolerate the view that they are not in others.
I am fairly comfortable with ex-Jehovah's Witnesses claiming that JWs are not Christian for various personal and theological reasons. This is pretty understandable and harmless in my view. Since even Jehovah's Witnesses are generally more powerful discursively in any society than the few disgruntled members who decide to leave, there is no danger of serious imbalance or conflict as a result of that claim. Should ex-Witnesses become a very powerful constituent at any point, or ally themselves with other more potent foes of JWs as they have done in some regimes, then the claim becomes far more insidious in my view and would then need to be countered.
I am far less comfortable with traditional authorities - a court, a commission, a professor, a politician - declaring JWs unChristian since that will undoubtedly lead to oppression. I don't care what empirical strategy is involved in them distilling this 'truth' about JWs, whether it be a politican's casual reading of the evening newspaper or the professor's careful study of Christian artefacts. What matters is not the 'evidence', but the power effects.
Even though how much you may disagree with JWs how would you feel for instance, in the admittedly unlikely event that say George Bush or Tony Blair were to state or comment that JWs are not a Christian group? Or if newspapers began running editorials against JWs that read like Danny Haszard’s posts – would that be a good thing? If it is an empirically sound "fact", based on theology, sociology and history then logically that should not be different than stating Hindus are not Christians or rape is criminal for example. But of course it is not the same because JWs at least claim to be Christians, and decent society accepts their right to make that claim and others to contest it on a level playing field. And anyway politicians in western democracies would not usually make such statements since people are increasingly aware of the uneasy relation between truth and power. And this is where it becomes clear that in asking whether JWs are Christian or not most people fundamentally are not asking a historical or even a theological question. They are trying to declare whose self-definition as Christian gets to be accepted as 'true'. And that is not a thing we allow our politicians (or other authorities) to decide for us.
We should accept the autonomy of individuals to make up their own minds about whether JWs have the truth or not without trying to load the language one way or the other.
Slim
