Hardcore evangelical intellectual just fell for an enlightened JW girl

by Stuartmc 51 Replies latest social relationships

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  jgnat

  Hey, stuartmc. I'm a long-standing Christian with a long history with the evangelical church. I married my Witness man, also considered "spiritually weak" or "bad association" by his congregation. I can relate to a lot of your feelings.

  Since the two of you have such great chemistry, do spend some time talkng about your differences. Bring everything up. The blood doctrine comes to mind, because you have to consider if you would let her die on the operating table for want of blood. Things like that.

  The children (both sides) are older, so if the two of you decide to make a go of it, I think they will survive.

  Do be prepared for a lot of ignorance on her part about "Christendom". They tend to lump all their relative "weaknesses" together. It might be worth your while to explore those differences. Is she willing to come along to one of your services? If you have less overt symbolism, such as crosses, she will be less guarded.
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  Stuartmc

  You folks are awesome. Thanks Sirona and Primitivegenius for your very good points. I haven't mapped out her new faith for her. Of course I would like her to have a saving faith in the Lord Jesus, not the archangel Michael, but I know that I can only pray for her and sew some seeds. At this point, I think my mission would be accomplished if I can open her eyes to what is really going on with WTS and she can make her own informed decision on disassociating. Fortunately, my church is very missions active. In fact I told her last night when I got back from a small fellowship group meeting that I was leading the discussion and prayer because my pastor and a group from the church were in Brazil traveling up the Amazon for their second missions trip this year. We don't have a lot of symbolism and the service style and music is casual contemporary, so... she might tolerate it quite well if she visits.

  I'm certainly not interested in dating someone to "score" (ha, ha, I like your style primitive genius) I'm definitely looking for long term, but marriage is not likely without getting some of these issues resolved. Even if married, having a child with her would be completely out of the question, unless she was permanently out of the JW's. You all have helped me refine and strengthen my position on this and for that I am very grateful.

  The orders of the day are patience and caution. I will try to keep my heart from running too far in front of my head.
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  jgnat

  I've had a few thoughts overnight, and a small observation. Keep away from the whole trinity argument. "True" Christians (how the JW's view themselves) and "Born Again" Christians just go in doctrinal circles over this one, and it is absolutely unproveable. It's not like God is going to come down and help settle your dispute on His Essential Nature. I've found it much more productive to talk about the fruit of the spirit and evidence that a church has God's blessing. The Watchtower society is definitely deficient in that respect. She would also be quite surprised, I think, as to the moral standards that your church upholds. Also talk about church discipline and how it is handled.

  ...and my small observation. I get very vivid word pictures from puns and malapropisms, and your sewing seeds, picture, well, it gave me a picture in my mind something like this...
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  Stuartmc

  Hi jgnat, First off, sorry about the typo of sewing vs. sowing.... geesh, I would have gotten a weird mental image too.

  I agree about avoiding an "in depth" discussion of the "Trinity", because that is a mystery that we Christians still grapple with. She has however mentioned to me that it is "not in the bible" so JW's don't believe it. Since this was one of the first doctrinal points she mentioned to me, I tried to give her a simple explanation of why the word "trinity" does not appear in the bible and where the concept came from.

  Essentially, this is what I shared with her. It is an attempt to describe the nature of God when confronted with some very interesting, and seemingly contradictory scriptures about who is the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. Rather than cherry pick one or a few scriptures that might portray them in one particular light, the church fathers in the fourth century tried to find a harmony of the scriptures by describing the one true God as having three distinct characters. They acknowledged then this was a feeble attempt to describe God's character by human words and understanding and that it was a "great mystery" of the faith. It still is today.

  I shared with her the concept of the trinity that an old saint in my church once told me. He told me that we know from the bible that God is Love. Not just that He loves us, but that he is inherently Love. He didn't need to create us in order to have Love. He wasn't missing Love with a need to be fulfilled through our creation. No, before time as we know it, He WAS Love. How can this be? Who did he love? Did He love himself? Yes, in that mysterious way, He did love himself because we believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit co-existed in perfect harmony and love before the world began.

  It is a very difficult concept to grasp and some people and religions, rather than struggling with the mystery and accepting that perhaps the human mind is not expansive enough to truly know the nature/ character of God, choose to focus only on those scriptures that make God more like us and therefore more understandable.

  Lastly, in another feeble attempt which anthropomorphizes God. I tried to apply the concept to myself. If I were to truly love you and make you my wife, I would undoubtedly have three very unique "kinds" of love existing in me and acting upon you. They would be: Agape (Godly/Spiritual) love; Philos (brotherly/friendship) love; and Eros (erotic/passionate) love. At different times you would see the different loves manifested. At times, if you didn't know better, you would think by my actions that only one kind of love was in play. For instance, when having passionate sex with you as my wife, you might think I was all about Eros. But yet, you know that the Agape and Philos are still there inextricably intertwined in the one Stuart that Loves you. Yeah, I know, it certainly is a flawed analogy, but nothing can truly describe the mystery of the Trinity either.

  You never know. Perhaps this might help someone else understand or at least appreciate the concept us Trinitarians grapple with.
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  jgnat

  It sounds like you are teaching and she is listening. I wonder how much is absorbed? A witness would probably let an evangelical go off on such illustrations, all the time murmuring under their breath, "pagan".

  I have yet to have a Witness manage to explain away the divinity of Christ. I think this is much more defensible, direclty from scripture, than the concept of "trinity".
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  Stuartmc

  I just finished reading "Crisis of Conscience." All I can say is "WOW!",

  This was beautifully written. You can feel the man's anguish and pain over all of this. How could anyone who reads this not come away with a strong conviction that the "organization" is not speaking for Jehovah.

  My question now is: Since this was written, has anything really changed with WTBTS? Are they more, or less dogmatic now? Are they still clinging to 1914 and the "generation?" I would appreciate anyones thoughts on this.
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  G Money

  What is she doing with her life? Religion aside, if she is doing nothing and has 2 kids, you may be her meal ticket. It doesn't look like any good could become of it. Wild JWs are worse than normal people. You'd have better luck with a churchy normal girl, hopefully no kids or somebody with a career and life all together.
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  real one

  I agree with open mind..tell her how you feel about Jesus Christ and show her scriptures to support your thoughts in the Bible. this may start her doubting the org. see if she will study the book of Romans with you
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  reniaa

  Ask youself one question....Can you love her if she stays a witness?

  That is the important one because no relationship even with a weak JW will last if you go into thinking "well hey shes a Witness but I can change her" or "she's weak enough to deconvert"

  this is a principle that works with whatever faith you are if it's different from your partners. If you start dispising someone for what they believe then that is a relationship killer because there is no way with someone so emotionally close to you that they won't feel it and react to it.

  Relationships can work if you can respect each others point of view and faiths, if they leave their faith or come to your viewpoint alls well and good but see that as a bonus.
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  Stuartmc

  Reniaa. Your message was right on the money.

  "Ask yourself one question....Can you love her if she stays a witness?"

  Our relationship has deepened tremendously in the last few months. We are very much in love and its a wonderful thing. We have talked very openly about our common ground and our differences. She knows that I will not convert and that I can love and accept her just as she is. She has done the same with me. We both know how important unconditional love is.

  I've done my homework, including purchasing and reading Crisis of Conscience. Being a lawyer and past seminarian, I know that I can win the battle of wits and tie her and her elders up in scriptural knots. But, in recent years I've learned a better way (the other way won't work and just builds animosity and strife) and that is the way of Love. The best I can do is to represent and give forth the Father's love - and that is a gentle, humble and non-judgmental love. If I can abide in that Love and give it to her and her brothers and sisters that I meet from the Kingdom Hall, then I can relax and know that the rest is in God's hands.