Are elders ordained ministers?

by love11 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Band on the Run

  There is a difference between a minister and an "ordained minister." Ordination typically refers to a credentialing process. Churches want ordinaed ministers that are recognized as teaching correct, not apostate or careless, church doctrine. B/c the Witnesses don't have a seminary, formal procedures, they are defining ordinations themselves.

  The Catholic church has lay ministers and priests. The lay ministers are prob. not ordained. It is implicit that they are saying only elders and pioneers have a special status. I should have paid attention to the FN. Of course, this from the religion where no one is above another, not like those Babylon the Great religions.
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  Glander

  I think that Hugh Hefner has been ordained as a 'lay' minister.
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  rebel8

  On my regular pioneer card it said I was an ordained minister. It was supposed to get me out of jury duty or something. The qualification was graduating from pioneer school. In order to attend the school you were required to have 1 yr as a regular pio too. (I didn't have that nor did I ever make my time on any month prior to attending the school, so even that was a sham.)
  
  I believe this issue has been researched/discussed here. You can probably find it in the Best Of folder.
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  NewChapter

  We were always told that all baptized witnesses were ordained ministers! Your baptism ordains you! Would anyone like to send me a donation---I'm an ordained minister.
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  Band on the Run

  I don't mean to be preachy or whatever the correct term is. There is a distinction between ordained minister and ministers. It is agreed that the WTBTS states that all its active members are ministers. Ordination is not a legal term. It refers to a process conferring legitimacy on what I do not know. Sometimes I'd love to have Encyclopedia Brittanica on tap.

  If no central body recognizes any particular ordination process, what does it matter whether you are ordained. A hunky dory religious member.

  Some people seem to understand that minister, lay minister, and ordained legal minister may mean different things.

  I used to tell classmates that my father was an ordained minister to class him up.

  The key for me would be a Witness statement about ordained ministers to figure out what they mean, if anything.
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  NewChapter

  BOTR---they used to say we were ORDAINED ministers---over and over. I don't know if this is a regional understanding, but it was not uncommon. I always thought it sounded weird.

  Promise.

  NCa
• 

  Glander

  I think I will have some cards printed up that identify me as an

  Ordained Minister of the Church of Jehovah's Witness Apostates

  Weddings - Funerals - Marriage Counseling

  Certified Atheist Spiritualist

  reasonable rates
• 

  shepherd

  "At the end of the baptism talk the speaker tells the baptismal candidates that their loud and clear affirmative answers to the two questions qualify them as ordained ministers of Jehovah God."

  This is correct and is the JW view. BOTR, the JW's believe baptism provides the legitimacy and ordains them. So whatever your views of ministers and ordained may be, in JWland they are ordained.
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  GLTirebiter

  This is correct and is the JW view. BOTR, the JW's believe baptism provides the legitimacy and ordains them. So whatever your views of ministers and ordained may be, in JWland they are ordained.

  I have read the same, but I think the OP and BOTR are discussing who is ordained in the eyes of the state--allowed to officiate at a wedding, for example. In that context I'd say elders do perform the role of "ordained ministers", while pioneers are non-ordained missionaries. I'm undecided about MS; that's a close call.
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  Phizzy

  BOTR is right as to how the world views ordination, but of course, the WT is above all that ,and it uses the word as it sees fit, not how everyone else does.

  But in its claim that all, or even some, are ordained the WT may find it comes back to bite them in the bum, in the Courts here in the U.K at the moment there is a case where it is being claimed that because the particular minister was ordained by the Church, they are responsible for what he does,and for his welfare, in that the Church is his employer, in the past the Church has got out of such responsibility by claiming that God was their ministers employer !

  The WT likes to distance itself from Elders that get into trouble, DF them quick and say they are "no longer a JW" was the method.

  They may not be able to do that in the future if any of their ordained ones get in trouble, even saying "we did not ordain them, Jehovah did" would do no good, they claim to be His sole representative on Earth, so the ordination came through them.

  They may find they are locked in to a union with there adherents that they cannot in law break, and this by their casual misuse of one word !