hey, i'm new to this site, but i'm looking for the big differences between christianity and jehovah's witnesses.
i would like any information you have, and references to it if you have references.
thanks a lot.
And there are some here who are still Witnesses but who are now aware that not all is well with the Society's soul.
But a sick person is not necessarily sick unto death, unless there is no improvement. No doubt those of us who remain Witnesses see some good in the people, if not in the organization, and hold on for that reason.
Unfortunately, it seems that the leaders are not aware of their diseased condition, and refuse to be told.
instead of bringing out the negatives about being a witness, let's relate some good experiences!
i'll start.
i remember a sister that brought up all her kids up in the "truth" and her husband was very opposed but later he started studying and he even got baptized.
I remember best those brief, ill-fated days when there was the barest opening toward humanizing the Organization, being more concerned with people than with counting time, and when "sacred service" was broadened to embrace more than merely knocking on doors. Sadly, unfortunately, it was not long before that bright light was snuffed out and strict devotion to the Organizational treadmill was reinstated.
hey, i'm new to this site, but i'm looking for the big differences between christianity and jehovah's witnesses.
i would like any information you have, and references to it if you have references.
thanks a lot.
There are paradoxes in religion. One of the reasons I am still a Witness is that, though in my heart I am Evangelical in believing in salvation only by Christ, not by a Governing Body, there is no way I can believe in the Trinity doctrine. Or a literal Hellfire. Or everlasting torment of souls. Trinity is not even a Bible word, and Hell and damnation go against God who is Love.
So right now, I am really the only known member of my own religion.
just read this article about martin luther -- the wtbts state -- luther recognized that god's favor cannot be earned.
rather , it is granted to those exercising faith romans 1:16; 3:23,24,28 .
these days i do not go to meetings very often so i do not know what is new light and old -- and have read in r. franz coc similar material with ed dunlap and commentary on letter of james.. this implies salvation can not be earned (i.e.
We are a works-based religion. There's no getting around that. As it was explained to me long ago, 'How can you be a Witness if you don't witness?' And if you are not a Witness, you cannot be God's friend and be saved, the party line goes.
Nearly every Watchtower and Kingdom Ministry beats the drum for field service! And yes, there is talking out of both sides of the mouth. On the one hand we are told that Jehovah accepts the best we can do according to our circumstances. On the other hand, we cannot define what our "best" is, the Society determines that. If we aren't preaching, and reporting it, we are nothing.
Strange, there is not one mention in the Bible about Jesus and the apostles "counting time" and turning in reports....
For the elderly and infirm, there is now the concession that they will not be labeled as "inactive" if they can turn in 15 minutes of service per month, and if the Service Overseer approves.
This whole scenario is just one more rut that the Governing Body has got us in. There's nothing Christian about it.
once again, i find myself fulminating in a kingdom hall, listening to a brain-dead, intinerant.
spiritual predator( i.e.
a circuit overseer) ramble on with society-approved lies about the outside world:.
Impossible! There are no Negroes available today.
There can be no finger pointing for responsibility for American slavery, yet it is true that there is no supply without a demand, and the demand was for slaves in the Americas. Without the demand, the supply would have dried up, or have been reduced to indentured servitude.
There are (too) many kinds of slavery in the world today, and all of them are bad.
has anyone ever sat down and made a series of questions that we can print and hand out to the people we know,.
so that when the dubbers come to the door they can ask the right questions to make the little buggers scurry for cover.. i have made a couple and it does work.
but if we could all put our minds togeather we could make a very concise to the point question sheet that is easy for non former cult members to understand and use.
Ask, "Do you have the holy spirit within you?"
If they say "No," since only the "anointed" have that privilege according to our doctrine, ask: "If you don't have the holy spirit within you, why are you preaching to me?"
In the New Testament, Christians are said to have the holy spirit within them, not merely to be "guided by" the spirit. It is an indwelling that Witnesses allow only to their "anointed." But the New Testament does not make such a distinction. In fact, the Bible says that Moses had the holy spirit within him, and Moses was not a member of the 144,000. So how can we say that only this group has the holy spirit within them?
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twiddling thumbs at work here lol...........question................. is there still an "air" of mystique about the gb within the rank and file, you know the "they must be soooo spirtual" blah blah blah..................i can remember people being so in awe of them, to the extent of wanting to attend conventions that a member would be giving a talk, as though it meant something special, .............. or have the r & f realised that the decision making and day to day activities are generally done and conducted like any other board meeting i've attended in my work and in thousands of other companies.
jgull
Hero worship isn't the worst of it. The Society also puts the GB in as the mediator between God and men, a role reserved in scripture for Jesus Christ only.
For example, in the latest Watchtower (09-01-03), the Protestant Reformation is blasted because "these churches continued to teach erroneous doctrines." But, so do we. That same article ("One True Christian Faith A Reality") erroneously states: "Individual congregations did not operate independently of one another. They all recognized the authority of a governing body in Jerusalem...consisting of the apostles and older men of the Jerusalem congregation."
The "proof text" quoted is from Ephesians, a book that was not written by the "governing body" but by an individual, the apostle Paul. Paul had his own disagreements with certain members of the Jerusalem "governing body." And he instructed the congregations to follow him only as he himself followed Jesus Christ, the true Head of the congregation.
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every magazine, newspaper or other periodical i have ever read would from time to time print a retraction to correct mistakes in past articles.
any reputable publishing house does this.. has anyone ever seen a retraction printed in the watchtower, awake, or any other wts publication?.
That hefty list of "clarifications" shows the arrogance of the policy of disfellowshiping people for disagreeing with WT speculations and dubious doctrine. Only a terroristic organization would instill such fear in its adherents that disagreement in the most minor of points jeopardizes a member's eternal future.
I will never forget the betrayal of having my long-held belief that the "higher powers" or "superior authorities" were Jehovah and Jesus casually overturned by the "new light" that they were really the secular governments! Of course, this "new light" was what old Satanic Christendom had all along!
in jesus' discussion on divorce, he said that moses allowed more latitude about divorce to the sons of israel as a concession.
(matthew 19) jesus noted this this arrangement was not so from the beginning.
are we to understand that parts of the mosaic law aside from the 10 commandments were from moses rather than god?
Just some random thoughts, not meant to be definitive:
The concession on Divorce is found at Deut. 24. All of Deuteronomy up to chapter 31 is one long discourse comprising "the words that Moses spoke to all Israel in the region of the Jordan in the wilderness." (1:1)
Of course, the Pharisees, whose religious descendants became the rabbis of today, considered as torah, or "law," both the written text and its interpretation (the "oral law").
Jesus accepted the Pharisees as those sitting "in Moses' seat" in his day. It was their deeds and traditions he objected to, not necessarily their core doctrines. Paul, another Pharisee, also contributed to the Christian corpus of doctrines. In a sense, both rabbinic Judaism and earliest Christianity were formed from a Pharisaic matrix.
Perhaps Jesus' comments merely suggest that a plain reading of Genesis makes it clear that "what God has joined together, let no man put apart." Therefore, the allowance of divorce, as promulgated by the Mosaic Law at Deut. 24, had to be a concession.
Moses was known to wrangle with God at times for the benefit of his (and His) stiff-necked people. Perhaps this is one of the things, though not specifically mentioned, that Moses wranged from the Eternal?
i am new here, and am a christian.
i had a young man and mother attempt to sell jw to my wife, who agreed to listen but only when i am there.
we are meeting with them tomorrow.
Doctrine brought me in, and doctrine will probably lead me out. What got me to thinking, just this year, was when I was with a Sister who made a return visit on an Evangelical. We thought this would be an easy call. Then the lady asked a question that blew me away:
"Do you have the holy spirit within you?"
An innocent question, true. But Witnesses are taught to believe that only the "anointed," the remnant of the 144,000 still on earth, have the holy spirit "within" them. But if we answered "No," the lady would then question why we were even there preaching to her! We couldn't say "Yes," because we were taught to believe that we were not among the "anointed."
So, for a while both of us were speechless.
Then the lady, discerning our distress, said simply but pointedly: "If you don't believe that the holy spirit is within you, I just feel so sad and sorry for you."
That ended the return visit. And began my active questioning of Watchtower doctrine.
