www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall JW Update

The Jehovah Witnesses who had been coming by changed their schedule for school (one of them is a teacher) and they started coming by when I was home. In the last few visits Rachel and I have come to the following conclusions:

1. Their "New World Translation" is skewed so that a reader will logically depend on their false doctrine or authority as teachers in order to make sense of 'scripture'. One case in point is John 8:58 (Jesus said to them: “Most truly I say to YOU, Before Abraham came into existence, I have been.”)

When I read that passage I was wondering where they got that. Rachel looked up the Greek and saw that there was no way the Greek could be rendered to that tense, so I looked up their version of Exodus 3:14 and was further disturbed: ("God said to Moses: “I SHALL PROVE TO BE WHAT I SHALL PROVE TO BE.” And he added: “This is what you are to say to the sons of Israel, ‘I SHALL PROVE TO BE has sent me to YOU.’”)

After looking back at John I saw they had a reference to Proverbs 8:22, and I noticed that they skewed the English in that passage to back up the change they made and their doctrine on the nature of Jesus. Their version of that passage begins "Jehovah himself produced me as the beginning of his way, the earliest of his achievements of long ago." (I would stress 'produced me as the beginning').

2. They are very rude and would want Rachel to be silent when men talk.

3. They are well prepared to encapsulate people who are ignorant of scripture. They keep insisting on having bible studies, and we have to keep explaining that we will only talk to them casually.

4. They need our prayers, especially the guy that keeps coming over. Rachel said that she would see new pairs every week because she would be very honest with them about doctrine and they didn't seem to take questions or observations that they are interpertating scripture very well. But the one guy that now comes weekly brightens up when I talk about history. He didn't know about Arianism. His curiosity gives me hope.

Terry, I think that it is very impressive that you are taking on Jehovah's Witnesses. I've never had the courage. I wish you the best and will keep you in my prayers.

Elizabeth

They come to my house from time to time. We mostly don't answer the door. Yet one time they came and the front door was open (the screen was closed) and they heard the T.V so I really couldn't play the “we are not home card”. Now they come maybe once a month and ask only for me- not my parents- but I am never home.

I had a JW in my Junior year math class and he would open up his bible in class and try to convert people (this was in a public school). My teacher would let it go on, he was so checked out by then (ready to retire). They are really just Arians and it just proves that once separated from the Church of Christ old heretical teachings will come around again. The Church is not there to guard them against false teachers and doctrines.

Let’s pray for their conversion to Christ, the Eternal Word of God, never created and of the same essence of the Father. And that they can come home to His Bride-the Church. Amen

When I bring out the icons and the kadilo, they generally go away. "No, wait, please! Let me tell you about my Church!"

I have not gotten to the icons yet, though I would suspect that they have seen them. In their narrative of the "invention of the Trinity" they say that the doctrine was created by the First Council of Nicaea, but I got a good response when I explained a little of the background. I referenced very early Christians who were Trinitarian as well, but I did not name any explicitly.

I plan to talk about the nature of Christ, the Eucharist, and St. Justin Martyr. I have talked about differences in our views of heaven, of God, and I mentioned the saints and why we do not believe that they "sleep".

St. Justin Martyr's writing, the First Apology, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm was one of the works that convinced me that I needed to retool my perspective on the development of doctrine and it led me to a conviction of the reality of the Eucharist.

I don't know why this pair keep coming back, but it serves as a reminder for Rachel and me that it is very important to be prepared to defend our faith.

Terry

The problem, at least here in my country as well as in the countries of Eastern Europe, is that the common citizen in the street is sometimes ignorant in matters of religion.

Many are unaware of what the JW's sectarians teach. Some do have a basic idea, that the JW's deny Christs's divinity and that they are rabid monotheists. However this is only partly true as their theology is actually polytheistic. They teach that there is a supreme God (Jehovah) who created a lesser god whose heavenly name was Michael the Archangel and whose name on earth was Jesus Christ. According to their theology, there are other gods who are inferior to Jehovah and Jesus Christ such as the angels (they quote the bible where the angels are sometimes called "gods") and Satan himself (the "god of this world").

JW's witnesses are Protestants: they have the Protestant canon of the bible and they teach most of the heresies that other sects teach.

However, in order to justify their radical ideology they have changed phrases and words in the bible. When the Bible writes "the Word was God" they translate "the Word was a god" and when the bible narrates a moment when Christ was about to be stoned by the Jews because he revealed he was God, they also translate "... being a man you make youself a god". When there is a praise directed to Christ as God, they insert prepositions so they make it look as if the praise was directed to God and the rest of the phrase to Jesus Christ as man.

According to the JW's, there is no hell, the condemned will simply be destroyed, that's why they also removed the word "hell" from their bible. They also teach that life will become a paradise where the JW's witnesses will live while the leaders of the sect will reign in Heaven with Christ and the apostles.

The fact that they changed the "I am" or "ego eimi" proves that a sect like that of the JW's is controled by liars and deceivers. The JW's are not a religion, they are a capitalist company (Watchtower and Tract Society) whose aim is to make business selling books and magazines to the poor followers. Unlike other religions, they do not participate in any charitable activity (after all, the world is going to be destroyed soon). They openly promote disobedience to the military duties of our citizens and they also promote corruption as the "governing body" told the sectarians to bribe officials so that they could get their military identity card. They incite to hatred against our culture and national symbols and they do this in every country where they operate as a religion. They're a subversive sect, created by freemason Russel and a tool of capitalist ideological penetration.

A good government would do what the Russian government does, by restricting their activities. It's shameful that authorities and business men of most countries in the world collaborate with this sect by allowing them to host massive events in stadiums (after all, the owners of stadiums and theatres are well paid by the sect). They're totally inmoral.

However, the JW's are not the only problem. After all, a lot of people do know that they're liars and deceivers so many already know that they must not listen to them. Now, the most important threat is Evangelicalism. Evangelicalism grows because of the support given to the heretic preachers by large companies and business men from the Western world (especially from the United States).

Evangelicalism is also a political movement, imposing upon us a political view which is openly favorable to Zionism and Capitalism. Their preachers preach politics and not religion, they have channels on tv and they receive millions of dollars that are used to establish missions and temples. I know one man, for example, who's from Malaysia. He doesn't work, he's always at home reading the newspaper. However, he's the founder of an Evangelical mission and he receives 70,000 USD each year from the United States (in my country this is a lot of money). It's surely a great business.

People who teach that we must have a "personal relationship" with Christ and that all we need to be saved is "faith" are much worse than a Mao Tse Tung or a Stalin. After all, these men only killed bodies while Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and their successors execute millions and millions of souls everyday because of their doctrines.

Protestantism is our enemy in religion and it's my opinion that we should treat it as such.

Hi Terry, Maybe this website may be of help:

Ex JW Catholics [catholicxjw.com]

It's great to know that my sister, my parents, and my grandparents are all far worse than Mao or Stalin.

All sarcasm aside, I demand an apology for such despicable speech.

Ryan

People are a product of their formation. Mexican has been formed by his experiences. Some of his post is OK, and a reasonable summary. But some of it lacks charity. Protestants are not the enemy! They are our brothers in Christ. Where we disagree with them we win them over with love and with example, not with condemnation. Mexican's post attacking Evangelicals, capitalists and others does not follow the teaching of the Church, or the examples of recent popes and other bishops, and laymen. I apologize to our Forum readers for his for those aspects of his post that fail to reflect an attitude compatible with Christian charity toward those outside the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Forgive him and pray for him.

Jehovah is not the name of God in scripture: it is not the name of the God of Israel; it is not the name of the God of Jesus. It is, rather, the result of sincere but incorrect scholarship. That is telling as to the substance of their witness.

It appears they rewrite scripture to suit their doctrine and advance their arguments. Some time ago, expecting that they used the King James version, I challenged two who had arrived at my door to explain the words of Jesus at the last supper. They showed me their book which read (as I recall), "This is a sign of my body."

What Mexican said about their view of Christ, it now make sense why they, on a pressing, would say that Christ is "a god". I thought they were confused.

I shared the website with my wife, we'll make good use of it.

Terry

I apologize before all of you to Athanasius, as he got offended by my post. I wanted to mention that the ones I said to be worse than Stalin or Mao Tse Tung are people like Calvin, Luther and the sectarian leaders, not the vast majority of Protestants who are born members of these sects or who become part of them because of personal desperation, financial need or simply ignorance.

I just want to tell you that today, a plane was hijacked in Mexico City. The passengers, thank God, were freed by the hijacker and this unhappy man was finally put in custody of the police. Who was this man? A Protestant pastor from Bolivia who leads a sectarian congregation. This wicked man forced the crew to fly over the city 7 times because "7" is the number of God. This man wanted to talk to the President because he had a revelation from God himself that today 09/09/09 a terrible earthquake was about to destroy the city. The man said what every Evangelical says "I was in jail, I was drunk, I did drugs but the I received Christ as a personal saviour and I changed my life and now I come to warn you about the terrible things that will happen if you don't repent and receive him in your heart".

About Capitalism, there is a difference between legitimate Capitalism and super capitalism. Supercapitalism is abusive and its tools are monopoly, monopsony and speculation, its intentions are political. Fair capitalism is based on just economic factors and it was born when man was able to produce more than what was necessary for living. Supercapitalism has its roots in the doctrines of the saducees who only cared about wealth and were part of the sanhedrin at the time of Christ's crucifiction. The Church always attempted to stop these practices. The Council of Wien (1312) excommunicated political leaders who allowed usury as well as those who claimed that "usury was not a sin". Lord Bacon was the most important defender (much later) of usury. Queen Elizabeth and William Cecil imposed this policy in England. Under Cromwell, Manchester became the craddle of usury.

I want to quote Pope Pius' Encyclical "Quadragesimo Anno":

"The ultimate consequences of the individualist spirit in economic life are those which you yourselves, Venerable Brethren and Beloved Children, see and deplore: Free competition has destroyed itself; economic dictatorship has supplanted the free market; unbridled ambition for power has likewise succeeded greed for gain; all economic life has become tragically hard, inexorable, and cruel."

Thanks for reading my polemical posts.

I have a JW background and I have found these resources to be helpful. They can be read online, but I'd recommend downloading the PDF versions of these files as they are bookmarked, which makes them more easily used. These resources are charitably written and should give a lot of information that can be used in discussions with JWs.

A Catholic Critique of Jehovah's Witnesses [archive.org] A good introduction to JWs and their beliefs and history.

Is Your Hope Bible-Based? [archive.org] Bible verses you can ask questions of the JWs and ways to reason with them about their hope of salvation (which is different than orthodox Christianity).

Witnesses of Jehovah [archive.org] A good book length introduction to the JWs, popularly written.

The Gospel According to Jehovah's Witnesses [archive.org] A good basic refutation of JW doctrines, written by John Coffey, a Catholic layman.


Jehovah's Witnesses and the Catholic Church [archive.org] Transcripts of lectures by the same author as above on JW objections to specifically Catholic doctrines. Coffey's lectures can also be listened to online at the same site.

Rather than dispute with the JWs, I suggest putting a big, welcoming smile on your face, opening your door as wide as possible, and saying to the uninvited visitors: "O, I'm so glad you're here; please come in! I'm about to take a rare roast beef out of the oven and I'll be happy to share it with you - we'll say a little prayer together, have our nice dinner, and then have some lovely fresh-brewed Blue Mountain Coffee!"

Since they won't eat rare roast beef, won't pray with you, and won't drink coffee, they will take their leave (and after trying to convince them to eat the nice, juicy roast beef you reluctantly excuse yourself because you don't want your dinner to get cold) and they are unlikely to return. If they do, just try a second dose!

Nasty of me? Sure.

Fr. Serge

I wouldn't say nasty--I would say downright and absolutely-- *brilliant*!!! You are too clever, dear Father Serge!!!