by carla 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
In the elders manual under apostasy,
"1) Celebrating False Religious Holidays: (Ex. 32:4-6; Jer. 7:16-19) Not all holidays directly involve false religion and require judicial action."
Which holidays specifically can they do now? or is it up to each group of elders?
4th of july US, Father and mothers day, Labor day US, April fools day, Ground hog day, Guy Fawkes day. I know in several congregations I went to there was always a debate on is it a sin to go see the 4th fireworks. And some would even say if you can see them from your home you should not set up a chair and watch.
That is called "straining the gnat" I believe..... so many congregations have different ideas.. one sister I was speaking about said the society said people worship the Christmas tree. Previously I was in the world and did not worship the "tree".. It was pretty, that was it. and she argued that is the stand the society took, I told her it was wrong - no worship of the tree was in my house. She was adamant, but so was I - quiet times.
From what I read and saw in the Bible Teach book as far as illustrations they single out Christmas (too ecumenical, too many chances to connect with your family and community) and Halloween (too 'spiritistic'). The others they dont seem to talk much about, but like truthlover123 said, that might vary by circuit or even hall.
CARLA:
In my opinion, the reason that Jehovah’s Witnesses are against celebrating holidays is because they are afraid of JWs spending time with their non-JW friends and relatives.
They are afraid that if the Witness experiences fun and unconditional love from people who are not judging them- they might not want the religion anymore.
The “pagan” excuse is just a cover, in my opinion, of their REAL goal:..to separate Witness and keep them from associating with anybody else...Everything is pagan in our society: days of the week and months of the year. You’d have to get off the planet to escape it.
LongHairGal, I come to the same exact conclusion. It's another subtle way they corral Jehovah's Witnesses so they stay within their pasture. They make every effort to keep them from connecting with others in every imaginable context, school, work, travel abroad (gotta wear nametags so everyone knows you're a JW or weird as hell), online (don't play video games on XBOX live), etc. In and of itself the ban on holidays looks petty and misguided, but it's one piece in a larger puzzle that reveals the true faces of those building it. .
Thank you for your responses!
I agree with Longhairgal and that is exactly what I told my jw years ago.
How could a jw use the comment from the elders manual to their advantage today? Providing they even knew about it. I suppose an elder body could just use, 'well, Christians would't want to stumble anybody' thing and therefore all holidays are still out? What if an elder stepped down and knew about this little gem and used it to go to say a 4th of July or birthday with non jw family? could he get away with it then? or would they have to make an example of him before the whole cong got out of control and started having fun?
I have always wondered why JWWs were against Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparent's Day...those were all made up holidays by Hallmark.
Even Thanksgiving is sort of a grey area. I know a lot of JWs who have a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving while at the same time not calling it that or drawing attention to the fact that they do.
I can see ruling out 4th of July and Thanksgiving as political holidays...
try telling Aussies they cant have a BBQ on Australia day (26th Jan).
