by Think 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Many Christian believe that doctrines and teachings of Jehavah's Witnesess are Heresy.
They meet strong opposition in many coutries around the Globe from people, churches and the Goverments.
What is your opinion? And what you see in this Cult as aHeresy t eachings?
this is kind of an odd question. I think you might get all kinds of answers with this one.
The main areas that certain Christian's usually identify, (the biggest areas) are:
Baptism, the Eucharist, the Trinity and some version of the Ransom/Redemption/Atonement doctrine.
But depending on how strictly one wishes to define the qualifying belief or practice, it could be argued that JWs meet all of these with the exception of the Trinity of course.
.....the following bit is excerpted from my website in relation to the whole "Cult" debate..... Members of the Counter-Cult Movement and some others use Orthodoxy as a basis to say whether a group is a cult.* This theological slant is most evident in Christian evangelical literature. I don't believe that orthodoxy or non-orthodoxy is a valid factor to consider for a number of reasons including the fact that to presuppose orthodoxy means simply to acknowledge that there were "winners" in the development of Christianity and to ignore the fact that there were "losers" such as Christian Gnostics and other variations of Christianity that were in competition during the first several centuries of the Church or which exist now within the body of Christian faith. While this conventional theological analysis has appealing features, including that it is simple, direct and intelligible, it has too many flaws to be truly useful. The first flaw is the question of orthodoxy I have just mentioned. Second, this factor fails to acknowledge the variety of beliefs and practices among the innumerable groups labeled as a cult. Third, calling a group a cult because it is unorthodox helps only to merely identify them based upon this definition it does not help us to understand them. Fourth, such a narrow view does not address satisfactorily questions regarding religious pluralism. Nevertheless, despite these inherent flaws, let's briefly examine the major areas which most Christians would insist that another christian religion possess in order for it not to be labeled a cult. These areas are Baptism, the Eucharist, the Trinity and some version of the Ransom/Redemption/Atonement doctrine.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe and practice baptism. They believe that complete immersion is appropriate and that baptism is a "public declaration of one's dedication and trust in Christ's ransom sacrifice" as well as a declaration of repentance from sins. One could hardly criticize Witnesses in this area.
Jehovah's Witnesses practice a limited form of the Eucharist, having about 8,000 of the elite (the anointed) partake of the bread and wine, once a year, during the
Memorial of Christ's Death
. While some Christians may criticize this practice and assert that partaking in the Eucharist is meant for all Christians, this is a disagreement over doctrine and belief and not reason to call Witnesses a cult.
Jehovah's Witnesses reject the Trinity part and parcel. If some wish to call them a cult on this basis, they are just exhibiting their strong bias and belief in the Trinity doctrine, which Jehovah's Witnesses and some others dispute. There is not much to be said about it.
Finally, Witnesses do of course, believe in the Ransom and the Redemption made possible by the death of Jesus.
Thus taking everything above, it is clear to see, that with the one exception, Jehovah's Witnesses are within the realm of accepted Christianity and in fact when one looks at the various lists of world religions they are included in the segment encompassing Christianity. Again, Christian orthodoxy should not be a basis in determining whether a group is a cult but even if one did make such an examination they would have to give Jehovah's Witnesses the benefit of the doubt unless they were using extremely narrow filters of what would be considered orthodox.
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it probably goes without saying that persons who do use orthodoxy as a standard to say what is "Christian" also label other groups like Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, etc. as non-Christian.
-eduardo
By the way, I highly recommend your reading:
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew – Ehrman, Bart D.
Other interesting books that Ehrman has authored are: After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity (1999); The Apostolic Fathers (2003); Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (2000); Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament (2003); The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (2004); The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (1993)
After reading Lost Christianities and Lost Scriptures, you might have a greater appreciation for the diversity of the Christian faith and an understanding of today's religious tapestry within context of history.
-Eduardo
According to some writings, Charles Taze Russel taught that Jesus come invisibly and was made King in 1878. He aslo taught that in 1878 Christ resurrected all the " dead in Christ" as spirit beings to be with him here on the earth awaiting a future glorification. Together with Christ here on earth, these invisible resurrected spirit beings were engaged in directing a harvest work gathering the remainder of those with the heavenly calling. This harvest would run from 1874-1914, and the culmination of Armagedon would occur in 1914.
In 1925 the Watchtower Society radically CHANGED their beliefs after the failure of expectations for Armagedon in 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1975.
In 1925 the Watchtower EXPLAINED change, that Christ had now been enthroned as King in heaven in 1914 instead of 1878.
Throughout its history the Watchtower claims authority as " God's Prophet", and "God's one and only true channel to mankind " .
People who oppose Watchtower authority, are vieved as cow manure on the fields, and will die at "next" coming Armadedon.
The question here is, how much more people can take ?
They are definitely a heresy because they do not accept that they belong to Jesus but to jehovah, and most of them do not even believe that they are part of the new covenent. They sound very much like a judaic religion, and it's not surprising that they emphasise salvation by works rather than grace.
Sorry, I thought you were asking a serious question Think. But in looking at your post history and this one here, I see that you really like to post what can be found on any JW-polemic website. Why? Newbies can go to Randy's sites or any of the countless other sites for lots of good info on JW history and doctrine.
Ok, anyway, I think that the word "heresy" probably went out with the Spanish Inquisition.
Any Christian who speaks of other's beliefs as heresies is really just being a snob.
No one has a monopoly on the ultimate TRUTH (not even orthodoxy) and woe to those that think they do. That's part of the Society's/JWs biggest problem but it is an illness that a lot of other Christians suffer from also.
-Eduardo
oroborus21, are you a Jehovah's Witness ?
>Finally, Witnesses do of course, believe in the Ransom and the Redemption made possible by the death of Jesus.
No they don't. They teach that a perfect man died. A perfect man will not satisfy the redemption. The very basis for Christianity is the deity of Christ. If you don't believe that you are not a Christian. Some of the more glaring heresies are denying the deity of Christ (Docetism), denying the bodily resurrection (a Gnostic heresy), beleif that the son is created (Arianism), a totally works-based (possible) salvation, preaching a false gospel (which is NO gospel) by emphasizing end times instead of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15: 4-10), denial of the immortality of the soul, denial of heaven/hell. They teach a hodge-podge of heresies that have been refuted over the centuries.
Rex
Jehovah's Witnesses are within the realm of accepted Christianity -----by who? Not by any Christian I know. The word 'heresy' did not go out of use either. Because they have a 'baptism' and a few select take part in what Christians call 'communion'? and the rest reject the body and blood of Christ. There are other groups who practice similar things but are not Christians at all, and don't even use the same God from the Bible. That proves nothing.
It looks like you are trying to insinuate they are not a cult. I would suggest you read up on Margaret Singer and Lifton and others to see just what qualifies a group as a 'cult'. You don't even have to go that far if you don't care for that sort of research. Just read the threads here or on any exjw site, there is no way a rational person could read how the org controlled it's members and not come to that conclusion. Unless they were under the influence of the wt themselves.
They are most certainly a cult organization by any reasonable definition.
1) Psychological conformity is absolutely enforced, and dissent is punished by literal expulsion.
2) Members are expected (and do) to sacrifice their own lives or the lives of their children in order to obey a fabricated biblical blood prohibition.
3) Members are actively discouraged from ANY participation in normal society, including voting, volunteering, association with non-cult members, celebrating holidays, etc.
4) The religion is strictly hierarchical with a power structure enforced from the top-down and a self-appointed internal legal system.
5) Conformity and obedience is enforced by keeping members in a constant "hyper-vigil" state, awaiting the end of the world.
6) Alternative modes of thinking are actively discouraged, outside education is frowned upon in order to prevent exposure to alternative viewpoints.
7) Members lives are controlled at the minutest detail, including personal grooming, private sexual activity between married people and association with non-cult members.
