The WTS and its vicious slandering of the early church

by greendawn 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Pahpa

  Greendawn

  The Watchtower aside, I think that the early church was in decline once the apostles and their peers died off the scene. John's letters to the seven churches (Revelation) demonstrate how far many of them had strayed from the teachings of Christ. (96 CE?) Later, church leaders began to mix pagan philosophy in with the gospel message so that it would attract more "intellectual" people. Another factor was the church wanted to sever its Jewish past and rejected any semblance of Jewish origins. (Example, the celebration of Christ's death on the passover date.) By Constantine's time the church was totally different from that of the early primitive church.

  So, I don't think it is a matter of what the Watchtower teaches regarding the early church. I think history itself testifies to the quick decline and corruption ot it just the the Bible writers warned.
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  Terry

  They claim that after the first century the church went apostate and there were basically very few genuine Christians so most martyrs were worthless. Yet when we examine the early church doctrines closely we see that they were pretty much based on the Bible and perhaps also on books that were then circulating among the churches and considered, perhaps wrongly, to be genuine at the time.

  There is nothing wonderful about being a fanatic.

  A martyr is a fanatic; plain and simple. A rational person sees more value in LIFE than in DEATH.

  The modern day terrorists are martyrs. The Japanese suicide pilots were martyrs in WWII (Kamikaze.)

  Governing bodies of a collective use martyrs and martyrdom as a publicity stunt to achieve political aims. By holding up self-sacrifice as the highest honor and greatest duty they control the minds of the group.

  The Watchtower Society perverts all of history. So does the mainstream church divisions of every christian denomination. The Islamists pervert their own history as well. Such is a common tool of altruist groups throughout the lengthy of human history.

  The Watchtower Society has cleverly concocted a particularly insipid lie which says the mirror true Christianity. History is quite clear that there never was ONE pure group; only competing groups with competing ideas.
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  yaddayadda

  To be fair to the Society, they do not paint as harsh a picture of the early centuries as you allege, at least according to the following Watchtower article:
  
  *** w70 8/15 494-5 Jehovah's Servants Are Different ***
  
  " 22 Although shortly after the apostles fell asleep in death, “while men were sleeping,” an enemy, Satan the Devil, came and sowed weeds in the wheat field, the wheat field did not immediately become a field of weeds. (Matt. 13:25) And so early church historians tell us that in those early centuries Christians still stood out as different from those about them. This difference was apparent in at least four distinct respects. For one thing, they stood out as different from all the rest in the matter of religion. Not only were their beliefs and form of worship distinctive but they uniquely claimed that they alone were the true religion and all the others were false. It took courage to make that claim. As one church historian expressed it: “To the Christian, his God could never be placed in the same category as Isis or Mithras or Augustus.” Roman emperors were tolerant of different religions but not of one that taught “that the gods of Rome and of all other religions were alike false, and which strove to win over all mankind to that belief.
  
  23 Those early Christians also stood out as different in their relationship with other parts of that system of things. On the one hand they refused to hold office in the government and to serve in the armies of Caesar, and, on the other hand, they ceased being materialists. Material riches were no longer the goal of their endeavors but merely a means used in furthering their preaching activity.
  
  24 Similarly the early Christians stood out as different in regard to morals. All manner of immorality was rampant in the Roman and Greek civilizations of that time, sexual immorality even being a part of their worship, and sexual perversions, such as homosexuality, were rife. Historians record how different the early Christians were from those about them also in this respect: “We have the testimony to their blameless lives, to their irreproachable morals, to their good citizenship, and to their Christian graces.”
  
  25 And finally, these early Christians stood out as different in their great unselfish love for one another, even as Jesus said would be the case: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.”—John 13:34, 35.
  
  26 No question about it. The record, both inspired and otherwise, testifies to the fact that Jehovah’s servants were different from those about them, from the time of Abel to the early postapostolic centuries. But what about our day? Is this still the case? It is, even as the next article will show."
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  Terry

  And so early church historians tell us that in those early centuries Christians still stood out as different from those about them. This difference was apparent in at least four distinct respects. For one thing, they stood out as different from all the rest in the matter of religion. Not only were their beliefs and form of worship distinctive but they uniquely claimed that they alone were the true religion and all the others were false. It took courage to make that claim. As one church historian expressed it: “To the Christian, his God could never be placed in the same category as Isis or Mithras or Augustus.” Roman emperors were tolerant of different religions but not of one that taught “that the gods of Rome and of all other religions were alike false, and which strove to win over all mankind to that belief.

  The Watchtower Society has spoken out of both sides of its collective mouth about "church historians".

  Who are they? These are men to be quoted when it serves the JW purpose and men to be marginalized and ignored when they contradict Watchtower theology.

  Christians were NEVER just ONE thing. They were people with DIFFERING OPINIONS. Always!

  It was the power structure of the Catholic Church with the power of Rome to back it up which drew the line finally on what was orthodoxy and what was heresy.

  Before that happened it was people standing around arguing.

  The scriptures are a last resort method of refuting arguments among opinionated people throughout history.

  Word-of-mouth stories were written down in such a way something could be "proved".

  But, there never was just ONE church, ONE opinion or ONE theology.

  Therefore, the term "early Church" is really a misnomer.