"If you are Christian you are definately Trinitarian"

by Sirona 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  drew sagan

  these people are non-trinitarian:
  
  http://www.stfonline.org/
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  jwfacts

  The Watchtower is very deceptive in its presentation of the Trinity. A large portion of Christians such as Pentecostals are not Trinitarians but Modalists, yet the Watchtower never discusses this teaching.

  I have put together an article on the Trinity and how it is misrepresented by the Watchtower Society. I can send it to you if you PM me your email address.
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  Mrs. Fiorini

  Sirona, Regarding your question of the use of God's name Jehovah, the JW's like to act like they are the only ones who use it. It's simply not true. Even in my Catholic church you will hear it on occasion, although usually in it's more accurate form of Yahweh.
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  almostbitten

  I'm with LayingLow on this. A young lady in another online forum expressed it best when she said that while even under the roof of one church, belief in the trinity can vary from one person to another sitting on the same pew!
  
  The JW lady I studied with was completely thrown off when I told her that I really didn't believe (or at least I didn't expouse) the doctrine of the trinity--and I was raised a Southern Baptist. It was just never taught or highlighted during service or Sunday School. Come to find out, two of her other studies admitted to not being trinitarians. She just had no clue, because, hey, the Watchtower knows everything about other people, right?
  
  After reading the Bible one year for myself PRIOR to ever studying with JWs, I just kept noticing how Jesus always responded or acted in deference to the Father, not as a co-equal, which is how the doctrine of the Trinity is usually taught. So I am a non-trinitarian Christian with no affiliation to any organized body. I must say, however, that I generally keep that to myself considering I live in the Deep South, heart of the so-called Bible Belt. If you're a little eccentric in your Christian beliefs, folks give you a little hell.
  
  To add to that list of non-trinitarians, I'm tempted to add the Friends of Society (Quakers), but the jury is still out on that. Anyone know for sure about them?
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  almostbitten

  One more thing--the use of the name of Jehovah in mainstream Christianity is nothing new. If you go to many older black Baptist congregations, you'll likely hear them singing a call-and-response devotional that goes, "Guide me over, great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land," a song that commemorates the Jews and their exodus from Egypt on their way to the Promised Land. And during prayer, from time to time someone will utter the name Jehovah--and this has been going on for years and years!
  
  If you watch tele-evangelists from time to time (and I try NOT to), they often use the name Yahweh or Jehovah. I prefer Yahweh myself, which seemed to irritate my teacher.
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  M.J.

  A large portion of Christians such as Pentecostals are not Trinitarians but Modalists, yet the Watchtower never discusses this teaching.

  Actually the WTS mischaracterizes the Trinity as modalism in its argumentation. It's a straw -man technique since modalism is a lot easier to refute. Tertullian wrote a pretty heavy duty trashing of modalism, btw!
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  Sirona

  WOW!

  Thanks for all this info.

  I have emailed my mum with a list of faiths who reject the trinity. From our discussion it appeared that she'd been told this by JWs (that others all accept it)

  I'm trying to highlight that there are other options apart from JWism. The trinity is a doctrine which JWs find it hard to get over at first even when they've first left the JWs.

  Sirona
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  GentlyFeral

  NanaR

  All mainline Christian Churches, from the Catholic and Orthodox through the Reformers and even some of the Restorationists (Church of Christ, for example) teach the Holy Trinity as defined in the Nicene Creed.

  Well, for most members of "Christendom," non-trinitarianism is not a deal-breaker. Some years ago, I got into a conversation with a Catholic who told me that belief in the Trinity is not "essential for salvation" - not enough, in other words, to keep you out of heaven. He indicated that modern Catholic teaching did not hammer obsessively on the Trinity the way the jaydubs do.

  gently feral
• 

  james_woods

  I sort of hesitate to bring this up at this late date - and please everyone, do not be offended. It is given as I recall things, and just for the record.

  If you recall the late Ed Dunlap (and his brother Marion) who figures in the Ray Franz book "Crises of Conscious" - let me relate some of his thinking later in life on this subject.

  I have come to believe that Ed (in his later years, after leaving the WT teachings) became somewhat convinced of the "Divinity of Christ". Now, that does not mean "Trinity" - he remained contemptuous of that term, and always denied the possible divinity of the "Holy Spirit".

  However, he truly felt that the witness theology had actually diminished the value of Jesus Christ by making him a sort of subordinate to the Father God. I think that Ed was coming around to the idea of a divine identity of the Christ.

  Naturally, I was appalled at the idea - and debated it as such. At the same time, I was making the journey toward my present religious view (agnosticism), and - as such - was fascinated with how such a man as Ed could start to be thinking in more and more conservative and fundamental (almost mainstream) Christian values.

  Ed often said this when asked about the subject: "There is absolutely nothing that we can hope to know about the father Jehovah that we cannot learn from observing Jesus the Christ."

  It was a close as he would come to saying that the two were one and the same - but I truly believe that if I understood him correctly, he had come to believe just that.
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  M.J.

  "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"
  
  That phrase is verbatim from Matt 28:19.
  
  
  
  
  In essence, one is instructed to observe John 5:23: "that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him."
  
  How you reconcile that theologically is of secondary concern. You might relay this to your mom.
  
  
  One point I like to make on this topic is the fact that Jesus said that no one can serve two masters (same word for Lord, btw).
  In that parable, the two "masters" one could choose from was either God or money.
  
  Yet, you are instructed in various places in the NT to make Christ your master. But...how can it be that God is your master, Christ is your master, yet you can't serve two masters? Could it be that in their role as your "master", they are acting as one? That Christ is in union with the Father to the extent that each can be called your master, yet there is only one master? Similarly, could Thomas call Christ "the Lord of me and the God of me", and not be out of line in exclusive devotion to the one true God?
  
  Sorry, that got a bit wordy.