This is a topic I am going to kill with my opening post.Why haven`t the Major religions of Christendom exposed J.W.`s as the true Apostates

by smiddy 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Clambake
    Clambake

    The general consensus in Christianity is once you become a Christian you enter into the new covenant ( the body of Christ ) and that is your salvation. As long you believe in the basics it is pretty much all the same ( Jesus was god in the flesh, you are saved though grace etc etc ). Most of the differences in Dogma are really quite minor and unimportant. The pastor at my church (evangelical ) says you could go to Catholic church tomorrow and as long as you were sincere , it wouldn’t matter.

    Now why don’t other churches have an axe to grind the JWs ? Well, JW are considered well-meaning but dangerous weirdos. We are educated about them but there are literally thousands of cults and every Sunday can’t be cult awareness week.

    Also devoting every other Sunday to the Book of revelations and Daniel is stupid. Trying to crack codes and discover the identity of the whore of Babylon is stupid.

  • FayeDunaway
    FayeDunaway

    I'm with punk on this one. The jw's are a mere fringe religion, only important in their own minds, barely thought about in everyone else's minds. Maybe if one of them ran for president, they would finally get attention, as the Mormons did recently. But it's unlikely that will happen isn't it :P.

    These days only radical evangelicals are interested in arguing with witnesses. They're the last ones fighting gays too, and any diversity they consider unbiblical.

    My church, when I tell someone I used to be a witness, they will say 'that was quite a change, wasn't it?' But as Carla said, they don't understand the trauma of having been a witness. Most churches these days like to accept diversity and not judge other people for being different. Heck, we almost hired a Mormon choir director at my church!! Which I was not happy about and got them to reconsider! At a women's retreat I was asked to speak about my experience growing up as a witness. It was the first time people understood. Many years later they still tell me they were so surprised what it was like, and they are very happy for me that I got out of it.

  • OUTLAW
    OUTLAW

    So my real question is really , to do with the mainstream Christian religions , why are`nt they more aggressive in their condemnation of the Jehovah Witness religion.....Smiddy

    There are 2.2 Billion Christians...There are 8 Million JWs..

    JWs don`t even make up 1 full percentage point in the Christian Community..

    JWs are nobodys and nobody cares about JWs..

  • SimonSays
    SimonSays

    JWs are nobodys and nobody cares about JWs..

    This is an oxymoron if ever I heard one in this forum Ha! Ha!

  • Londo111
    Londo111

    Every church I've attended after leaving, I've never heard anything negative spoken about any group, much less JWs. There seems a conscious effort to be tolerant and respectful of other denominations and religions. It is quite different than services at the Kingdom Hall, which is tantamount to hate speech in regard "Christendom" or other religions.

    Many churchgoers consider JWs "nice people", not realizing the danger the organization poses. Nor do people seem to want to know.

  • OUTLAW
    OUTLAW

    JWs are nobodys and nobody cares about JWs.....OUTLAW

    This is an oxymoron if ever I heard one in this forum Ha! Ha!.....SimonSays

    Good Catch!..

    The only people who Care about JWs (Nobodys) ......Are JWs! (Nobodys)..

    The rest of the world doesn`t know they exist or ignores them..

  • Clambake
    Clambake

    The other day I was in the Salvation Army book store and there was a whole pile of WTS literature. Its all donations so I collected it and brought it to counter and said “ this is JW stuff, throw it in the garbage “ . The clerk who was the majors wife looked at me I like was a total asshole. “ What makes your belief system so much better huh? “

    I was just dumbfounded. Fine I will put it back.

    Next day I came back and it was all missing. I am pretty sure she must have told someone about the encounter and someone set her straight.

    When was I was growing up in the 80s, we were taught about the dangers WTS. Mind you the WTS was growing like gangbusters back then. It is scary how many church going folks don’t know about the dangers they pose.

  • punkofnice
    punkofnice
    Clambake9 minutes agoThe other day I was in the Salvation Army book store and there was a whole pile of WTS literature. Its all donations so I collected it and brought it to counter and said “ this is JW stuff, throw it in the garbage “ . The clerk who was the majors wife looked at me I like was a total asshole. “ What makes your belief system so much better huh? “

    My reply to that: "How long have you got, bucko?"

  • Brother Jeramy
    Brother Jeramy

    The Watchtower Society (WTS) does not have the monopoly on religious control over many adherents' minds and lives. There are countless "mainline" Protestant groups, mostly independent "non-denominational" churches, whose dynamic is just as cult-like as the WTS. I know plenty of such folks who have belonged to such churches -- Trinity-believing, "spirit-filled," Bible toting, evangelistic, moralistic churches -- and whose lives were turned upside down due to the persuasive power of indoctrination programs and the control of its leaders. I personally know a couple who were intensely devoted to such a church and raised their kids in this church, only later to be forced to leave because they began questioning the leadership's methods of control. This couple, who are dear friends, remain scarred to this day, even after many years. And they continue to reflect on how their experience deeply shook their own faith and destroyed the faith of their children, all of whom are now vehement atheists, citing their experience growing up in this church as the cause of their atheism. (The group they had been part of was a "People of Destiny International" church, which later became Covenant Life Church, which then became Sovereign Grace Ministries.)

    Such experiences in Christendom are far more common than people realize. In fact, given the general definition of "cult," I would argue that most churches would qualify as cults. Specific indoctrination programs, membership requirements, a certain level of necessarily expressed obedience to a leader (such as a bishop, or a pastor, or a body of church leaders, elders, etc.), manipulation of financial obligation, and even the imposition of disciplinary conditions.

    Now, of course there are varying degrees of intensity as to how the above factors are applied in any given church or group. The Watchtower Society has disfellowshipping, the Amish have shunning, the Roman Catholics have refusal of sacraments as one means of excommunicating a parishoner (which to Roman Catholics is as impacting as disfellowshipping is to JWs), many Protestant "non-denominational" groups have forms of acute ostracism akin to shunning, and so on. But what each such group has in common is the drive to maintain core authority, all of which is grounded in some kind of key doctrine and/or marketing program (read: "evangelism") particular to each group's leadership (e.g., the "prosperity gospel," probably the biggest money-making scheme seen in Christendom in the past twenty years and which has been a huge stumbling block to countless thousands, if not millions worldwide). In the early 2000's I ran into a number of folks from the International Churches of Christ, which by then had been highlighted as being not only the fastest growing church at the time in the U.S. (a short-lived distinction), but also a cult. Its members (at least the many I encountered) were fervent and aggressive. You think the WTS is bad? The ICOC outran it by miles. As I recall it burned out some years ago.

    Again, the WTS does not have a monopoly on religious manipulation and control of adherents, or on false doctrine. I would even go so far as to say that, compared to the countless harmful groups that exist within Christendom and which are in large supply, the WTS is remarkably tame.

    And so this goes to the question of the originating post: "why haven't the major religions of Christendom exposed JWs as the true apostates"? I suspect it is very likely due to the fact that there are far more dangerous groups within Christendom that the WTS cannot even hold a candle to, and which are therefore of greater concern to the major religions of Christendom.

  • Village Idiot
    Village Idiot

    "Why haven`t the Major religions of Christendom exposed J.W.`s as the true Apostates"

    In the 1970s when I was a teenage Witness there was an organization named Christian Research Institute (CRI) which was highly aggressive against the Witnesses. They would come to the JW assemblies and try to pass out literature.

    I remember, on the day that I was baptized at Dodger Stadium, leaving for home in a school bus full of Witnesses. I saw the CRI people aggressively trying to flag down our bus down waving literature in their hands. The bus driver stopped out of curiosity before they realized who they were. I was curious so I looked out the window and reached out for whatever it was that they were waving. You should have seen the enthusiasm in their faces as they lifted the literature up to me. When I got it, it was a crudely mimeographed/Xeroxed magazine called Not the Watchtower.

    When the Witnesses found out who they were and saw that I was getting a copy they were frantically yelling at me telling me not to read it. I had opened a page and saw the most garish type setting. While I only glanced at the article without reading it I saw all sorts of dates and quotes in all capital letters.

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