Jehovah's Witnesses

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==Behavior==
 
==Behavior==
Neatniks all, they wear snappy white shirts and ties (with the now common sports backpack ruining up the smarts) and annoy people by getting them out of the bed to answer the door at ungodly hours of the day.  They insist the one true name of God is [[Jehovah]] and publish their own [[Bible]] translation, the ''New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures'', with all references to the LORD translated as "Jehovah" to prove it.  When referring to God they will often say "Jehovah God." Their teachings also include rejection of the celebration of most holidays, such as [[Christmas]] and [[Easter]] due to their pagan roots, "nationalist" holidays such as independence days, and birthdays. Their staunch anti-nationalism means that they refuse to salute flags or sing anthems, and in keeping with a broader tradition of [[Christian pacifism]] they refrain from any participation in such functions of government as military, judicial, or law enforcement. Sadly for many German JWs their refusal to be nationalistic made them targets for the Nazis and they were persecuted along with Jews and Roma during the [[Holocaust]].
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Neatniks all, they wear snappy white shirts and ties (with the now common sports backpack ruining up the smarts) and annoy people by getting them out of the bed to answer the door at ungodly hours of the day.  They insist the one true name of God is [[Jehovah]] and publish their own [[Bible]] translation, the ''New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures'', with all references to the LORD translated as "Jehovah" to prove it.  When referring to God they will often say "Jehovah God." Their teachings also include rejection of the celebration of most holidays, such as [[Christmas]] and [[Easter]] due to their pagan roots, "nationalist" holidays such as independence days, and birthdays. Their staunch neutrality means that they refuse to salute flags or sing anthems, and in keeping with a broader tradition of [[Christian pacifism]] they refrain from any participation in such functions of government as military, judicial, or law enforcement. Sadly for many German JWs their refusal to be nationalistic made them targets for the Nazis and they were persecuted along with Jews and Roma during the [[Holocaust]].
  
 
==Theology==
 
==Theology==

Revision as of 00:10, 15 December 2010

The Jehovah's Witnesses (also known as the "Watchtower Bible and Tract Society") are a Christian religious sect who send their converts out to peddle copies of The Watchtower and Awake! magazines, and leave them in laundromats and phone booths.

Contents

Behavior

Neatniks all, they wear snappy white shirts and ties (with the now common sports backpack ruining up the smarts) and annoy people by getting them out of the bed to answer the door at ungodly hours of the day. They insist the one true name of God is Jehovah and publish their own Bible translation, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, with all references to the LORD translated as "Jehovah" to prove it. When referring to God they will often say "Jehovah God." Their teachings also include rejection of the celebration of most holidays, such as Christmas and Easter due to their pagan roots, "nationalist" holidays such as independence days, and birthdays. Their staunch neutrality means that they refuse to salute flags or sing anthems, and in keeping with a broader tradition of Christian pacifism they refrain from any participation in such functions of government as military, judicial, or law enforcement. Sadly for many German JWs their refusal to be nationalistic made them targets for the Nazis and they were persecuted along with Jews and Roma during the Holocaust.

Theology

Watchtower theology differs from most other Christians on several points.

Trinity and Jesus

The Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in a trinitarian view of God. They do believe Jesus was chosen by God to be the savior, but they do not believe Jesus is God, but rather "a god" - a divine being inferior to God. They believe the Holy Spirit is but an impersonal force, not a third person of the trinity. Their New World Translation renders John 1 as "the Word was a god" rather than the usual "the Word was God" and renders all references to the Holy Spirit in lower case as "holy spirit", often without a "the" preceding it. These are the main sources of criticism of that translation by non-Witnesses who view it as textually corrupt and unreliable, although on most other things it appears to be a very good translation.

They do believe in the resurrection of Jesus but not in the crucifixion, believing instead that Jesus was hung on a vertical stake, not a cross.

Armageddon

Armageddon in JW theology is a future war between God and the nations of the world allied with Satan. Once Jehovah's angelic army totally pwns humans comes out victorious, Satan will be imprisoned and all people (with some exceptions) will be resurrected. This will be followed by a 1000-year period of achieving perfection in an earthly paradise. At the end of this period, Satan will be released for a short time to test humankind's faith. Those who prevail will live eternally on Earth, while those who succumb to the temptations of the devil will die.

Note that Armageddon is not synonymous with the Second Coming of Christ. JWs think this already happened, in 1914, when Jesus fought Satan in heaven, cast him out, and became the righteous ruler of Earth. This marked the beginning of End Times, during which humanity remains under unprecedented influence of Satan, because he is much closer to Earth now than he was in heaven. This is used to explain World War I, World War II, and most problems that humanity has faced since 1914.

Jehovah's Witnesses, and its predecessor groups, have predicted the start of the battle of Armageddon would be in 1873, 1874, 1914, 1925, and 1975. They now seem to have settled on merely proclaiming that it's "imminent", because if you can't be right, be vague.

Life after death

According to JWs, consciousness ceases after death, but that's not necessarily the end. People with "heavenly hope", which means those among 144,000 people chosen by God to rule with him over his future kingdom (which will be instituted after Armageddon on Earth), will ascend to heaven.[1] People with "earthly hope", which means the vast majority of followers, will be resurrected to live eternally in a paradise on Earth. There will be no wars, no diseases, all animals will be friendly and eat plants (even the tigers and lions), and everyone will be happy. Most of the sinful will be resurrected along with the faithful (see #Armageddon). Exceptions are people who died through personal actions of God, like the people who died in the Great Flood, and the members of the 144,000 chosen ones that proved unfaithful - they will remain dead. There is no eternal damnation in Hell for humans, as this is considered to be at odds with God's mercy; the "lake of fire" described in the Bible is taken figuratively to mean a state of destruction and nonexistence, rather than eternal torment.

The 144,000 places in heaven are reserved for people chosen by God. This group has several names in JW terminology, including "little flock", "remnant", "faithful and discreet slave", and "the spirit-anointed". It consists of faithful servants of God from the past, including the Apostles and the writers of the New Testament, and a small number of very devoted Witnesses that still live on Earth. Membership in the little flock is a prerequirement to membership in the JW Governing Body, which is responsible for determining the official doctrine and approving the content of JW publications. It's not clear how new members of the "remnant" are identified; it's commonly believed that some people are just born with an inner conviction that they will live in heaven after death. The places in heaven are said to have run out in 1935 and thus the recruitment is over, but there's a catch that God can replace the chosen ones that have proved unfaithful with new ones.

JW yearbooks list the total number of people left in the "remnant" (though not broken down by country) along with other statistics. For the last two decades the number of people in the "remnant" was slowly increasing, even though the doctrine clearly implies that it should be decreasing.

Other beliefs

Perhaps their most distinctive belief, and one which they put a great deal of emphasis on, is their opposition to blood transfusions. Members sometimes die because of this.[2]

When a baptized Witness commits a grave sin (which includes adultery and spreading beliefs not in line with official Watchtower teaching) and does not show repentance, he will be disfellowshipped. The consequence is ritual shunning by devout Jehovah's Witnesses, including close family and former friends. Unbaptized adherents cannot be disfellowshipped, since formally they were never Jehovah's Witnesses to begin with. Shunning can also result from asking difficult questions about the faith, or sharing concerns with others. [3]

JWs avoid any form of mind manipulation, be it through psychoactive drugs (except alcohol) or hypnosis. They believe that subjecting oneself to hypnosis exposes the person to demons, or more generally, makes them more susceptible to the influence of Satan.

Conflicts with science

JWs' beliefs about the origins of life and humankind are mostly old Earth creationism. They believe that each "day" in the Genesis creation story refers to an unspecified period of time, which could be millions of years. Evolution is accepted to a limited degree; while "microevolution", e.g. the obvious cases of evolution observable in currently living organisms and between closely related species, is officially accepted, the theory of common descent is not. The current view is that God created a limited number of "kinds" of animals, which then evolved into all the different forms found today. This is also used to explain how the animals fit inside Noah's ark.

They claim that man was created roughly 6000 years ago, based on an interpretation of biblical chronology similar to the one used by young earthers. All events and persons described in the Bible, including the Great Flood, are considered historical facts. While JWs don't directly participate in the intelligent design movement, they have tried to capitalize on it by releasing more creationism-related publications in recent years.

As a curious sidenote, Watchtower literature uses the designations CE and BCE (not AD and BC) and has for several decades.

See also

Footnotes

  1. Eternal Happiness—In Heaven or on Earth?
  2. Jehovah's Witnesses Face Increased Risk of Death During Childbirth
  3. "Although individual members are allowed to contact the Governing Body directly about concerns they may have, they never know if their feelings are shared by others," from www.jwreform.com

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