Bronze-level articleJehovah's Witnesses

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Jehovah's Witnesses are a Millennialist Christian religious group famous for their long history of failed Second Coming prophecies. Their theology focuses on active proselytizing and seeking out converts, an activity referred to as "preaching" or "witnessing", believing that it is necessary to do so in order to a) refute "untruths" about God, Jesus, and the Bible, b) fulfil Jesus' commandment at Matthew 28:19, 20; c) annoy their neighbours on volunteered time; and thus d) ensure continuance of "Jehovah's Witnesses Are Bothersome" jokes in pop culture.

Contents

[edit] Appearance and behavior

The central quasi-ritual of Jehovah's Witnesses is "preaching", which means discussing the Bible and their faith with nonbelievers. They do it predominantly at the nonbelievers' doorsteps, but also on the street and in other public places, often annoying a lot of people in the process. More recently, Jehovah's Witnesses have taken to standing in public places and offering free literature without accosting passers-by. [1] Preaching JWs are usually encountered in pairs and dressed in an outfit that is considered smart by local custom, which is often ruined by a sports backpack used to carry biblical publications of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the publishing arm of Jehovah's Witnesses.

JWs are organized into congregations, generally smaller than one monkeysphere, which meet two times per week in buildings known as "Kingdom Halls". The "Theocratic Ministry School" meeting takes place during the work week and is devoted to improving the preaching skills. The second takes place during the weekend and involves a biblical lecture intended for a general audience and studying articles from the Watchtower magazine.

JWs celebrate only one holiday, called the Lord's Evening Supper, or Remembrance of the death of Jesus Christ. It is equivalent to the sacrament of Eucharist in other denominations, but held annually instead of every week. The celebration takes place after the sunset of 13 Nisan of the Hebrew lunar calendar (thus, actually on 14 Nisan, as in the Hebrew calendar days end at sunset) and involves a biblical lecture about the significance of the death of Jesus for humanity. During the lecture, unleavened bread and red wine are passed around the audience. Baptized and potential JWs are expected to just pass it along; only members of the "remnant" are allowed to consume them (see below).

JWs have developed a large vocabulary of newspeak for concepts related to their religion. This is mainly because they frown upon using the terminology of mainstream Christianity (such as: church, reverend, pastor, Mass), which they consider apostate. Usage of newspeak sourced from Watchtower publications acts as a shibboleth among Witnesses. Trying to discuss their beliefs from an atheist perspective using their own terminology can result in shunning as a disfellowshipped JW or a heretic.

Jehovah's Witnesses consider same-sex sexual activity to be sinful, however they do not make homosexuals the target of ill-will, ridicule, or harassment, and say that all fellow humans should be treated in a respectful and dignified manner.[2]

[edit] Theology

Watchtower theology differs from most other Christians on several points.

[edit] Name of God and the Bible

The name of the religion comes from the belief that it is important to use the personal name of God in worship. This name is thought to be "Jehovah", which corresponds to the (incorrectly transcribed) Hebrew letters יהוה, used in the Old Testament to denote the name of God, with vowels from the Jewish euphemism "Adonai", meaning "My Lord". Modern reconstructions suggest the real pronunciation of the name was closer to "Yahweh", just as Jesus was closer to "Yeshua", but JWs insist that using the name at all is more important than how it really sounded.

JWs believe that only the Bible as written in its original languages is divinely inspired, and translations are subject to errors. As such, they claim to spend a great deal of attention on studying the precise meaning of the text in its original language and cultural context.[3] These claims are pretty hypocritical as all translations of their Bible rely on the English version.[4]

[edit] The Trinity and Jesus

Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in a trinitarian view of God.[5] 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 that Jesus was the Archangel Michael before his birth and became Michael again after his death.[6] They believe the Holy Spirit is but an impersonal force, not a third person of the Trinity. Jesus is believed to have been created as the first being distinct from God, and then to have assisted God in the rest of creation. As a justification, they cite John 1 and the plural form used in Genesis. This is equivalent to what conventional Christian theology calls Arianism.[wp]

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. Displaying or venerating the cross, an apostate symbol, is condemned as idolatry. Same goes for any other kind of religious sign, painting or sculpture. It is one of the main reasons why Jehovah's Witnesses do not have any commonly recognizable symbol. New converts are expected to destroy all items associated with other religions they might have (as opposed to selling them).

[edit] 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 regain consciousness and ascend to heaven.[7] People with "earthly hope", which means the vast majority of the JW followers who didn't get enough points, will be resurrected to live eternally in a paradise on Earth. There will be no wars, no diseases, humans and animals will live together peacefully, and everyone will be happy. Most of the sinful (meaning the rest of us suckers - 99.03% of humamnity) will be resurrected along with the faithful (see #Armageddon), and they shall be the servants to those 144,000 Golden Ticket winners. Exceptions are people who died through personal actions of God, like the people who died in the Great Flood, the members of the 144,000 chosen ones that left the faith (those who have committed a "sin against the holy spirit"), and the faithful members of the 144,000. The former two will not be resurrected, while the last group will be resurrected to live in heaven. 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", 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 prerequisite to membership in the JW Governing Body, which is considered God's "faithful and discreet slave" and 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; among rank-and-file JWs it is 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.

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 considering themselves to be in the "remnant" was slowly increasing, even though the doctrine clearly implies that it should be decreasing.[8]

JWs consider proselytizing and belonging to the Watchtower Society organization to be essential to salvation. People who share the JW worldview but do not actively spread it are regarded as accessories to the death of sinners who will die in Armageddon. This is somewhat at odds with the belief that only "confirmed sinners", e.g. those that had the opportunity to learn about the JW doctrine but rejected it, will die during Armageddon.

[edit] Armageddon

Armageddon in JW theology is a future war between God and the nations of the world allied with Satan. It will commence some time after the Governing Body decides that spreading the word of God is complete. 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 explains 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,[9] 1918,[10] 1925,[11] 1942[12] and 1975. They now seem to have settled on vaguely proclaiming that it's "imminent" to avoid further embarrassments.

Note that JWs do not believe in the Rapture. They interpret 1 Thessalonians 4:17 as saying that members of the 'remnant' who die do not remain dead until the Armageddon, but are instantly resurrected in heaven.[13]

[edit] Disfellowshipping

When a baptized Witness commits a grave sin (which includes any form of consensual extramarital sex and spreading beliefs not in line with official Watchtower teaching) and does not show repentance, he/she 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. [14]

[edit] 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.[15] Baptized JWs who willingly accept a blood transfusion are regarded as having voluntarily renounced their faith. While they are not disfellowshipped, they can no longer take part in the normal activities of a congregation.


JWs' 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 or serve in the military made them targets for the Nazis and they were persecuted along with Jews and Roma during the Holocaust.

Higher education, career advancement and spending time with non-Witnesses is discouraged.

[edit] Publications

Jehovah's Witnesses publish a translation of the Bible, called The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures,[wp] in a number of languages. It is copyrighted, unlike many other translations, but available online.[16] It uses the word "Jehovah" where the original Hebrew text contains יהוה, in place of traditional honorifics like "LORD". Mainstream biblical scholars are divided on the quality of this translation, with some (generally those associated with rival Christian denominations) staunchly criticizing it, primarily for rendering critical passages in a way that does not admit a trinitarian interpretation,[17] and others praising it for accuracy. The most criticized feature of the translation is the replacement of the Greek word "kyrios" (Lord) in the New Testament with "Jehovah" whenever it refers to God.

Another JW translation, the Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, also published by the Watchtower, is actually considered pretty good, and notably differs from the New World Translation in certain key places.[citation needed] Sadly, this means they no longer distribute it, as Witnesses who used it were often led to question these differences.

JWs have two main serial publications, Watchtower and Awake!. Watchtower has a more spiritual theme and has two issues per month. The issue that appears at the beginning of the month has articles intended for a general audience and is used during preaching. The middle-of-month issue contains articles for study during the weekend meetings and is rarely disseminated outside of the congregation. Awake! contains general interest articles written with a JW viewpoint and comes out monthly. Minor serials include the monthly Our Kingdom Ministry, which contains organizational information and preaching advice, and Jehovah's Witnesses' Yearbook, which contains statistical information about membership and testimonials from countries around the world.

In addition to the serials, JWs have published a wide array of books, brochures and tracts on topics such as family life, the doctrine of Trinity, life after death, world religions, the Book of Isaiah, the prophecies from the Book of Revelation, the history of Jehovah's Witnesses, and creationism.

[edit] Supreme Court cases

An example of a stopped clock, in the United States, numerous cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses are now landmark decisions of First Amendment law. Such cases include:

  • West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which ruled that school children could not be forced to pledge allegiance to or salute the U.S. flag.
  • Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire which established the fighting words doctrine, an exception to the first amendment.
  • Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York v. Village of Stratton decided that you don't need a permit to preach door to door.

[edit] Child sex abuse

Child sexual abuse allegations have happened among Jehovah's Witnesses [18] with isolated accusations of mishandling. [19] Contradictory reports exist about the frequency of occurrences and of how they were handled. [20] [21] Jehovah's Witness doctrine, publications, and discussion preach safety education for and protection of children, co-operation with law enforcement authorities, and responsible handling of abuse or molestation accusations.[22]

[edit] Conflicts with science

Carnivorous dinosaurs are a big problem for the JW worldview.

JWs maintain that the Bible is consistent with modern science, except the entire field of evolutionary biology and parts of geology and archaeology, which are wrong because of the influence of Satan, pagan philosophy and depraved Christian clergy.

Their 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 (day-age creationism). Man is thought to have been created roughly 6000 years ago, based on something similar to James Ussher's chronology. All events and persons described in the Bible, including the Great Flood, are considered historical facts. The level of acceptance for evolution mirrors that of other creationists in that "microevolution" is acknowledged to occur but common descent is denied. JWs avoid exploring their hypotheses rigorously, instead directing attention to trust in the Bible. As a consequence, they do not promote hilarious nonsense such as baraminology.

Dinosaurs are thought to have gone extinct before the creation of humans, and consequently, before the Fall of Man. This poses an interesting contradiction: because the paradise which will be formed on Earth after the Armageddon is thought to represent the conditions on Earth before the Fall, and that animals in the paradise will only eat plants, it follows that all creatures that went extinct before the creation of man were herbivores. Unfortunately, some dinosaurs definitely look like carnivores. JW literature does not address this problem in detail, saying only that the food eaten by those apparent carnivores could have failed to fossilize or is yet to be discovered.

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, increasing the use of ID vocabulary, and quoting from Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box in their publications.

[edit] Questions to ask one of Jehovah's Witnesses

For Jehovah's Witnesses, the Bible is the highest authority, and they believe that their interpretation of it does not contain contradictions or conflict with science. If you can manage to persuade a JW that there is a genuine contradiction or logical inconsistency in the JW doctrine, it can eventually lead to abandoning of the faith. Watchtower has prepackaged explanations for several apparent contradictions, so not all of them will have any effect. If you want to instill some doubt or just annoy them, you can ask one of those questions. See the footnotes for explanation where applicable.

  • Did God design the claws and teeth of tigers, or did they evolve after the expulsion of humans from the Garden of Eden? If they were designed by God, what were they used for in the Garden of Eatin' Eden?[23]
  • Ask them about any of the prophets who fought military battles, like Moses and the 31 kings of Canaan, or David.
  • Why did JW doctrine allow organ transplants until 1967, then considered them cannibalism until 1980, then allowed them again?[24] How does banning transplants and allowing them again both constitute 'the light getting brighter'?[25] Don't organs still contain some of the donor's blood?[26]
  • Who created viruses and pathogenic bacteria? Who created the human immune system to defend against them?
  • What did the carnivorous dinosaurs eat?
  • Why did God create dinosaurs only to kill them long before he created humans?
  • If old age and eventual death are the result of inherited imperfection resulting from Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden, then why do animals (who are presumably not intelligent and therefore incapable of sin) also grow old and die?
  • How could Noah have known which animals are clean and which are unclean hundreds of years before the Mosaic law was revealed?
  • Why does God care more about following his own rules and proving a point to Satan than about humanity's suffering?[27]
  • If Adam and Eve didn't disobey God, they wouldn't experience suffering. Why did God create the unfair rule that original sin is passed down from parents to children which prevents him from offering me the same choice?[28]
  • Why is the number of people in the "remnant" increasing?[29][30]
  • If we are living in the "end times" and Bible says that one of the signs of the "end times" will be an increasing frequency of earthquakes, why do statistics show that occurrences of strong earthquakes (above magnitude 7.5) have no discernible trend since around 1920, and were in fact more frequent than today between 1900 and 1918?[31]

[edit] Ineffective approaches

  • Criticizing the Watchtower organization, its past conduct or obsolete doctrines, rather than the present ones. JWs will either reject your facts as coming from splinter groups or get around this with the doctrine of "new light", which is JW jargon for progressive revelation.
  • Presenting anecdotal evidence that some JWs are not really good people. You will face a no true Scotsman.
  • Most things on this page.

[edit] Outright dismissal

  • Will you please get the hell off of my porch?
  • Hitting on them often ends hilariously. Especially if you and the Witness are the same sex.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Official JW sites

  • Worldwide Association of Jehovah’s Witnesses - Official web site of Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, with downloads of publications and other media
  • Watchtower Online Library - contains the text of almost all recent publications, including the New World Translation of the Bible,[16] the book Insight on the Scriptures,[32] which is a doorstop-sized lexicon containing extensive commentary on all biblical subjects, and Reasoning from the Scriptures,[33] a shorter book that describes the JW doctrine on various subjects in the form of questions and answers.

[edit] Other sites

[edit] Footnotes

  1. The Jehovah's Witnesses' new tactic
  2. Awake! 1997, 8. December.
  3. However, this is done selectively. A typical JW would readily accept the type of argumentation used on this site if it came from official Watchtower sources, but is required to adhere to the official belief that homosexuality is condemned by God.
  4. Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993) Chap. 27 p. 611, subheading Translation Into Other Languages.
  5. Watchtower Online Library: Trinity
  6. jw.org: Who Is Michael the Archangel?
  7. Eternal Happiness—In Heaven or on Earth?
  8. The yearbook for 2000 says that there were 8,755 'Memorial Partakers' in 1999 (aka members of the remnant), while the yearbook for 2012 says there were 11,824 in 2011.
  9. Charles Taze Russell and Nelson H. Barbour, The Three Worlds (1907) as cited by James Penton, Apocalypse Delayed, pages 21-22.
  10. The Finished Mystery, 1917, p. 485, 258, as cited by Raymond Franz, Crisis of Conscience, pages 206-211.
  11. The Way to Paradise booklet, Watch Tower Society, 1924, as cited by Raymond Franz, Crisis of Conscience, pages 230-232.
  12. The Watchtower, Sep. 15, 1941, p. 288
  13. Watchtower Online Library: Rapture
  14. "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 Jehovah's Witnesses Reformation Movement
  15. Jehovah's Witnesses Face Increased Risk of Death During Childbirth
  16. 16.0 16.1 Watchtower Online Library: Bible
  17. As an example, John 1 contains "The Word was a god" instead of the traditional "The Word was God", and "Holy Spirit" is rendered in lowercase as "holy spirit"
  18. Jehovah’s Witness elder guilty of sex abuse: Now charity watchdog launches investigation
  19. Jehovah's Witnesses criticised over handling of sex abuse
  20. Child sexual abuse covered up by the Watchtower
  21. Jehovah’s Witness elders stonewalled a police probe into church member’s sexual abuse
  22. [Learn from the Great Teacher, published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 2003.]
  23. As described in the previous section, JWs believe that conditions in the Garden of Eden resembled those that will be present in paradise that will be created on Earth after the Armageddon, e.g. animals will not eat each other. This means that eating meat is a behavior that only appeared after the expulsion from Eden.
  24. Questions from Readers The Watchtower March 15, 1980, p. 31.
  25. 'Light getting brighter' refers to Proverbs 4:18, which Witnesses use as a justification for doctrinal changes; but if the light is indeed getting brighter, i.e. doctrinal changes are a result of ever-increasing understanding of the Bible, then there should be no reason to ever revert a change in doctrine.
  26. Awake, June 8, 1968, Page 21
  27. JWs' solution to the problem of evil is that suffering is a result of humans rebelling against God in the Garden of Eden. During the time between expulsion from Eden and Armageddon, Satan will rule over the Earth, so that his actions can prove that he is incompetent. Therefore, all human suffering is to prove a point to Satan and any would-be successors. JWs effectively claim that there is a set of "higher rules" that God must adhere to, even though he made them himself.
  28. As before, human suffering is the result of rebelling against God and the original sin being inherited by all people, but it appears to be against God's justice to punish children for the wrongdoings of parents.
  29. This refers to a small group of devoted JWs which are considered to be part of the 144,000 people to rule with God in heaven after the Armageddon. JW theology strongly suggests that membership in this group should be decreasing.
  30. jwfacts.com: Increasing Memorial Partakers
  31. Steven Dutch: Faults and Earthquakes (scroll down to "Are Earthquakes Getting More Frequent?" for a graph)
  32. Watchtower Online Library: Insight on the Scriptures
  33. Watchtower Online Library: Reasoning from the Scriptures
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