Why so many defensive and challenge to combat questions for Jehovah's Witnesses?

Question

Looking back, I've noted that there seems to be twice as many such "postings", though many can't really be called questions, in the last month than any given month since I've been monitoring this subject using the keywords JW, Jehova, and Jehovah.

Could this be because the Independent PBS documentary "Knocking" will be broadcast soon?

Or, is it because in the 7 months it has been available to purchase, no one has been able to come up with an "INDEPENDENTLY PRODUCED" counter video?

http://www.knocking.org/

Answer 1

It is true that Jehovah's Witnesses are not loved by everyone.
http://jw-media.org/newsroom/human_rights.htm
Some people hate Jehovah's Witnesses out of ignorance, or over some misunderstanding. A few may have had a bad personal experience with an individual who claimed to be a Jehovah's Witness, and prejudicially extended their animus to this entire Christian religion.

However, it seems that the majority of anti-Witness hatred is motivated by religious intolerance and bigotry. A few may even be motivated against their Christian worship by the unseen 'god of this system of things', Satan the Devil.

(2 Corinthians 4:4) the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers

Interestingly, such "hatred" should be expected by true Christians in this time of the end, and it actually helps identify Jehovah's Witnesses as Christ's true disciples:

(John 15:19) If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on this account the world hates you.

(Luke 6:22) Happy are you whenever men hate you, and whenever they exclude you and reproach you and cast out your name as wicked for the sake of the Son of man.

(1 Peter 4:4) Because you do not continue running with them in this course to the same low sink of debauchery, they are puzzled and go on speaking abusively of you.

(2 Timothy 4:3-5) For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the healthful teaching, but, in accord with their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves to have their ears tickled; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, whereas they will be turned aside to false stories. You, though, keep your senses in all things, suffer evil, do the work of an evangelizer, fully accomplish your ministry.

It seems signficant that the relatively small religion of Jehovah's Witnesses are the ones best known for their worldwide preaching work. Yet Jesus commanded that ALL who would call themselves "Christian" perform this public work:

(Matthew 28:19,20) Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you. And, look! I am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things.


Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/jt/index.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/20030301/article_01.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/20020401/article_01.htm

Answer 2

Knocking makes much about the Supreme Court cases in which Witnesses have achieved religious freedoms and freedom of speech. Not to denigrate those wins, the rights are really organizational to the WatchTower Bible and Tract Society (WTBTS) which is the publishing arm of the JW’s. Most of the cases are related to Freedom of Religion. See for a synopsis.

Has the individual JW earned any right to speak freely in public? No. He has earned the right to say what the WTBTS tells him to say. So when they hold public meetings or call on your door, everything they say is carefully scripted by the WTBTS. There is no variance allowed from the information in the Watchtower or Awake magazines.

To vary one’s speech from the taught and accepted words and ideas results in being reproved and if you don’t recant disfellowshipped.

This is not an unusual group policy to enforce group think. The more neurotic the group, the less tolerant it is of dissent. Mature religions, who understand and accept their place in the cosmos, usually tolerate a wide range of divergent opinion. For example, see American Catholics who express many opinions on core church doctrine that are not the same as the Pope. They remain Catholics and continue to practice free speech.

Witnesses are constantly watching each other to see if one of their flock is varying in views from the orthodoxy. They will turn each other into the elders if they hear things that are different from the WTBTS.

There is no free speech for a JW.

Answer 3

Independantly produced videos are out there and they are sufficiently available to those who actually look for them!
The following have made films that I can recall in 15 seconds of thinking:
Jeremiah Films
MacGregor Ministries
Institute of Religious Research

Added after viewing the trailers.
There is some honest looking at the history of the Watchtower, but there is still a lot glossed over.
The contentions about the JW's pushing forward democracy is something that I will have to look at the evidence for before I dismiss that. As it sits, I question that one because of the contradictory evidence. A piece of trivia for you. The JW's single-handedly stopped religious broadcasting in Canada. They put "Judge Rutherford's" messages on their own radio stations and the vitreolic nature of the messages got the stations removed. Few Christian radio stations have reappeared in Canada after 80 years. Most in the last 10 years. So much for advancing the rights of democratic free speech!

Answer 4

Are they knocking on your door?

Unlike in the case of Christians who are persecuted in other lands for talking about Jesus Christ, Jehovah's Witnesses are largely persecuted for following the teachings begun during the second presidency of the Watchtower, when Joseph F. Rutherford took over in a corporate flap and began changing doctrines quickly in the Watchtower belief system.

He claimed that "angels" directly conveyed truth to some of those in leadership. He coined the name Jehovah's Witnesses to make them stand out from being witnesses of Jesus, a typical evangelical expression (and a Biblical one).

Rutherford dumped holidays, birthdays and the 1874 date for the invisible return on Christ, and invented an earthly class of Witnesses, since only 144,000 can go to heaven in their teaching. The rest, meaning all 99.9% of Witnesses still alive, will live forever on a cleansed earth, under the rule of the Watchtower leaders in heaven, who will keep them in line by local elders known as 'Princes'.

If you have been witnessed to by Jehovah's Witnesses and you reject their message, you will likely die shortly at Armageddon with all the other non-Witnesses, since theirs is the only true religion, and (if they can live up to all the rules) they are the only ones to inhabit this new earth.

If you believe Witnesses seem rigid now, any non-conformist during the future cleansed earth will be directly destroyed by Jehovah. Even now a Witness will be disfellowshipped for any one of many gaffs, such as smoking, taking a blood transfusion, or even voting.

To even vocally question the teachings of the Watchtower will result in complete cutting off, with family and friends usually being forbidden to talk to them. The Watchtower is a truly Orwellian world, in a time when Orwellian societies are nearly obsolete.

By their own Yearbook accounts, Witnesses are shrinking in number in many Western countries as of the last three years, as the internet facilitates the spread of information (much of it critical of the Witnesses). Witnesses are cautioned against creating JW-related websites, largely to prevent their members from discovering the history and dirty laundry of this organization on other websites.(There are literally hundreds of former members pages in many languages.)

The Watchtower strives hard to control the flow of information to the individual Witness, and prefers that all instruction come through the magazines they carry door-to-door. Without this form of control, even as they themselves admit, they would believe just the same as other Bible believers.

My hope is that there will be a day in each of their lives when the Watchtower magazine is no longer needed, and they can go to college, vote for office, and contribute money and time to other, more vital causes in their community. More than likely they will then cease to be persecuted, except in a few societies more authoritarian than their own.

Sincerely,

Danny Haszard Bangor Maine (expert witness on the Jehovah's witness)

http://discussions.pbs.org/viewforum.pbs?f=203 PBS Knocking forum

Answer 5

I always remind myself of Matt. 5:11.

Btw, I long ago emailed the directors asking why under the subtopic 'Issues' did they write "German Jehovah's Witnesses went door-to-door speaking out against Hitler."

I find it incorrect in a way, what do you think?

Answer 6

I have noticed that too.

People have really gone above and beyond to badmouth us and say some incredibly hateful and false things.

But Jesus told us that it would happen. I think it's funny that they are fulfilling Bible prophecy (though they would never admit it) and, instead of misleading and discouraging us, they reaffirm our faith and hope that Jehovah will fulfill His promises in the near future.

PS: I have seen "Knocking" and I think it is a wonderfully UNBIASED view of the Witnesses. It's about time :0)

Answer 7

I differ with their doctrine but I admire there misson zeal.

Answer 8

not sure which you mean... questions by Jehovah witnesses to others... or he other way around

In some ways the Jehovah Witnesses make a good platform of discussion for discussion why Jesus is God, why the Trinity is true and why salvation is by grace and not by works and why even if someone if very sincere they might be sincerely wrong, as they have an anonymously translated Bible and have wrongly predicted the return of Jesus half dozen times

Answer 9

Oh, I do not know, why do they insist on going to every LDS Temple dedication and handing out "religious tracts" to people entering the temple?

Answer 10

Its funny how they get so defensive, but don't mind telling us that they are the only "true" church,