What makes Jehovah Witness teachings different from Christians?

Question

Do Christians consider them to be Christians as well?

Answer 1

Jehovah's Witnesses are certainly Christians. We beleive that the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior and the Son of God. We don't believe that Jesus is God because Jesus himself called the Father "the only true God" (John 17:3) and said that the Father was greater than Jesus was. Jesus should know.

Our beliefs are not completely the same as those of traditional churches because our teachings are not based on tradition and church creeds. Our teachings are based on the Bible, God's Word. Creeds and church councils are not inspired by God, the Bible is.

Jesus said that his true followers would be "no part of the world," yet many who claim to follow him are very much involved with the world. Jehovah's Witnesses follow Christ when it comes to involvement with the world.

Christians indeed should be Witnesses of Jehovah. Jesus came to do his Father's will and called himself the "Faithful and true Witness." (Revelation 3:14) And Christians are called to be a people for God's (Jehovah's) name. (Acts 15;14)

If Jehovah's Witnesses do not much resemble the traditional churches, it could be simply because the traditional churches do not much resemble the original church of Christ.

Answer 2

Set aside any Bible issues:

They believe in obeying the law, even the inconvenient ones, such as speed limits when late for work.

They believe in paying taxes, even though there are many ways they could avoid them, as most religions do.

They believe in keeping their word, such as to the IRS that they will not promote politics in the church, and they actually mean it.

They teach their youth that waiting until marriage is preferable to using protection, and for the most part, the youths actually believe it. As a result, they have the lowest rates of out-of-wedlock births and STDs. Yes, there is the occasional ones who would rather have their fun now than wait, but there are far more who choose to wait.

They treat their youth with respect, not just "do what you're told!"

Youths are taught side by side with the adults, the Bible as a whole, and not just Bible stories. The very young may not understand what they are being taught, but by the time you reach the age of understanding, they have a good basic knowledge of the scriptures.

The congregations never get so large that the individual gets lost in the crowd. Since everyone is taught the same, it is easy to start a new congregation, with a set of elders.

Everyone knows everyone, whether in their congregation, or in their circuit. When Katrina happened, every Jehovah’s Witnesses, along with neighbors, living in New Orleans could be found in Texas, with every witness accounted for. How many other religions could say for certain they knew that none of those left behind belong to one of their churches?

They believe their Kingdom Halls should compliment a neighborhood, and not overwhelm it, so they are small and don’t include a lot of expensive decorative features. Each KH can hold up to four congregations.

Answer 3

Your question is a bit confusing. Jehovah's Witnesses are true Christians, but what makes them stand apart from many other so-called Christian religions is that most Christian religions are false.

JW's teach Bible principles and do not participate in political matters as the Bible instructs not to. They base their belief system on the Bible, not what the world says is best for you. The best place to get an honest answer is from JW's themselves because on this forum asking such a question you'll get a bunch of nonsense and rhetoric.

Call up a kingdom hall in your area...they are there in the phone book and ask for a service overseer. Tell him that you have questions about the JW faith and you'd like to sit down to have these legitimate questions answered.

Asking a forum like this, you're bound to get about any type of worldly, unclean answer like the one above where it states JW's don't go out to restaurants? Where do you suppose that gossip came from?

Answer 4

"The Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) believe that, shortly after the death of the 12 Apostles, there was a great but not total apostasy of the Church, in which only a few scattered Christians kept the “true” Christian Faith for centuries. The “Church” was not fully restored until Charles Taze Russell founded the JWs in 1872. Russell was a Protestant who incorrectly predicted the end of the world in 1914; his followers have made similar failed predictions since.

Though many JWs may live moral lives in many ways, they are not Christians, because they deny basic doctrines such as the divinity of Christ and the Trinity. There is also no historical evidence (biblical or extra-biblical) for their version of a “great apostasy,” nor is there any evidence that the JWs’ religion has ever been espoused by any Christians prior to Russell’s foundation in 1872. Measured against orthodox Christianity, there are many errors in the JWs’ religion." from http://cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=81

Answer 5

having spent over 25 years studying all the major belief systems (both theist and atheist) of the world, the short answer is that they have progressively endeavored to remove all traces of pagan Roman traditions, festivals and rituals from their worship and use only the Bible as their source of knowledge.

There are a few religions that also attempt this cleansing of worship, but from my studies I have found that JWs are currently the largest worldwide organization to do so.

They strongly believe that *every* true Christian *must* follow the example of Christ as found in the following Scriptures:
Matthew 24:14
Luke 4:43
Luke 10:1-3
Acts 5:42
Acts 8:4
Acts 20:20
1 Corinthians 9:16
Romans 10:15
2 Timothy 4:2-5
Matthew 4:23a
Matthew 9:35a
Luke 9:6a
1 Peter 2:21

agape!

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Answer 6

JWs are different because we actually follow Jesus' teachings and his example of worship. When we do not celebrate, or join in something, it is because the Bible, as God's Word, says not to. We actually belive being as Christian is accepting the Bible as our guide to life, revealing God's purpose for the earth.

When Jesus was asked or offered things that were pagan or detestable to his Father, whose name found in the Bible is Jehovah, he would have no part of it.

What does Santa Claus or Easter bunny have to do with God? Do you wear an emblem of a pistol that shot a cousin of yours around your neck? Why would you worship a cross? With politics, when jews wanted to make Jesus king, he left town out the back way. When the jewish clergy hoped to trap Jesus into Roman politics, he had nothing to do with it. He said his people were no part of the world but we were to give obedience to political laws as long as they did not conflict with God's laws. Saluting or worshipping flags or rulers are two of the things against God's law. True Christians would obey. Are you?

Trinity is found no where in the Bible. Some people point to individual sentences to claim it to be true. Monkeys banging on typewriters long enough will eventually make a complete sentence. It is really pagan in origin. Jesus plainly said, "My Father is greater than I am." and in many places it plainly shows there is a difference. But let's not let facts get in the way of beliefs.

We go house to house because that is what Jesus did. There were people who did not like him coming to the door either. He and we have information that you need to hear so he told TRUE Christians to do what he did.

Other JWs are more mild and kind as part of the fruitages of the spirit true Christians than I. I think sometimes when smart people say stupid things, some strong talk might shock their system enough to break the attitude enough to think about what stupid thing they just said.

Answer 7

Jehovah's Witnesses ARE Christians.

Sadly, trinitarians repeatedly pretend that Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christian. Trinitarians use an artificial, trinity-specific definition of the term "Christian" which excludes anyone who does not believe that Jesus is God Himself, rather than the Son of God. Interestingly, pagans in the first century pretended that Christ's followers were Atheists(!) because the Christians had a somewhat different idea from the pagans about the nature of God.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that no salvation occurs without Christ, that accepting Christ's sacrifice is a requirement for true worship, that every prayer must acknowledge Christ, that Christ is the King of God's Kingdom, that Christ is the head of the Christian congregation, that Christ is immortal and above every creature, even that Christ was the 'master worker' in creating the universe! Both secular dictionaries and disinterested theologians acknowledge that Jehovah's Witnesses are a Christian religion.

The Trinitarian arguments are intended to insult and demean Jehovah's Witnesses, rather than to give a Scripturally accurate understanding of the term "Christian".

In fact, the bible most closely associates being "Christian" with preaching about Christ and Christ's teachings. Review all three times the bible uses the term "Christian" and note that the context connects the term with:
"declaring the good news"
'teaching quite a crowd'
'open eyes, turn from dark to light'
"uttering sayings of truth"
"persuade"
"keep on glorifying"

(Acts 11:20-26) [The early disciples of Jesus] began talking to the Greek-speaking people, declaring the good news of the Lord Jesus... and taught quite a crowd, and it was first in Antioch that the disciples were by divine providence called Christians.

(Acts 26:17-28) [Jesus said to Paul] I am sending you, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God... Paul said: “I am not going mad, Your Excellency Festus, but I am uttering sayings of truth and of soundness of mind. ...Do you, King Agrippa, believe the Prophets? I know you believe.” But Agrippa said to Paul: “In a short time you would persuade me to become a Christian.”

(1 Peter 4:14-16) If you are being reproached for the name of Christ, you are happy... But if he suffers as a Christian, let him not feel shame, but let him keep on glorifying God in this name


So why do anti-Witnesses try to hijack the term "Christian" and hide its Scriptural implications? Because anti-Witnesses recognize that it is the preaching work that makes it clear that the relatively small religion of Jehovah's Witnesses are by far the most prominent followers of Christ:

(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


Learn more!
http://watchtower.org/e/ti/index.htm?article=article_04.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/20050422/article_02.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/pr/index.htm?article=article_04.htm

Answer 8

I am Christian and I do not consider the Jehovah Witness a Christian people, other wise they wouldn't be called Jehovah Witness.

There are many differences, too many to write them all down. But they believe Jesus was hung on a pole, not a cross. They do not believe in the trinity God. That's just a couple of things.

Answer 9

J.W.s don't believe in souls, hell, going to heaven after you die, celebrating any holiday other than one they hold in remembrance of Jesus' death and rising.... They think that voting in an election or running for office would be a way to show they cared more for themselves or man than for God, so they don't vote or say The Pledge of Allegiance. No birthdays. Not allowed to have friends that aren't J.W.s too...and they're taught to think of anyone not in their religion as A. "householders"--what the person is when they visit them at home to witness to them; B. "part of this wicked system of things." They are literally taught to "hate what is bad" and not to associate with anyone who's not a J.W. unless they have to. This means they are not very tolerant people. They have their own funeral style and each person is encouraged to become the next level, up to the highest they're allowed genderwise, in the congregation. There are so many hours a so-called "pioneer" has to witness every month, for instance. They give money to something called "The Governing Body" that is supposed to be a committee comprised of some of the "anointed" ones of the 144,000 that J.W.s believe are the only ones to live in heaven once the end of the world finally comes. They believe anyone not in the 144,000 and who is resurrected at the end of the world will be living on earth forever, restoring it for 1000 years while Jesus reigns and gives them time to prove they're worthy people who want to live perfectly. If at the end of that 1000 years they don't want to, they'll be thrown in "the everlasting fire" with Satan, whose butt Jesus is supposed to kick (at the end of the 1000 year reign.) Why Jesus doesn't just kick his butt before that, who knows.... There is more, but that's all I really remember as being very different from other Christians, besides all the political stuff and emotional issues many seem to suffer....

Oh, and they don't believe Jesus is God. That's something some Christians do believe, so that is a little different.

Answer 10

They don't belive in Hell or the Trinity. They don't believe in the immortatility of the soul, I'm a Christian and I do consider them Christian even if I disagree with their teachings.