What are your personal opinions on Jehovah's witnesses ?

Question

Curious

Answer 1

These facts about Jehovah's Witnesses are perhaps relevant to this question. The more one compares this Christian religion with others, the more remarkable it is shown to be.

1. Jehovah's Witnesses have no paid clergy. Yet they remain tightly organized with more than 6.5 million active Jehovah's Witness preachers (about 16 million associate themselves with the religion). Even fulltime preachers and workers at their branch offices are unpaid volunteers.

2. There is no elite class among Jehovah's Witnesses. Even the few 'anointed' among them enjoy no special privileges in their congregations on earth. An anointed person (one of those relative few with a heavenly hope) is not elevated above his fellow congregants in any way, and he may not even qualify for appointment as a simple 'deacon' or elder. There are no titles; EVERYONE is addressed as 'brother' or 'sister'.

3. No person benefits economically from the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. Even the 8 to 20 men who serve on their Governing Body receive simply room, board, medical care, and reimbursement for certain personal expenses according to the exact same provision as every other branch volunteer.

4. About a hundred men have served on Jehovah's Witnesses' Governing Body committee during the past 125 years or so. The vast majority of them have spent the vast majority of their adult lives volunteering for their organization's purposes, and the vast majority have died faithfully and near-pennilessly while still under their legal 'vow of poverty'.

5. Amazingly, Jehovah's Witnesses did not splinter as a sect from some other religion. Instead, a truly tiny but sincere group of bible students studied only the Scriptures to determine the will of God. Thus their religion remains absolutely independent of and not carrying the sins of Christendom's history, yet carries the authority of Christ's teachings.

6. Despite the distortions of anti-Witnesses, throughout their modern history Jehovah's Witnesses have refused to claim divine inspiration or infallibility for their teachings. They have pointed to the bible (and not any particular translation) as the only inspired infallible means of knowing God's thoughts. For over 125 years, their teachings have been presented as merely the results of sincere bible research by imperfect but godly humans.


Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/jt/index.htm?article=article_07.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/20040601/article_02.htm
http://jw-media.org/people/who.htm
http://jw-media.org/people/statistics.htm

Answer 2

Cult and misleading many in the name of God. I like to compare them to the Borg on Star Trek, they have no individual thought, they blindly follow the teachings of the Watchtower which interprets the bible for their own benefit.

It's simply not true that there is no paid clergy. The governing body and the Watchtower Society makes money, They are a for-profit organization. Why else do they sell their magazines so diligently? They print 100,000 books and 800,000 copies of its two magazines--daily! Someone somewhere in that organization is getting rich off all the devoted volunteers. Perhaps it is the current President of the JWs Don A. Adams

Jehovah's Witnesses did not actually spontaneously come into being, It wasn't started by bible students. The group was started by former Millerites who became upset with the Millerite Cult because their prophesy of the end of the world did not happen. They broke away from the cult and started the group called the International Bible Students (later known as Jehovah's Witnesses)

No major Christian sectarian movement has been so insistent on prophesying the end of the present world in such definite ways or on such specific dates as have Jehovah's Witnesses, at least since the Millerites and Second Adventists of the nineteenth century who were the Witnesses' direct millenarian forbears. During the early years of their history, they consistently looked to specific dates-1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925, and others-as having definite eschatological significance...When these prophecies failed, they had to be reinterpreted, spiritualized, or, in some cases, ultimately abandoned. This did not deter Russell or his followers from setting new dates, however, or from simply proclaiming that the end of this world or system of things was no more than a few years or perhaps even months away.

Answer 3

Jehovah's Witnesses are sincere, God fearing, Bible believing, honest, decent people. Unfortunately, they do not understand the true Gospel message and they have been deceived by the Governing Body. They should be treated with respect and with Christian love, even though they themselves do not respect the opinions of those who disagree with them. They need all the prayers we can muster to help them come to an understanding of Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

Answer 4

The ones I know for the most part are very kind. However when I show some a contradiction in their own literature for some reason I never see them again. Oh well that happens I guess

Answer 5

They are remarkably similar in their humanity to Christians in every denomination. Some are sincere, honest, diligent students of their own theology, eager to share their faith with others, willing to suffer for that, and hoping to please God. Others are just going through the motions, legalistic, critical, haughty, depressed, anxious and trying to please others. They are a mixed bag, but then - aren't we all?

However, in their theology they are dangerously different to Christians and arrogantly confident they - and they alone - hold to true doctrine. Jesus warned similar religious zealots of his day, "'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free'. They answered him, 'We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?' Jesus replied, 'I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it for ever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.'" (John 8:31-58)

Because they insist that only 144,000 people can ever be called sons of God, the rest of them are still slaves. They cannot be set free by Christ until they actually TURN TO CHRIST ALONE for salvation. At the moment, they believe they won't be saved unless they obey their Organization and remain baptised, obedient "slaves" to it. I personally appeal to JWs to ask themselves who they really are serving, because Christ's yolk is easy, and his load is light.

Answer 6

They are all human beings who are created in the image of God. Unfortunately they have fallen prey to a false gospel that comes from the spirit of the anti-Christ and they need our prayers so that they can be saved.

The term anti-Christ means a replacement Jesus. The JW religion teaches that Jesus is "really" the arch-angel Michael.

Hebrews 1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. 5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you"? Or again, "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son"? 6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him." 7 Of the angels he says, "He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire." 8 But of the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

The JW religion preaches a substitute Jesus.

2 John 1:7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. 9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, 11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

Answer 7

Counterfeit Christianity.

Answer 8

delicious!
but really, they visited me a few times and i humored them
they are nice people, but then again, so is a crooked used car salesman
i don't know as much about their theology as i do other faiths, but i find their "no blood" stance appalling
i give blood, because i know that my blood will save a life more than a prayer will

Answer 9

Anyone that has to sell their religion clearly hasn't thought in depth about it.

Answer 10

In general, I think that they are nice folks. However, I HATE their teachings and methods.
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