Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Poor

If you have ever read any literature published by Jehovah’s Witnesses, you pick up real quick that they love themselves. You know what I mean. They spend endless amounts of time in their writings expounding the virtues and accomplishments of the organization. Never will you find a critical thought or question in the write-in sections. It is all praise and wonder for Jehovah’s visible organization.

Interestingly enough, they also expounded their generosity to the poor in last years May 1, 2006 Watchtower article entitled “Who Will Help the Poor.” It really is a wonderful article that talks about how Jehovah’s Witnesses have helped the poor around the world, unless you know the truth, or are discerning enough to read through the flowery B. S. in the text. If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that none of the poor helped are non-witnesses. What? Surely not you say.

It’s true, and it is borne out on the back cover of the September 1, 2003 edition of the Watchtower in a short called “Real Help for the Poor.” Conspicuously absent is any “real help” at all. The only “help” is a Jehovah’s Witness on your doorstep telling you how it will be in the recreated earth. That’s right, no food, no financial assistance, only worthless words about a future paradise. Now I certainly do believe in future paradise, but we are called to care for the poor and weak here and now.

The New World Translation translates Psalm 72:13 to say that God “feels sorry” for the weak and needy whereas the ESV says, “He has pity.” See the difference? Having pity leads to action, whereas feeling sorry leads to nothing. What good is someone who just feels sorry and yet does nothing? True Jesus Freaks actually do stuff, not just to proselytize people to try to get them to join their religion, but we help people regardless of their religious background because Christ fed thousands, many of whom were not believers at all, and some likely were only there to criticize him.

Nowhere in the Bible that I know of does God say that only the needy or poor believers should be cared for, but all people. Jehovah’s Witnesses love to talk about all the homes they rebuilt after hurricane Katrina, but they neglect to tell you that they didn’t rebuild anybody’s house that was not a “brother.”

A recent study found that Jehovah's Witnesses were the poorest of major religious groups. Their never ending disdain toward education is a primary cause of this. Secondary education is even lower on their list. They discourage education in favor of pioneering, leading to lives unfulfilled, performing menial labor and endless door to door evangelism. They want to tell us they help the poor when they are the poor.

Jehovah’s Witnesses love to tell you about how true religion shows true love. But, are they the only religious organization with love? They seem to think so. The problem that I have with this is the following. What love do they show any one who is not one of them? Showing up at your door to tell you their “good news” doesn’t count because unless you become one of them, they really don’t care. Jesus told us to love our enemy, how much more should we love the harmless and unfortunate?

Poverty is not a family value.
WiredForStereo

Truth is Over There!!!

I was pondering Jehovah’s Witnesses again the other day, and just going over their modes of thinking to try to understand just how they work. And something came to me. I remember growing up as a Seventh Day Adventist, and I really didn’t know what the world was all about. The vast majority of the Seventh-Day Adventists I know (and am related to) are what I’d call religious but not spiritual. The truth is, the Spirit is what draws a person, religion draws people who want to be right. That is what religion really is after all, it is a system wherein you learn the truth handed down in the form of rules. Thus, if you follow the rules, you are right, end of story.

Spirituality and true Jesus Freakiness is about a relationship. Jesus fulfilled the law and all the rules, so they are no longer in a list for us to follow, but they are written on our hearts. We don’t need to do something or not do something because the Bible says so, we do or don’t because it is the way we have become. We live as Christ lives in us. This was the kind of thing I didn’t understand as an SDA. When I wanted to reach out to a neighbor girl (I was like 8, as was she) all I could do was to invite her to church. I did this because I didn’t know Jesus, the best I could do was to point her to someone who did, I thought.

I find this same philosophy or mentality with JW’s. All they have is what they have been told, what they read. There is nothing written on their hearts. They are not Jehovah’s Witnesses, they haven’t witnessed anything, they just heard about it, that makes them Jehovah’s Gossips. How does that play out? They leave Watchtowers and Awake!s around at bus stops and park benches and hospital lobbies where I find them and take them home to add to my collection. What they are saying is "Look at this, surely this will convince you because I'm shooting blanks spiritually speaking." Some SDA's can tend to do the same thing with Ellen White.

Perusing the internet, I found a website called something like Six Screens of the Watchtower. This guy had been disfellowshipped and actually taped the meeting by sticking a recorder in a cut out in one of the books he had brought to the meeting. After he had pled his case and offered his arguments, he was temporarily dismissed for a closed door meeting. And then………….virtual silence. What was going on? All to be heard was rustling of pages. No speaking, and as far as I could tell, no critical or individual thinking. They were looking up verses and passages in their books, there was not a thought among them. That is what separates a religious person from a spiritual person. Spirituality in the correct context draws all power from the Holy Spirit. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in the Holy Spirit per se, therefore, they can’t really come up with much creative content.

What impresses me is when someone can witness without a Bible in his or her hand, because you know it is in his or her heart, and they do not need to get the words right because the Spirit is working directly through them. This is what the essence of a true believer is. We don’t all need to be missionaries to other countries, but we do all need to be missionaries here where we do live. We can’t all be preachers or pastors, but we can all disciple others.

And for any Jehovah’s Witnesses, before you complain about being insulted, why not actually read what is written and ask yourself if it is true.

If it is not, then complain.

WiredForStereo

Important Question

Is it stealing? Is it a sin?

Lately, I have been swiping Jehovah's Witnesses printed materials from benches and bus stops and whatnot. Now, if I was actually interested in the material, this would be ok, but I'm not, well a little, but not for any eternal reasons.

The only reason I'm swiping all these Watchtowers and Awake!s is that I don't want anyone to read them, not just to hog them to myself, but i really dont want ANYONE to read them.'

Is it wrong to do this? I've asked several people, and have not gotten a straight answer. Here's my logic. It's not stealing because no one owns them, and they were left in the open for the specific purpose of being picked up by someone, however, not for the reasons I pick them up.

Anyway, I've decided that it is part of my covert plan to make sure there are fewer JW's in the future. Not that I want to kill them or anything, I just believe that their particular brand of religion is the same brand that Jesus decried when he said that the pharasees weighed the people down and didn't lift a finger to help them, and in the end, they were twice the sons of hell that the pharasees were. That's my perspective on the thing.

Have a great day, and throw some errant literature away today, it might save someone's soul.
WiredForStereo

Another Post Regarding Jehovah's Witnesses and Stuff

I was talking to a guy this evening about translations of the Bible, and he had mentioned that he got some info from a University of Arkansas professor named Daniel Levine who happens to be Jewish (that's *not Christian* to any Witnesses reading this, so essentially free from that specific bias) and who has a B. A. degree in Greek and Latin and had commented on John 1:1. Now I've never thought of it this way before, having to argue the meanings of words and grammar and all, but when he looks at this verse (and not from a Christian perspective) he sees simple context, that being, that the author is talking about God, the God, and only God.

Anyway, there's a real live university professor who has a relatively unbiased opinion and a degree in Greek, which kinda negates Jason BeDuhn who doesn't have one and who was educated by a Christian founded University. I have a copy of the email and can quote Dr. Levine if anyone really needs to see it.

However, in my recent studies, I've come to the conclusion that arguing with Witnesses based on Scripture and reason are useless. They have their own version of both. Their "new light" stuff is particularly interesting. They claim that as time goes on, the light gets brighter and brighter leading toward the truth. Now in concept this is a fabulous idea. In practice however, it tends to fail as the Witnesses use it.

Lemme tell you about a great parallel that I read. Say your mother died when you were a child and your father tried to ease you into the truth because you were very young, and he didn't want to traumatize you. So over the years, he gradually told you more and more details about what happened. This makes sense in the "progressive light" model. The Watchtower's progressive light works a little more like this: same story, your mother dies when you are young, and your father wants to protect you from being traumatized, only story goes like this. You are three years old, your father tells you that your mother has gone away and won't come back. At 10 years old, he tells you that she died in a car accident. At 12 years old he tells you she didn't die after all and lives in Jersey. At 15 years old he tells you she died of cancer. At 17 years old, he tells you she died of alcoholism, and at 18 finally he tells you it was a murder suicide and that she killed your younger brother before taking her own life.

Which is the more logical definition of "progressive light?" The Watchtower's version of progressive light is not adding facts onto facts to build a newer more full version of the truth, it is to present ever more mutually exclusive "facts" and calling them "new light." If you take a minute to think for yourself about it, the first two presidents of the Watchtower Society would be disfellowshipped before they could take a step in the Kingdom Hall front door, and the third would be disfellowshipped before he could sit down. It's not that they have added truth upon truth, it is that with every new discovered "truth," they must progressively reject some older "truth." The problem with this is that the older "truth" is now falsehood, and that means that for a time, "Jehovah's Visible Organization" taught falsehood and false teachings and likely disfellowshipped people for not believing them. I cannot imagine Almighty Jehovah God himself allowing false teachings to so pervade his "only divine channel" to the point that false teachings were preached for over half of the organizations existence. Look inside the cover (or wherever it is) of the Awake! magazines for the "mission statement." It used to mention the generation alive at 1914. It doesn't anymore, why is that?

Real truth always builds on truth, and never contradicts previously established truth. For instance, Watchtower publications used to claim that as time went on, further evidence for the "torture stake" theory would be discovered. For obvious reasons, they no longer claim this. It has proved not to be true. Charles Taze Russell (founder and first president of the Watchtower) used to teach that the Great Pyramid was "God's stone witness," however later teachings "correctly" identify the pyramid as "Satan's stone witness." So whose is it?

Mistakes and corrections are different. I used to believe some things that I no longer do, but also, I no longer attend a church that teaches those things, and if still did, I would not be disfellowshipped from said church for said beliefs. And I don't think I was "lost" during those times either, but as I grew in the grace (undeserved kindness) and love (love) of Jesus Christ, he exposed me to things I had not considered before. It wasn't that the pyramid was God's witness and now it isn't anymore, it was that I could shed certain beliefs that were not necessary for salvation, an acceptance of grace and release of the law. A paring down of essentials, not continual rejection of the old and adoption of the new. The difference is that salvation is by grace, not by works or even sometimes certain beliefs. To be saved, it doesn't matter what I believe about blood, or Christmas, or Armageddon, or birthdays, or whether or not it was a cross or a stake.

With Christianity came a paradigm shift. It was based not on paganism, but Judaism, as Jesus was a Jew. Is it simple coincidence that Christmas falls at the same time as Hanukkah or winter solstice? Which came first? Solstice is a natural occurrence that has existed from the dawn of time, so how is it pagan just because pagans decide to hold celebrations on that day, God created it. Hanukkah however was a Jewish holiday commemorating the re-dedication of the temple after its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. It is even mentioned in the Bible in John when Jesus is in the Temple walking Solomon's Portico in winter. So as far as Christmas, who is copying who? Since Jesus was a Jew, and as such celebrated Hanukkah, I would vote that Satan copies God's people, not the other way around.

Peace be with you,
WiredForStereo