Opposers Dismythed
Debunking False Claims About Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians who go from door to door in line with Jesus' command at Matthew 28:19-20 and Luke 10:1-22 inviting people to accept home Bible studies and come to their congregations in order to learn about the only true God, Jehovah, and his Son, Jesus Christ. They are in more lands than any other religion. They are also the most published religious organization in the world, having literature in more languages than any other, even setting many publishing records, including: Most published Bible translation, Most languages for a Bible translation, and the most widely distributed book outside of the Bible for many years (The Truth That Leads To Everlasting Life).
So why is it that Jehovah's Witnesses are also the most unknown and misunderstood religion among the legally registered religions? Because many seek to hide us from their members or misrepresent us. This blog is for helping Jehovah's Witnesses and others affected by the many myths and lies that have been made up about Jehovah's Witnesses and the Bible by their religious opposers to stop people from coming to Jehovah.
This subject should be of concern to any individual that do not want to repeat lies and misinformation and who do not want to get the judgment of "the second death" reserved for liars as spoken of at Revelation 21:8. There we read: "But as for the cowards and those without faith and those who are disgusting in their filth and murderers and fornicators and those practicing spiritism and idolaters and all the liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur. This means the second death." (Emphasis mine.)
So if you do not want to receive a harsh judgment, you should want to know what you are really talking about when you talk to others about Jehovah's witnesses or when talking to Jehovah's Witnesses themselves.
The most common things spoken of against Jehovah's Witnesses are things from their past. If you have made corrections in yourself, would you want people dredging up old things from the past that have nothing to do with who you are now? How about other religions? Is there a religion free from accusation regarding past deeds or teachings? In what way?
Nearly all Christian organizations today can trace their roots to the Catholics, who are known for idolatry, praying to those who are not God, and sanctifying the most heinous of wars, or from the Protestants who themselves have committed ethnic cleansing in various lands. Have Jehovah's Witnesses done any of those things? No.
The mistakes of our past have no bearing on who we are today, only what we teach today should have any bearing. The Scripture says: "And as for you, O Daniel, make secret the words and seal up the book, until the time of the end. Many will rove about, and the true knowledge will become abundant." (Daniel 12:4) So clearly, before the time of the end, we were without knowledge, even the Bible Students that would later become Jehovah's Witnesses were in darkness. But because they were found to be performing the work that Christ commanded at Luke 10:1-22 and Matthew 24:45-47, as well as seeking improved understanding of the Scriptures, those taking the lead were given the stewardship of Christ's congregation, but that did not mean that they were to get the whole message in one great flood of inspiration.
God's word states: "The path of the righteous ones is like the bright light that is getting lighter and lighter until the day is firmly established. The way of the wicked ones is like the gloom; they have not known at what they keep stumbling." (Proverbs 4:18-19) Unlike Christendom's denominations who are stuck in the darkness, not seeking the light, Jehovah's Witnesses keep advancing in their understanding, gradually leaving our mistakes behind us.
Indeed, the apostle Peter applied the above quote to Christians, saying: "Consequently we have the prophetic word more sure; and you all are doing well in paying attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and a daystar rises, in your hearts." (2 Peter 1:19; Compare 1 Corinthians 13:12) In fact, Jesus said, "“Stop judging that you may not be judged; 2 for with the judgment you are judging, you will be judged, and with the measure that you are measuring out, they will measure out to you." (Matthew 7:1, 2) So when a person condemns us for our past mistakes, they are condemning themselves.
Why did I create this site? The organization of Jehovah's Witnesses focuses its attention on preaching the word of God in the most efficient manner. Defending against every slight accusation is not advisable for the organization to spend its resources on. However, they do take accusations seriously and consider the public viewpoint, and make any needed adjustments so as to bring glory to God, but they do not publicly address every accusation.
As such, there are many individuals who go looking for Jehovah's Witnesses online or seek to research Jehovah's Witnesses who come across the lies of our apostates and opposers or ones claiming to be apologists for the organization who openly dissent of some of our teachings. This may cause ones to have a wrong view of us or to become critical of the organization.
This site is meant to act as an antidote to that poison. However, it is for our brothers that this site was started, not for the general public. So some things may be hard for the uninitiated to understand. If you are not one of Jehovah's Witnesses, we recommend that you learn about us from jw.org.
It is the focus of this site to help individuals to free themselves from the shackles of accusatory thinking that prevent them from accepting the true salvation message.
Subjects
Free Thought. Contrary to the claims made about us, Jehovah's Witnesses are free to hold their own ideas and opinions where they do not conflict with the core tenets (below) that distinguish Jehovah's Witnesses as God's true people.
Core Tenets
- The Bible is God’s message to us (2Ti 3:16, 16), which teaches us that ...
- Jehovah (Or some lingual variant of the tetragrammaton) is the name of the living and only true God, the Father (meaning is more important than pronunciation; Ex 3:13-15),
- holy spirit is God's invisible active force by which He accomplishes His will and helps us to overcome temptation (Eze 36:27-31),
- Jesus Christ is, and only is, Jehovah's only directly created Son who left heaven and became a man and sacrificed his human life and body, and was resurrected on the third day so that we might have salvation through faith in his ransom sacrifice (Joh 1:19; Php 2:5-11) and through whom ...
- only 144,000 men and women are being chosen by God right now through resurrection to eternal life in heaven to become kings and priests over () ...
- the earth where an untold number of righteous and unrighteous people will be resurrected for a chance at everlasting life in paradise,
- hellfire is the total destruction of the life of an individual into nothingness,
- we reasonably respect and obey those taking the lead in the congregation, our parents, and the superior authorities,
- speak in agreement,
- do not get involved in politics,
- do no harm,
- value life,
- do not hate our brothers,
- do not have sex outside marriage between a man and a woman,
- do not worship idols,
- abstain from blood (including eating blood, sex with a wife in minstruation or used for medical purposes), and
- observe reasonable shunning of former members (goes back to do no harm).
We show that members are allowed (though discouraged) to disagree with anything else as long as they keep it to themselves. (1Co 1:10) A member cannot be shunned or restricted for private thoughts, only for sharing dissenting ideas with others unrepentantlly. We even show that Jehovah's Witnesses encourage honest questions and go through pains to answer those questions.
Answering. Our opposers raise many questions that some need answered in order to resolve issues causing them difficuties. We answer those questions completely allong with any questions the answers themselves raise.
The Bible. There are claims made about our New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures and our interperpretation of the Bible that need to be addressed for some members to feel more secure in their beliefs. We deal with them thoroughly so as not to leave any question unanswered.
Medicine. Blood transfusions are a very large subject about which many claims are made. We address those, and organ transplantation, here
Child Abuse. Our opposers, particularly disgrunted former members, make outrageous claims about us permitting child sex abuse and emotional abuse that cause some members difficulties. We address the issues and cases that cause them the most difficulty and show that we not only have a low rate compared to other organizations, but have significant protections in place to mitigate it and a long history of speaking out about it.
Shunning. This is an issue almost exclusively attacked by our disgruntled former members who resent not being able to turn family members against us by freely promoting dissent. We reason on the Scriptural mandate to shun former members and the legal issues involved.
Governing Body. There are many attacks made against the governing body that disgruntled former members make to sow the seeds of mistrust against them. We put those issues to rest and highlight the hypocrisy of our opposers.
New World Translation. We provide show that accusations about the New World Translation are unfounded.
Flip-side News. We take the random claims of our opposers and turn them on their heads. We show how the issue is either being lied about or blown ludicrously out of proportion.
Related Advice. These are links to advice given to those who ask us personal questions about issues affecting their faith over at the Jehovah's Witnesses Advisor blog.Disclaimer
Dismythed is not in any way affiliated with the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses, its parent organization, or any of its subsidiary entities. If you are not one of Jehovah's Witnesses, you can learn more about Jehovah's Witnesses by going to that site at JW.org. The content we provide here is strictly for helping our brothers and sisters just as we would in person.
Dismythed backs and accepts responsibility for every word of its authors and reserves the right to make adjustments to posts as needed.
Though dismythed offers advice on various subjects, it is not a site for licensed psychiatric, psychological or mental health advice of any kind. What is posted here is the opinion of the authors. No diagnoses of any individuals will be attempted. Any statement that may seem like a diagnosis must be taken as the opinion of the author without the intent to give professional advice or diagnosis.
For more on similar subjects, see:
Why Do Jehovah's Witnesses Seek "New Light" if They Already Have the Truth? [Revised]
Waiting on Jehovah
Comments
So in 2009 a blog like yours really assists in the defense of the truth.
Thank You
Agapé
The Trinity brochure is no longer provided in the congregations or in our available publications on any digital devices. There was only one established error that I know of in that publication, and it resulted in the organization completely eradicating it from availability to our members and the general public. We do not want to be known for false information. That simply goes to establish our credibility as an organization known for truth. If all the accusations of our opposers were true, we would have to eradicate all our publications in this way, but with the exception of that one entry, all our other publications have been fully vindicated with the exception of erroneous understandings that are discarded with time as we seek to study and understand the scriptures more clearly with each passing publication.
I don't detect emotionally-charged rebuttals, or the kind of hyperbolic ranting one would see from ex-JW apostate opposers.
The organization itself could theoretically use the media and other means that would address all of the false charges levied against us, but that would only serve to give free-publicity to the claims of opposers, and as the saying goes: "you cannot wrestle with pigs and not get dirty".
Following the example of our leader, Jesus, he at times made a defense, but he didn't get side-tracked with them. One time, even said "blind guides, let them be".
So the organization is occupying itself with the preaching work: Mark 13:10.
"So why is it that Jehovah's Witnesses are also the most unknown and misunderstood religion among the legally registered religions?"
In two parts: I would say that we're the most unknown primarily because of our politically neutral stand. One Watchtower commented on this, in part, by comparing us to how well-known the First Century Christians were NOT. They were not involved in political affairs, so therefore, not much was written about them from non-Christian sources. Compare that to today -- the more political a person or group is, the more publicity they get, and the more people dig into their background, and the more becomes known about them. More precisely, people tend to care LESS about non-political people, and thus, won't know much about them.
Second Part: I'd say we're the most misunderstood because we are, quite frankly, "unorthodox"...according to their views of orthodoxy. We reject unbiblical doctrines that Christendom sees as fundamental to Christian teaching, which makes us very unpopular. So people call us "strange", "bizarre", a "cult", and so on, not to mentioned the swaths of unfounded rumors parroted about us which adds to this.
Ask us why we don't observe Christmas celebrations. Guess what, it has nothing to do with what some have heard about us; like lies that we don't believe in Jesus or we don't want our kids to have fun.
Ask us why we produced the New World Translation. Its not because we wanted to change the Bible to reflect our beliefs. We used various Bible translations for about 80 years before the NWT was produced. Using those translations, we had long rejected things like Christmas, the Trinity, Hell fire, etc. The world needed an accurate translation.
So my point is, I'd say the misunderstandings is tied directly with misinformation, or the sheer lack of it.
Rob.
Don't forget to get rid of the extra spaces after your posts. Haha. ;)
I will look up that WT when I'm back in the office shortly.
What I DID find was a paragraph in the "God's Word or Man's" book on page 60, para 11, that mentioned the size and political stance of the First Century Christians.
Their definition of "charitable" basically conveys the idea of donating money to a "charitable" organization, building hospitals and orphanages, or feeding the hungry. This is the definition used to support this false accusation.
Let me tackle this from another angle: Instead of me showing why we're charitable, lets see who they're REALLY accusing of not being charitable; Jesus Christ!
How? Well ask yourself: Did Jesus spend his three-year Ministry opening orphanages, feeding the hungry, or building hospitals? What was the command at Matt 28:19-20? "Go therefore and feed people of all nations, building hospitals and orphanages in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the holy spirit"?
No, rather, Jesus told them to preach and make disciples -- but this doesn't mean he was AGAINST helping people in material ways.
Considering John 6, Jesus had just fed 5,000 people miraculously. They then began following him, hoping for more "signs" and provisions, including what could be seen as a reprimand. Jesus told them pointedly, in verse 25-27:" When they found him across the sea, they said to him: “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them: “Most truly I say to you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate from the loaves and were satisfied. Work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that remains for everlasting life, which the Son of man will give you; for on this one the Father, God himself, has put his seal of approval.”
Jesus here isn't condemning material acts of charity, but just using these few verses, Jesus said that spiritual food is what God has put "his seal of approval" on, meaning, its much more important.
So ask yourself: Is Jesus being uncharitable here? How many hospitals, orphanages, and food drives did he open and fully support?
On the other hand, this is not to condemn Christendom for doing their charitable work, after all, Jesus also provided food for people.
Jehovah's Witnesses strive to follow Jesus' example of "charity", and that's by sparing nothing in the preaching and disciple making work.
Where we are "charitable" is also in our preaching and disaster relief work. We basically give away, without charge to the public, bible-based material designed to save lives. We give our time as well, without payment from the Governing Body, to this.
Our disaster-relief work helps both Witnesses and non-witnesses. I can't count how many experiences non-witnesses have related where their properties were attended to by the brothers and sisters here, without charge, when a disaster ravages their homes.
So to call us "uncharitable" because we don't focus on providing material provisions at the clip Christendom does, is to call Jesus "uncharitable" too as he counseled those who were only interested in material charity.
By the way, are you able to add spaces where the paragraph breaks into a new one?
I added them, but they didn't show up.
Thanks
Thanks.
When you copy and paste, use ctrl+shift+v to paste. Then add a second break between each line.
And I'd like to thank you for allowing me to contribute to your site here, and how you're humble enough to open it up to useful contributions by others as well.
Rob.
To Vince: I no longer recall the statement that was removed. If you had asked 3 years ago, I would have been able to tell you. It is not a sin that the organization revises the publications from time to time to make sure that the promulgation of misinformation is minimized. It would be wrong to let it stand without revision or retraction.
I am very glad that you and others that have commented about it have enjoyed those posts.
I have disabled those posts about cult identifiers because I will be launching a new site soon on the subject of preventing misidentification of cults through proper definition, called Cult Myths.
The articles have been disabled on this site because they were fairly aggressive and biased. On the new site, however, every word will be neutral, focused strictly on reasoning and will benefit all people and falsely accused groups, not just Jehovah's Witnesses.
The Cult Myths site will be divided into the following subjects:
Definitions
Biographies
Cult Identification Models
Dangerous Cults
Myths
Red Flags
Factual Dangers
Advice
As a fair warning, though, because it is not related to the ministry and Jehovah's Witnesses, the Cult Myths site will be monetized through ad revenue and Patreon because I am unable to hold a standard job and am in need of increased income. My art skills and my writing have become the only means to support myself.
That said, I hope all will benefit. This is a passion project as much as a necessity to both me and the public.