This post is just for my Mormon friends. I realized today while listening to my missionary son's digital voice recordings this week that I never shared with my son the basic beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses. You see, over the years I have made it an important part of my own religious study to come to understand the basic tenants of other faiths, different Christian denominations in particular. I felt it was important in order to better understand how my beliefs differ from theirs and what we have in common; something that would help me to better communicate and teach the gospel.
Years ago, I invited some Jehovah Witness missionaries into my home and told them that I was sincerely interested in understanding the history of their church and their basic doctrines. Instead of taking their pamphlet I asked them if they had a more thorough book of their doctrine. They came back another day to give me a book that was much more in depth. I read it.
Today in my reply to my son's questions about Jehovah's witnesses I provided this brief overview of what I learned all those years ago. I thought perhaps some of you might be interested in learning more about their teachings and pondering the ways that their teachings differ from ours.
The Jehovah's Witnesses in a nut shell:
**Jehovah's Witnesses had its origins in the Bible Student movement, which developed in the United States in the 1870s among followers of Christian Restorationist minister Charles Taze Russell. Bible Student missionaries were sent to England in 1881 and the first overseas branch was opened in London in 1900.
1) In his own words, Charles Taze Russell, their church founder decided he would throw out all of his doctrinal assumptions he was raised with (i.e. traditional Christian teachings; including the trinity) and study the Bible for understanding the truth directly from the bible. He says that the doctrines he established (or truths he discovered) came from that study. You'll see in the following points that he certainly missed important things contained in the Bible, and also it shouldn't be surprising that trying to do this (find truth) with a direct appeal to the Bible presents very significant problems because of corrupt translations and missing context. It's also important to note that after his "discovery of truth" he produced a Bible that he declared to be more correct, therefore he made significant changes.
2) Jehovah's witnesses believe that God, a spirit all knowing and powerful, created "spirit sons and daughters" (i.e. angels) to keep him company in heaven. Jesus was among them. He created Adam and Eve out of a desire to give his creations an intelligent being upon which he could bestow his benevolence, he intended for them to live in peace and happiness in the garden state forever (apparently the Jehovah's Witnesses believe Adam and Eve either would have had children there or God would have placed more humans there in time) but Adam and Eve destroyed God's plan when they partook of the fruit and fell.
3) Jehovah being called as our savior from among the angels in heaven was essentially God's reaction to Adam and Eve's sin; thus Christ’s birth, life and atonement was Plan B. Out of his benevolence God provided a path by which some of the sons and daughters of Adam could one day become "exalted" to live in Heaven as angels with Christ and the other "sons and daughters" of God (i.e. angels God created for his companionship). There will be 144,000 humans who will receive exaltation. (This is a mis-reading of prophecy in the Book of Revelations that refers 144,000 “of all the tribes of the children of Israel” that are “sealed,” which actually refers to the number of priesthood representing the 12 tribes at adam ondi ahman when the priesthood is reorganized under Christ's direct leadership of the church in the Millennium.) Christ didn’t preform a personal atonement, he didn’t take upon himself all the sins of man, instead he fulfilled the law of Moses by becoming the sacrificial lamb to atone for the sin of Adam; being like Adam, a son of God made perfect, the difference being that Adam was an immortal man of flesh and Jesus was an immortal man of Spirit made flesh by God. In their religion the exalted state of man is as a spirit, thus Christ was more exalted than Adam.
4) The rest of human beings who are good and decent and live honest lives (the honorable of the earth) will be resurrected physically and live forever in a paradisaical earth, in a state similar to the state Adam and Eve were created to live in, in bodies of flesh that do not die. So, if you are not chosen as one of God's elect, but you are not wicked, you will live forever in a immortal body on an immortal earth.
5) Humans have no immortal soul. Meaning, we do not have spirits. We did not exist before our conception, and unless we are good, we will cease to exist when we die. There is no spirit world. If a person is chosen to be one of the 144,000, God will simply recreate their consciousness into an eternal exalted spirit form to dwell in heaven. If a person is chosen to be resurrected to live on the paradisaical earth, they will simply be recreated in the exact image of their mortal person into an immortal body. If neither, they simply cease to exist.
6) There is no Satan, no devil, no Lucifer, no evil spirits. Wickedness is a human condition and our fallen state (the natural man) provides all the incentive to sin that we struggle with in this life. We do not battle against unseen forces of evil. Again, NO SPIRIT realm!
There you go. That's Jehovah's witness doctrine in a nutshell. Now you can ponder the implications of that and the serious deviations the doctrine takes from Bible teachings and especially from the restored gospel.
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