.
For a home-spun religion whose origin is relatively recent, the Watchtower
Society has done pretty well for itself. Beginning with one man shortly after
the American Civil War, it currently numbers approximately 8.2 million
followers spread out in approximately 118,000 congregations worldwide.
(Congregations have been displaced and consolidated in recent years due to
the Society liquidating a number of Kingdom Halls in order to settle its legal
obligations.)
My first encounter with a Watchtower Society missionary (a.k.a. Jehovah's
Witness) occurred in 1969. At the time I was young and inexperienced; and
thus assumed that the hewer of wood, and hauler of water coming down my
dad's driveway was a typical Christian.
But when I talked this over with an elder; he became alarmed; and urged
me to read a little book titled "30 Years A Watchtower Slave" by William J.
Schnell; whom the Society at one time demonized as an agent of Satan. I
would not be surprised if it still does.
After getting my eyes opened by Mr. Schnell's book, I was afterwards
steered towards another book titled "Kingdom Of The Cults" by Walter
Martin. No doubt the Society demonizes Mr. Martin too.
Around late 1980, my wife and I attended a series of lectures sponsored by
a local church titled "How To Witness To Jehovah's Witnesses". The speaker
(call him Pete) was an ex JW who had been in the Watchtower Society
system for near three decades before terminating his involvement; so he
knew the twists and turns of its doctrines pretty good.
Pete didn't train us to hammer the Society's missionaries in a discussion
because even if you best them scripture for scripture, they will not give up
on the Society. Their mind's unflinching premise is that the Society is right
even when it appears to be totally wrong. They are thoroughly convinced
that the Society is the voice of God, while your voice has no more validity
than that of a squeaky little gerbil.
Later on, I read a book titled "Why I Left The Jehovah's Witnesses" by Ted
Dencher. I also read and studied the Society's little brown book titled
"Reasoning From The Scriptures".
(This was all before the internet and the ready volumes of information
available on YouTube.)
From all that vetting, study, and training I quickly discovered that although
the Watchtower Society uses many of classical Christianity's standard terms
and phrases, those terms and phrases mean something entirely different in
the Witness mind than what you'd expect because the Society has re-defined
the meanings of those terminologies.
So your first challenge in coping with a Watchtower Society missionary is to
scale the language barrier. That by itself is an Herculean task because you'll
not only be up against a tangle of semantics, but also a Jumanji of twisted
scriptures, double speak, humanistic reasoning, rationalizing, and clever
sophistry.
_
For a home-spun religion whose origin is relatively recent, the Watchtower
Society has done pretty well for itself. Beginning with one man shortly after
the American Civil War, it currently numbers approximately 8.2 million
followers spread out in approximately 118,000 congregations worldwide.
(Congregations have been displaced and consolidated in recent years due to
the Society liquidating a number of Kingdom Halls in order to settle its legal
obligations.)
My first encounter with a Watchtower Society missionary (a.k.a. Jehovah's
Witness) occurred in 1969. At the time I was young and inexperienced; and
thus assumed that the hewer of wood, and hauler of water coming down my
dad's driveway was a typical Christian.
But when I talked this over with an elder; he became alarmed; and urged
me to read a little book titled "30 Years A Watchtower Slave" by William J.
Schnell; whom the Society at one time demonized as an agent of Satan. I
would not be surprised if it still does.
After getting my eyes opened by Mr. Schnell's book, I was afterwards
steered towards another book titled "Kingdom Of The Cults" by Walter
Martin. No doubt the Society demonizes Mr. Martin too.
Around late 1980, my wife and I attended a series of lectures sponsored by
a local church titled "How To Witness To Jehovah's Witnesses". The speaker
(call him Pete) was an ex JW who had been in the Watchtower Society
system for near three decades before terminating his involvement; so he
knew the twists and turns of its doctrines pretty good.
Pete didn't train us to hammer the Society's missionaries in a discussion
because even if you best them scripture for scripture, they will not give up
on the Society. Their mind's unflinching premise is that the Society is right
even when it appears to be totally wrong. They are thoroughly convinced
that the Society is the voice of God, while your voice has no more validity
than that of a squeaky little gerbil.
Later on, I read a book titled "Why I Left The Jehovah's Witnesses" by Ted
Dencher. I also read and studied the Society's little brown book titled
"Reasoning From The Scriptures".
(This was all before the internet and the ready volumes of information
available on YouTube.)
From all that vetting, study, and training I quickly discovered that although
the Watchtower Society uses many of classical Christianity's standard terms
and phrases, those terms and phrases mean something entirely different in
the Witness mind than what you'd expect because the Society has re-defined
the meanings of those terminologies.
So your first challenge in coping with a Watchtower Society missionary is to
scale the language barrier. That by itself is an Herculean task because you'll
not only be up against a tangle of semantics, but also a Jumanji of twisted
scriptures, double speak, humanistic reasoning, rationalizing, and clever
sophistry.
_