The Jehovah's witnesses and the rest. What's the stumper?

[Terry Sampson]

Religion has always been used for political agenda. So has all other isms including atheists, marxism, Pacifism etc.

Trivial note: JWs decline to salute flags, to vote, and to perform military service. https://www.jw.org/en/library/books/gods-love/flag-salute-voting-civilian-service/

 

[Deeje]

Trivial note: JWs decline to salute flags, to vote, and to perform military service. https://www.jw.org/en/library/books/gods-love/flag-salute-voting-civilian-service/

Yes...something to do with being "no part of the world" because of supporting God's Kingdom, not man's. (John 18:36; John 15:18-21)

Saluting the flag is classified as an act of worship.

And also Jesus said that we have to "love our enemies"....not kill them. (Matthew 5:43-45) Its hard to love you enemy with a gun or a bomb....

Christian is as Christian does....right?

 

[firedragon]

Trivial note: JWs decline to salute flags, to vote, and to perform military service. https://www.jw.org/en/library/books/gods-love/flag-salute-voting-civilian-service/

I have heard that. But I must confess I don't know very well about the JW's history specifically.

 

[Deeje]

"Grace" isn't even in the Index and "Faith" is buried in an article about some another topic.

We are so appalled by the misuse of the word "grace" that we prefer to render it "undeserved kindness". "Grace" is all too often used to justify sin, imagining that "grace" has you covered so you can sin with impunity......sorry....not who we are.

 

[Deeje]

I have heard that. But I must confess I don't know very well about the JW's history specifically.

Got questions....just ask.

 

[firedragon]

Got questions....just ask.

No Deeje. This historical questions are not relevant in my mind to this thread because it is a logical fallacy. The theology does not depend on who did what in the 19th and 20th century. Its biblical.

So I really appreciate your offer which I will probably take it up later

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Judgment. Again.

No, it’s history. A history full of killing, forced conversions, etc.

You know, yes, the Church has committed atrocities in the past.

Basically, from its inception as the Church of the State of Rome... right up to the present. And the majority of Protestantism has followed in its footsteps.

But no one’s perfect — not even you all.

“No one’s perfect”?! That’s your justification? People can claim that when they make a mistake....not when they encourage their members to purposefully kill others, and go through training to do it!

“— not even you all.”
The organization and we ourselves, never said we were. We have all done wrong at times. It’s one thing, though, to commit a serious error accidentally, and quite another to commit serious error on purpose, with premeditation.
i think people know the difference, so do Jesus and His Father.
(If you ever lost anyone in a conflict, you can be sure they weren’t killed by one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.)


The sheep in Christendom though are not held to the same accountability as are their shepherds, the leaders who should know better.


1 John 4:20-21 tells Christians, that we’re not even to “hate” our brother or sister.
How, then, do you think God views killing them, simply due to geographic differences?!!



- 1 John 3:10-15

 

[Hockeycowboy]

You seem to think that JWs discovered moral purity and brotherly love. You ought to take the latter claim up with the Baha'i. I think their claim predates JWs' claim. As for discovering moral purity, let me know when you walk on water, heal the sick, raise the dead, and feed the multitude.

Is that what Jesus required of His followers? To “walk on water, heal the sick, raise the dead, and feed the multitude”?
I don’t remember those requirements.

But I do know that Jesus commanded His followers to “love one another.” (John 13:34-35; 1 John 15:17) Even to ‘love their enemy.’ -Matthew 5:44

That would preclude / exclude any killing, certainly not in some organized manner.

Most of the Baha’i s I’ve met seem very kind and considerate. Do they not support countries during war? I don’t know.
I’m aware that the Amish, Quakers, and Mennonites do not take part. I think.

Anyway...reputations / histories speak louder than words.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Anyway...reputations / histories speak louder than words.

They do indeed. So, let me tell you a little history:

• I am a Sampson by adoption. Mayfield was my bio-mother's husband's surname. My name, during my first 3 months, was John Sterling Mayfield. From 3 months of age until just before my 12th birthday, my name was Terry Lee Montgomery; Since the age of 12, I have been Terry Montgomery Sampson.
• Of the nine most important people in my life, i.e. the people who loved me most, eight are dead; my wife remains with me. Of the eight, all believed in the Trinity and trusted in Jesus' promises, and none of the nine were/are biologically related to me.
• My biological parents were married, ... but not to each other. Unable to satisfy my infant needs, my bio-mom took me to my bio-father's house when I was 3 months old, and said: "I can't take care of him; you take him"; and walked out. That was the first time my stepmother and I met, ... the day that she discovered that my bio-father had been unfaithful. She was a 61-year old, Deaf woman and had been Deaf since birth or infancy, and had probably the equivalent of a 3rd or 4th grade Deaf School education. She rescued me and changed the course that my life would have taken in a profound way. In fact, if it weren't for her, and a handful of others like her, I literally wouldn't be Terry Sampson, married, blessed, and living in Los Angeles today. I'd be John Sterling Mayfield, most likely miserable, alcoholic, dead and buried in Oklahoma. How did that happen? The Jesus she read about in the Scripture was sufficient for her. She took me in and raised me until just before my 12th birthday. [My parents and step-parents were Deaf. My first language was American Sign Language.]
• Around my 11th birthday, Oklahoma State Department of Social Services took an interest in me and concerns were raised over the fitness of an elderly deaf woman to be a young, hearing boy's guardian. As time went on, the State authorities decided that for my good, I should be removed from the home and placed with a foster family consisting of hearing people who could support my development in spoken English. My stepmother, fearing that I would be placed in a non-Christian home, went to her pastor and told him that she wanted him to take me.
• The Lutheran pastor and his wife took me in, with my consent. The Sampsons had five biological kids (three sons and two daughters), ranging from 5 to 12. I'm the only one they adopted.
• All of the people important to me are important because they did things and made sacrifices for me personally that I did not ask for but which saved me from a worse fate. In summary, I have been the beneficiary from the age of 3 months of people who were not perfect but who did extraordinary things because they believed what they believed. Of those people, only the preacher and one other person had a college-level education.

Is that what Jesus required of His followers?

Required? Is that your reason for everything you do? That Jesus "requires" you to do it? You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.

 

[Terry Sampson]

We are so appalled by the misuse of the word "grace" that we prefer to render it "undeserved kindness". "Grace" is all too often used to justify sin, imagining that "grace" has you covered so you can sin with impunity......sorry....not who we are.

LOL!
"We are so appalled"??? Would that be the Queen's royal "we" or the indignant community's "we"?

There are quite a few acts that would pass for "undeserved kindness". The appalled Queen needs to get real and the appalled indignant community needs to come up with a better shibboleth. "Grace" is the English translation for the Greek word. Has been for a good number of years and will be for a good number of years yet. But if it'll make JWs feel better, maybe "we Christians" can start posting official disclaimers stating that "the Jehovah's Witnesses aren't with us." That may not make it easier for the JWs to get into Israel, but I'm guessing that Jehovah will be amused..

With thanks to Harel, ...

• "רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָן בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי יוֹנָתָן אָמַר, בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁהָיָה משֶׁה כּוֹתֵב אֶת הַתּוֹרָה, הָיָה כּוֹתֵב מַעֲשֵׂה כָּל יוֹם וָיוֹם, כֵּיוָן שֶׁהִגִּיעַ לַפָּסוּק הַזֶּה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר, וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ, אָמַר לְפָנָיו רִבּוֹן הָעוֹלָמִים מָה אַתָּה נוֹתֵן פִּתְחוֹן פֶּה לַמִּינִים, אֶתְמְהָא. אָמַר לוֹ כְּתֹב, וְהָרוֹצֶה לִטְעוֹת יִטְעֶה."
  
  "Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman in the name of Rabbi Yonatan said, at the time that Moshe was writing the Torah, he wrote the creation that was of each and every day, upon arriving to this verse, as it says, "And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness", he said before Him: Master of the Worlds, why do you give vindication to the heretics, I wonder. Said He to him: Write, and whoever wants to err shall err."
  

 

[sojourner]

No, it’s history. A history full of killing, forced conversions, etc.

No, it’s judgment, because you’ve decided what constitutes a perfect world and then hold everyone up to that model — which, by the way, is not Biblical. Jesus deals with the real world in the Gospels. He knows that slavery, for example, is a reality in his world, and so he entreaty slave owners to treat their slaves well. he doesn’t get his back all up and turn them out as being “unfit” for God’s “unmerited” good humor. You, however... go ahead and throw the first stone. Remember: when Jesus encountered the prostitute, he said, “Neither do I condemn you.” You’re condemning everyone who isn’t “you” — good, bad, saintly, desperate, unequipped, etc. Everyone.

Basically, from its inception as the Church of the State of Rome... right up to the present. And the majority of Protestantism has followed in its footsteps

Oh? Really! Sounds like a lot of Standard JW cultspeak to me. Have you met me? Do you know what I have and have not done? Have you met any of my parishioners? Have you listened to the Presiding Bishop of the ECUSA? Or the Archbishop of Canterbury? Or any other church leader on the subject of killing and forced conversion? You’re generalizing. Grossly. The church does not condone killing and forced conversion in the “present day” — and hasn’t for years.

“No one’s perfect”?! That’s your justification? People can claim that when they make a mistake....not when they encourage their members to purposefully kill others, and go through training to do it!

Lies. The church doesn’t “train” people to purposefully kill others!

It’s one thing, though, to commit a serious error accidentally, and quite another to commit serious error on purpose, with premeditation

Yet here you are: committing serious error on purpose here, and with premeditation, separating yourself from the rest of humanity, abrogating our shared sinfulness, and passing blanket judgment on everyone but yourself. Where, my friend, is your mea culpa? A premeditated and purposeful omission, perhaps? Take the log out of your own eye.

(If you ever lost anyone in a conflict, you can be sure they weren’t killed by one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.)

Oh, yes. See above. You all are part of the human race just like everyone else, and you share fully in humanity — its kindnesses, its nobility, its love, and its hate, its judgment, its divisiveness, its prejudice, and its evil.

Additionally, has it ever occurred to you that very, very few people look forward to going to war, and very, very few people revel in killing others? Do you understand how very many people struggle and suffer and become emotionally screwed up because their sense of eithics clashes with their sense of morality? Do you understand that you wouldn’t be an “American” with the freedom to worship as you choose if the rest of us hadn’t done your duty for you? War is a nasty, nasty, nasty business. But when oppression and bullying and hatred are part and parcel of the human condition, sometimes good people must take up arms and kill the demon.


You’re welcome.

1 John 4:20-21 tells Christians, that we’re not even to “hate” our brother or sister.
How, then, do you think God views killing them, simply due to geographic differences?!!

Your post here seems sour, bitter, judgmental, and hateful. How, then, do you think God views the emotionalism of your hateful post? Or is “killing” the only thing that makes God throw up in his mouth a little?

And here’s another little jewel for you to wrestle with: God commands God’s followers to kill men, women, and children — in fact to commit genocide of those who weren’t “us.” What do you say to Jehovah acting in an immoral manner? Humanity is diverse, messy, and complicated. Therefore, religion is, likewise, messy. It just isn’t black-and-white, as your diatribe here suggests that it is. Every community of faith has skeletons in the closet, because, guess what? Communities of faith are human — even yours. You don’t get to remove yourself from culpability and come off as the only noble remnant of humanity because of your particular beliefs. You don’t get to shame the rest of us from the comfort of your ivory tower for our continuing to struggle in the trenches of humanity. You would condemn the Body of Christ for having a disease called “humanity.” The rest of us, rather than condemning the Body, continue to work within that Body in order to create antibodies of decency. In effect, you turn your back on Jesus for being human. Nice going.

But I do know that Jesus commanded His followers to “love one another.” (John 13:34-35; 1 John 15:17) Even to ‘love their enemy.’ -Matthew 5:44

“How many times must I forgive? Who must I forgive?” How small it must be to love only because one is commanded to love! Is that really the extent of your piety? To only do the right thing because you’re “commanded” to do so? Is your morality really so far removed from your own conscience? You may want to rethink your post.

Is that what Jesus required of His followers?

Is the depth of your spirituality really so shallow as to be comprised only of what is “required?” I thought Jesus said that we should give our cloak as well as our clothing, that we should walk the extra mile, that we should offer the other cheek, that we should forgive 70 times 7? The Judaic religious authorities you all decry as being “immoral” followed only what was required of them for righteousness. Sounds like your post advocates and fosters that same position.

How wonderful it must be to have all the answers, to have to do only what is required, to not have to wrestle with the mess of humanity, to sit in your Watchtower with your feet up on a stack of tracts, passing judgment on the rest of us who have so willfully “misled” ourselves!

In the meantime, we “lost souls” simply love you from the trenches, do your civic duty for you, and wish you’d play with us on occasion.

 

[sojourner]

Religion has always been used for political agenda. So has all other isms including atheists, marxism, Pacifism etc.

That’s because religion is fundamentally political.

 

[sojourner]

Yes...something to do with being "no part of the world" because of supporting God's Kingdom, not man's. (John 18:36; John 15:18-21)

Saluting the flag is classified as an act of worship.

And also Jesus said that we have to "love our enemies"....not kill them. (Matthew 5:43-45) Its hard to love you enemy with a gun or a bomb....

Christian is as Christian does....right?

Jesus also said something about “rendering unto Caesar...”

 

[sojourner]

We are so appalled by the misuse of the word "grace" that we prefer to render it "undeserved kindness". "Grace" is all too often used to justify sin, imagining that "grace" has you covered so you can sin with impunity......sorry....not who we are.

I’ll repeat to you the same question I asked Cataway: are “We” also “so appalled” by the theological conundrum “We” have created: that “undeserved kindness” is reserved only for the “deserving?” You all have apparently shown this “undeserved kindness” by removing your presence from the community, condemning it as something “Jesus would have no part of,” because of some imagined “atrocity” that has offended your spiritual sensibilities. In what way is that attitude affording the rest of us “unmerited kindness?” Would you be “kinder” if we “merited” that kindness by believing as you do?

 

[cataway]

Im curious. What are the other interpretations of "Grace" or "Charisma"?

google

 

[sojourner]

Yes...something to do with being "no part of the world" because of supporting God's Kingdom, not man's

So, if you’re being “no part of the world,” how do you create reciprocity and right relationship with what you live within? Do you just “sponge” off the world, and not contribute anything to it? Do you not give back? It looks like a theology of “non-interaction.” Am I wrong?

It looks like your theological paradigm here is “world bad — God good.” Is that a correct assessment?

 

[firedragon]

That’s because religion is fundamentally political.

Not really. Religion is you. You can turn it into politics or home improvement. Religion is a protocol that people use. Religion is an identity. Most of these isms are.

 

[firedragon]

google

I dont think "google" is an interpretation of "Grace". So I believe you made an error.

 

[sojourner]

Not really. Religion is you. You can turn it into politics or home improvement. Religion is a protocol that people use. Religion is an identity. Most of these isms are.

No. Religion is a cultural expression. Cultural expressions are always political because cultures deal with communities.

 

[firedragon]

No. Religion is a cultural expression. Cultural expressions are always political because cultures deal with communities.

So cultures and cultural motivations vary geographically as well as trajectory. You are basically proving sociology of religion.