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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 active members 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 authority 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 the Society's little brown book titled "Reasoning From The Scriptures".
(This was all before the internet and the ready volume 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 with Watchtower Society teachings 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.
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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 active members 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 authority 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 the Society's little brown book titled "Reasoning From The Scriptures".
(This was all before the internet and the ready volume 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 with Watchtower Society teachings 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.
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