My Encounter with Jehovah’s Witnesses

Saturday was spring cleaning day, and Maryellen and myself were heavy-deep in de-cluttering our basement. I was at the last stage, sweeping the dust filled floor–dust-bunnies clinging to my tee shirt–when Maryellen discovered that some Jehovah’s Witnesses were making the rounds in our neighborhood.

Oh goodie! Break time!

Sure enough, the doorbell rang, and Maryellen allowed me to go to the door. Sure enough, two kindly, middle-aged women were at my front steps, a third witnessing from a distance, with their AWAKE! in tow.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, for the uninitiated, are a religious sect founded in the 19th century by Charles Taze Russell. They have a number of doctrines that they believe that are, at best described as “unorthodox,” and if you want to understand some of the valid concerns you may want to read Catholic Answers’ tracts about them.

Nonetheless, I have had dialogued with JWs for decades, ever since high school, when I attended Brooklyn Technical High School, which is a stone’s throw distance from the Watchtower headquarters. Taking the subway over the Manhattan bridge, the Watchtower signs were prominently displayed.

In the past, when I had “dialogued” with JWs, they had almost always ended in disaster. My interpretation of Scripture went against their interpretation of Scripture, and my memorized recitation of the embarrassing elements of their belief system carry as much weight as the plethora of embarrassing historical elements of my own denomination. It was almost always a stalemate, each and every time.

No wonder then, that most people do not ever attempt to engage these beliefs. Why bother?

But today was different. Dust-bunnied-shirt and all, I was going to try something different.

They had introduced themselves, and shared how they wanted to talk to me about God. Instead of being confrontational, I was complimentary. I certainly don’t agree with their doctrines, but it’s not often that people today want to talk about something as vitally important as their faith. Catholics are notoriously bad at evangelization (something I hope that will change in the coming months), but we shouldn’t fault a religious sect for actually putting the pedal to the metal.

They were surprised at my compliment. I was the first person all day who had done so. Most people, they exclaimed, were rude to them, or pretended they were not home.

I asked if they liked their church. They very well did. I said “that’s great.”

They offered me a free copy of their literature. I politely declined. A couple of nice statements back and forth, and they were ready to leave.

“Excuse me, but would you want to know why I had declined your magazine?” I asked.

Well, certainly. They turned back round, ready to give answers to my grievances.

I’m sure they were prepared for some Scriptural back and forth, ready for proof-texting and they had their verses and arguments all lined up.

I just kept looking at their Bible, and I said, do you know how the New Testament came about? They never thought of that question.

I said that while the books of the New Testament were written in the first century, they were never collated into a single authoritative Book until the fourth century, during the Councils of Carthage. Before then, there were not only the books of the New Testament, but a combination of writings from many others, both of which are considered to be orthodox (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Shepherd of Hermas, etc.), and faulty (Gospel according to Peter, Gospel according to Thomas). These were all being circulated around in the first few centuries of our faith.

And in the fourth century, it was the Catholic bishops, and the Catholic priests, who convened together into a number of councils where they debated, dialogued, and put their book choices up for a vote. Some books that had opposition, like James and Revelation, were voted in. Some books that were thought to be slam-dunk acceptances, like the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch, were not.

I then fast forwarded to the nineteenth century; Charles Taze Russell is born and–let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that his gospel is absolutely correct, free from the taint of error. That would be some fifteen hundred year chasm between when the New Testament was crafted, and when the Jehovah’s Witnesses were formed.

What took God so long?

Furthermore, what does it say about the nature of God, if He waits fifteen hundred years of people falling into heresy and death, before a person can finally come and bring about restored truth in doctrine?

I pointed them to the only Scriptures for that day: Psalm 95. This, I mentioned, is prayed every single day by priests and those in religious life. It says, at one point (I was paraphrasing), “Do not be like the wicked generation, those at Meribah and Manassah, who had denied me, although they had seen all my works. For forty years I endured that generation, therefore they shall not enter into my rest.”

I had emphasized “forty years.” Forty years is a long time, but it’s not unreasonable. Most of us live to forty years or longer. Some of us remember forty years ago. That allows a bad generation to die off, and a new generation to start over.

So it goes without saying; how come, from the creation of the New Testament, to when a prophet like Charles Taze Russell began his denomination, why did it take not forty years, but almost forty-TIMES-forty years, for this to happen?

This gave them some pause. Nobody had asked that question before.

Furthermore, these books in the New Testament, I reiterate, were collated and voted upon at these Councils, by those who were Catholic priests, Catholic bishops, and perhaps Catholic laity. Read their writings, much of what is Catholic today is what they believed back then, including the belief in transubstantiation.

Again, let’s state, for the sake of argument, that these people were very much in error when they adhered to Catholic doctrine.

That said, if these men were so wrong and corrupt in their doctrine as to what they believed about God, then why are we taking it on their authority as to what books constitute the New Testament? If they are wrong when it comes to church hierachy, belief about Mary, sacramental confession, and the Eucharist, then what makes their decisions as to what books make the New Testament authoritative?

They offered to have one of the brothers of their church come to my house, and perhaps provide an answer to this question; but they said he might say “hmm, that’s a good point, but have you considered this verse?”

And I countered, “Do you not realize how foundational this is? He can point to all the Scriptures he wants, and all I will say is, but if the Catholic church has the wrong interpretation of Scripture, then perhaps they were wrong on choosing which Scriptures are to be in the New Testament.”

They were silent, and so I continued.

“Look, I get that this is a great church you go to. I’m happy for that. But deep down, if I were to ever convert to your church belief system, I will never feel this is indeed where God wants me, until this question is answered properly; and I don’t think it can be.”

But then I became very encouraging. “But, perhaps I’m wrong. And if I’m wrong, you’re going to have to look into it. You’re going to have to ask this question to your elders. And if they don’t have an answer, they will have to go to their elders, until they can find an adequate reason for why they believe as they do. And when you finally get a decent answer to this inquiry, you will be prepared for the next time somebody springs this issue to you.”

So after that, we said our goodbyes, and it was perhaps the most encouraging encounter I’ve ever had with Jehovah’s Witnesses. We weren’t angry with each other, I didn’t belabor them with long sets of prooftexts (which almost always end in a stalemate), and we didn’t even have to bring up controversial doctrines to each other. At root, at foundation, the lines were drawn, and the best that can be said is that they will have this nagging question in the back of their minds, from somebody who was courteous towards them, who respected that they were trying to live a gospel life, even though we do not agree on the specifics of what that life entailed.

The question is now whether I will get a second visit.  Hopefully I’ll be better dressed to the occasion.  I’ll keep you posted.