Daughter (15) recently told my wife and I that she has a huge crush on this boy (17) from school who’s hanging out with her friend group a lot these days. She said he can’t date because he’s a Jehovah’s Witness. All wife & I knew before is that they’re some Christian group. From what we read online they seem to be pretty radical & abstract stuff like 144000 (?), Armageddon. They even get called a cult.
Fairly recent (in the scheme of things) non standard Christian group
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they don’t believe in the trinity: God is god, Jesus was crafted by god - used to be an angel, the holy spirit is more like an impersonal force
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they don’t believe in everlasting hell, they believe the soul of unbelievers is annihilated
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believe Armageddon is imminent and have repeatedly tried predicting it and failed
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they originated from a bible study group in the 1800s and some things they are into are actually a literal reading of the new testament rather than a more pop culture or traditional view of Christianity. for example:
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they believe the future of believers is on a restored earth, not heaven (based on Revelation). (This is why all their tracts have pictures of ‘the good family life’ in a park or nature type setting. That’s the earth restored to be like Eden)
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they believe 144000 special believers are elevated to rule in heaven (Revelation again)
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they believe a letter written by the apostle in Acts telling believers to “abstain from blood” is still in force (to be fair there isn’t anything saying it isn’t) which they take to mean refusing all blood including blood transfusions
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they don’t believe in Christmas, Easter or birthday celebrations because they’re not in the bible. Christmas trees are pagan etc
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they practice ‘shunning’ family and church members who won’t repent of sin which sees some parents totally rejecting their children, people acting like people don’t exist if they see them on the street. (Again to be fair, this is what the new testament tells Christians to do). For this they (rightly) get flak for being cultish and overly controlling
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they believe it’s every believers duty to give people opportunity to repent hence going door to door (I think they’ve stopped doing this now) or standing on the street offering their standard magazine “Awake”
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their central organisation is called the Watchtower, again a biblical reference to keeping watch for the end of the world
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various reports of child abuse scandals typical in any organisation where you can’t question or scrutinised authority
- they believe it’s every believers duty to give people opportunity to repent hence going door to door (I think they’ve stopped doing this now) or standing on the street offering their standard magazine “Awake”
They still go door to door and the newsletter is called The Watchtower.
And to clarify the very specific 144000 number: that’s made of up 12k people from the original 12 tribes of Israel. When I pointed out that I wasn’t Jewish so does it mean I don’t get to go to heaven, they clarified that it was 11 tribes and one “lost tribe” that allows non-jews eligibility. “So only twelve thousand get into heaven, out of about 9 billion?” They agreed that it’s the gospel and many people weren’t good enough Christians. I asked how many Jehovah’s Witnesses there were. They left after they figured out I was going to ask questions that exposed their awkward answers.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the only cults that tell people that they most likely aren’t going into heaven for believing and giving your life to a religion. And don’t even insinuate that better Christians might appear in the future and take their places in heaven. The end will happen before new Christians have a chance to prove how good they are.
JW are super petty and very mean to even their own. It’s all passive aggressive and it’s constant.
They send me hand written Hallmark cards. They don’t know my name (yet) so mine get addressed to “our neighbor” but my neighbors get them addressed by name and are very creeped out by it. The latest one came during the LA fires and is about how “the bible” will help me “cope” with extreme weather:
I got a letter like this a couple years back. No hallmark card, just the thinnest and flimsiest paper you’ve ever seen. It was pretty eerie to have a random handwritten letter addressed to me by name, but since name and address is public information here in Sweden it’s hardly surprising they have it.
My old workplace happened to be right next to a JW cult church, “Rikets Sal” as it’s called in Swedish, which I’m guessing translates to like “Halls of the Kingdom” or something like that in English. They were terrible neighbours. They tended their property meticulously, and wouldn’t be obstructive, but they’d come over during business hours and they were intensely misogynistic. They’d also attempt to kill the hedge that sat between their church and our offices because they were unhappy with how tall it was. That is up until my boss threatened to charge them for it.
I got this in my letterbox last new years day
from them. (The paper strip, not the cute magnet frog)
It says in Swedish: “On new years eve a lot of fireworks create light phenomenon in the sky. In the near future the greatest light phenomenon the world has ever seen will appear, it will be like when the lightning flames from east to west and shall occur when the Human Son return with his angels. Vigilance is needed for this event!”It’s been on my fridge ever since. I remain vigilant for the return of the king although it sounds like it will be hard to miss.
Well, I guess they had good intentions, at least?
“Awake!” is also a thing. I’ve seen it many times.
Looks like they have two: “Awake” and “Watchtower”: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/
In London in recent years I’ve only seen Awake. Maybe Watchtower is American or only in Kingdom halls?
they clarified that it was 11 tribes and one “lost tribe”
As far as I’m aware there are 10 lost tribes. Only Judah and Benjamin were not regarded as lost. They might have a different view on that of course…
They agreed that it’s the gospel and many people weren’t good enough Christians
They don’t see the “vast multitude” (who are believers besides the 144,000) as having a bad deal in any way. They get to live on the restored earth which is basically Eden paradise. That’s why all their magazines / tracts have pictures of an idyllic life in a park / nature type setting
I did econmerce for a grocery chain during COVID. A JW retirement community was a huge source of customers. They spent ungodly amounts of money on cheese and crackers
they believe it’s every believers duty to give people opportunity to repent hence going door to door (I think they’ve stopped doing this now) or standing on the street offering their standard magazine “Awake”
They now stand outside places, like a university a few miles away from me, and have incredibly idiotic stands meant to take advantage of people going through hard times.
they practice ‘shunning’ family and church members who won’t repent of sin which sees some parents totally rejecting their children, people acting like people don’t exist if they see them on the street. (Again to be fair, this is what the new testament tells Christians to do). For this they (rightly) get flak for being cultish and overly controlling
They do far more than that to be considered cultish. The elders of an area have a large degree of input on things like marriage, for instance, which goes hand in hand with men moving their new wives to areas far away from any family. Combine that with the typical cult emphasis on only socializing with people in the cult, and you’ve got a beautiful combination to keep women oppressed and without options. I’ve had to sit and listen to a poor woman come to terms with leaving everything, adult children included, behind and hope that her family would still help her after 30 years, because she had no other means of support. It was horrifying, because even the resources I was trying to pair her with wouldn’t be enough to help.
#3 seems like a pretty standard evangelical Christian group
Yes, it’s a general feature though I’ve rarely come across evangelical groups that go as far as to make public proclamations of their predictions like Jehovah’s witnesses did (some do, no doubt)
Amusingly it seems the JWs might have only survived because around 1886 it accidentally predicted 1914 would be the end of the world and the beginning of the favouring of the Jews (WWI and II culminated in the re-founding of Israel)
They re-engineered the text of the prophecy to better match the outbreak of world war (unsurprisingly). But that, together with the founding of Israel in 1948 are things they still point back to as “proofs”
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I’m an atheist so, grain if salt because all religions are pretty dumb to me but… JWs are really quite crazy, even by modern evangelical standards. They believe there are a finite number of individuals that will be allowed into heaven. Believers are in a competition to get to the top of the list. They also believe in absolute mental control over the congregation and members are encouraged to never date outside of the church.
Most of what you list isn’t crazy if you know the texts. For example The 144000 men chosen to fight the Beast’s armies in Armageddon are the basis of the chosen/elect/elite which appears in other denominational theologies.
edit: Christianity is an apocalyptic faith if you already accept that your God died to forgive original sin is a end times battle that crazy?
most of what you said isn’t crazy
…lists out crazy shit …
Shits crazy. Sorry.
If you accept an apocalyptic faith like Christianity are the details of the end times battle that crazy?
….to fight… the beasts armies in armageddon… explain to me how that isn’t fucking crazy, lad?
It’s the end game for that faith? Im not Christian but if you already accept the apocalyptic faith that Christianity is this isn’t crazy within that context
Idk, even when I was a Christian I thought the Joho’s were cray cray.
so… if I believe in crazy stuff the crazy stuff doesn’t seem crazy to me?
Exactly, if you already engage in magical thinking more magical thinking isn’t that crazy.
Online Atheist try to answer a question without first mentioning their atheist and casually insulting all religions first challenge: Impossible
Those who know a lot about religion are usually atheists in my experience.
In this specific context it is quite relevant that they’re an atheist, and therefore presumably relatively sceptical of religion in general. That’s a bias colouring their response that they’re disclaiming that they have.
Sure, I didn’t say anything about atheists. I’m saying that there’s no need to announce your own belief and insult other people’s belief to answer a question. I swear these atheists are like the online version of vegans who have to announce it to everyone and judge other ppls decision to talk about something else
Nothing was said that isn’t a universal experience with JWs
Well maybe if organized religion wasn’t such a cancer on humanity that an unimaginable amount of needless spilled blood across history can be laid at its feet it would be seen in a better light.
I care very little about people’s peculiar beliefs, however you should know about Jehovas witnesses:
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they are absolutely a cult and dangerous.
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they believe joining their cult is the only way to achieve eternal life. Everyone else is doomed.
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they put a very high focus on „saving“ people, aka bringing them into the cult. In fact, how many people you brought in is a big factor in determining your worth. Members are absolutely convinced they are doing good and actually saving souls. At least the normal folk who don’t abuse their brothers and sisters.
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members are discouraged from forming bonds and meaningful interaction with non-members, unless it serves bringing them into the cult.
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if someone leaves the cult, other members are forbidden from interacting with them, even within families. Except for the purposes of stalking and harassment of course.
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obeying authority without question is very important. The children obey the parents. The wife obeys the husband. The husband obeys those above him in the pecking order. This creates a fertile breeding ground for domestic and sexual abuse, which are dealt with „internally“, aka swept under the rug.
That said, most of them are normal people trapped in a very bad system. They can be kind, absolutely lovely people, or huge pricks, or pure evil, everything people outside the cult can be. It’s just that every single one of them needs to pull you inside, for your own good.
A JW to non-JW relationship is not possible in the long term. Either your daughter will be absorbed by the cult (because he can’t let his wife and their children be condemned) and distance herself from you and her former friends or he will leave and be shunned by his family and friends inside the cult. Anything else will not be tolerated by his community.
The best you can do is to find out about their methods and dangers and also prepare your daughter to never give up thinking for herself. I hope she is level headed enough to understand that it is not going to go well, even if he is a genuinely good person.
It’s the pyramid scheme of religion: you only get saved if you brought a bunch of people to the
religioncult. Only 144000 people will be saved. At a certain point there are no more people to bring to the cult and the bottom ones/newest initiates won’t have anyway tomake moneyget savedHahahahaha [I see that] you’re german!
You can’t just oust a fellow Dutchman!!!
I am
Funny, all of your points could have applied equally to the Catholic Church until fairly recently.
The two are genuinely not comparable. Organized religions are often terrible, abusive superstitions, but there are degrees to the thing. Jehovah’s Witnesses are at the degree of public danger
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I have very little personal experience with them, but I used to work with a guy who was raised JW, and he had nothing good to say about them. He lived it and called it a cult, so I’ll take his word on it.
Same experience here. A former co-worker and good friend was raised JW, and was practicing for all the time I worked with him.
We used to have long conversations about it, as I was raised CofE, so was fascinated by some of the more extreme takes.
Anyway, he now only refers to them as “the cult” and has absolutely nothing good to say about them.
My childhood best friend was raised in a JW family and eventually became an atheist. He also refers to it as a cult. I’m really proud of him for getting out of it, because doing so was difficult (because of it being a cult!) and took a lot of strength
Same. I had a classmate who was JW (or rather, his parents were). He was an actual nice kid who was frendly to everybody, had a good sense of humor and was quite smart. One day, he fell in love with a girl outside of his community (i.e. not a JW). He got the choice of either being ostracized or breaking up with her. That’s not a choice I’d want to make in my late teens. Last I heard of him is that he made it out.
They are an Evangelical cult, and unless he is going to leave the group, get your daughter away from him. Otherwise he will try to convert her and manipulate her
This is my concern. Not that he wants to manipulate her to harm her, but that he wants to “save her”. Her being subjected to that pressure could seriously damage her relationship with her family.
It will end up harmful though. Their beliefs about the “place” of women are harmful. That, and their general social isolation, are reasons why I tell people to get away from that cult and deprogram anyone they can.
Cousin of my wife was in a serious relationship with a JW. I told her it was basically a cult, will isolate you from your fam, and make you dress and behave a certain way( wife said she already changed her dress style to what he wanted). Two years later we get invited to the wedding. No music or booze, we split after eating and congratulating the couple. I haven’t heard mention or news from them. Parents never talk about it so I assume the worst.
Hope they keep the kid away!
Agreed, but just to expand on your point - he’s almost 18 and able to make his own choices soon. If he chooses to leave the church his entire immediate family disowns him, that’s for certain. That’s what they do. If he isn’t drinking the kool-aid, having someone there to help could make a huge difference in which direction his life goes.
My sister dated an ex JW at around 18. He stayed on our couch for a few weeks after his family disowned him.
A lot of cults deliberately send it out their members to recruit new converts by feigning love. I don’t know if the JW do this but it’s a possibility I’d keep in mind.
Not a Christian group - they’re more like the Mormons. They believe their founder is the most recent prophet, that his rewriting of biblical texts based off his interpretation of the King James bible is the only true interpretation, and that only the elect are going to Heaven, and that they get there by saving other people’s souls (essentially, he who makes the most JWs wins). And yes, it is definitely “he” — the women are saved through childbearing. The group commonly goes by the name The Watchtower Society. They’re famous for distributing tracts door to door. If you turn away from being a JW, all others are required to cease having anything to do with you. If you hear their teachings and then tell them you choose to belong to a different faith, you’re considered a heretic and for the most part they will try to avoid you (no more house calls).
Jehova’s Witneses and Mormons are both Christian. Each would argue they are the TRUE Christians and all the others are misguided. They worship Christ. Jehova’s Witnesses actually started as a Bible study group.
Mormons are about as Christians as Muslims. The only reason they are not lumped together is because they are mostly melanine-deficient.
Their actual name is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” and they self-identity as Christian.
They don’t call themselves “the Church of Joseph Smith of Latter-Day Saints”.
So they’re Jews like all the other Christians?
Only if their mothers were as well
Do they self-identity as Jews?
I think you mean melanin. racist AND stupid
They are Christian in that they accept the Bible and they believe in the redemptive act of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
They are different than Mormons in that they do not have a new text or a fundamentally different take on the nature of your relationship with God like the LDS do.
They are very odd and cultish but they are Christians.
Like Mormons, many christian groups consider the theological differences strong enough to not call them christian. Of course Christian is a label that was applied by outsiders to talk about this new sect and so I guess really what counts could be how outsiders think of them.
Take your pick. You can argue either way.
Except then you have to make many other denominations not christian. Mormons redefine the relationship with God and have a whole new text which IMO makes them a new branch of the faith
They’re famous for distributing tracts door to door.
Like the Mormons a large part of that is making members believe outsiders hate them for their religion…
When really I just hate any random person who knocks on my door.
It’s less to gain members, and more a way to prevent people from leaving.
— the women are saved through childbearing.
That’s how cults grow their numbers.
I didn’t know about that last part. Now I’m going to say I’m a former JW so they leave me alone lol
One of the many cults that formed after the Great Disappointment that then managed to get promoted to sect at some point. Others include Mormanism, Branch Davidians, and Seventh-day Adventists. All made of of people still pissed 180 years later that the world didn’t end in 1844.
For day-to-day purposes, they’re anti-fun. They don’t celebrate holidays, birthdays, etc.
I’d say your daughter is dodging a bullet, but it’s more like he’s pushing her out of the way.
Hopefully, when (if) he goes to college, he’ll put this crap behind him. Telling young people that they can’t date is ridiculous. Excessive self-denial is not an enjoyable life for yourself or the people around you.
As you’ve probably noticed, I don’t think highly of evangelical religions, or religions that go overboard with rules that dominate your personal life.
I had a close friend in high school who was brought up JW. Sometime afterwards, he decided he didn’t really align with the faith and left the church.
His family immediately kicked him out and estranged themselves from him. (Side note, this was a guy with mental health concerns, which this event naturally did not help with)
That’s coloured my perception of JWs ever since
It colored it accurately.
The JW’s are a specific branch o protestant Christianity that arose in the USA.
They are evangelical, note the small e, in that they believe it is their express duty to spread their take on Christ’s message. They are NOT Evangelical in the sense of non-denominational Christianity.
They are non-trinitarian (there is just God not parts of God), they believe Armageddon is imminent.
Witnesses still fall into most of the red flags for cultishness but they are a little too big to be viewed as a cult.
They also shun any sort of therapy, or psychiatric help. They just pray away the problems. This led to my best friend’s suicide because his mother would only have him speak with their priest or whatever to help with his depression and alcoholism.
essentially a cult that believes in alternative christian bible concepts.
I dont trust them because they took a friend of mine i had away from me.
This response coming from a Christian, let me try to answer this in a bullet point list:
- they’re strict;
- they don’t celebrate birthdays, or don’t do anything they believe it’s associated with paganism;
- they’re strict;
- they knock on people’s doors with a strict dress code to make more people join in;
- they’re also around the world, as missionaries;
- have I mentioned they’re strict?
thanks for coming to my TED Talk. Don’t take what I said as fact and do your own research.
They aren’t allowed to drink hot beverages too!Edit: Never mind, I got them mixed up.
If you have the time for an hour-long deep dive into the history, check out this video from a history youtuber I’m a big fan of:
Temporary Residents in this World | Jehovah’s Witnesses - Knowing Better
You can skip the first 2 minutes if you don’t care about the skit stuff.
Knowing Better is such a fantastic youtube channel. I can’t recall this video specifically but ALL of his videos are worth the hour long watch.
I could write a lot about my experience with that group, but instead I’ll just say they are toxic as fuck. What they do to people is emotional torture.
Like mormons they shun the outside world and those who leave their group. Their street missionaries are meant to show their members how outside people are bad not convert people. Best to be nice to them to show them it’s a lie.
