Posted on 04/03/2010 3:12:52 PM PDT by NYer
This is my 16th Easter.
For the first 38 years of my life I did not celebrate Easter because I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a pseudo- Christian group with a very strange economy of salvation. It is not easy to describe life in a cult like Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is very dark. Even their light is darkness.
Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in the Trinity, so they do not believe in the deity of Christ. They believe that Jesus was Michael the Archangel before he came to earth, and that after he was resurrected, he went back to being Michael the Archangel — but with the name “Jesus.” They do believe Jesus died (but not on a cross) to save mankind from sin and death by atoning for the disobedience of Adam. Jesus had to be a perfect man, to match Adam in every respect, and thus he takes Adam’s place as our father. I know this is weird — not to mention the whole ontological problem of how he is an angel, then a human, and then an angel again — but I’m telling you about it because I want you to know that I had an idea that I could call myself a Christian and believe Jesus died for me, without conceiving of Jesus as God.
Most of you reading this are like my grandchildren who have heard all their lives that Jesus died for you and that Jesus is God the Son –- true God from true God. It has never dawned on you, because it was always the light that you lived in.
But it dawned on me.
In 1993, after a long and harrowing period of life disruption, searching for the peace and transformative power that I read about in the New Testament, I had an encounter with Christ.
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
I did not know then that he was Deity, but I knew that he was not who the Jehovah’s Witnesses said he was. I knew that I would have to leave the religion that I had grown up in and known all my life. I would have to walk away from every relationship of my adult life. I went to a church.
Now to you, that might seem like the most natural thing in the world for me to do. You want to know about Jesus, you go to a church. But for me it was terrifying. I had always been told that churches housed demons. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not even like to turn their cars around in a 
church parking lot. But that visit to a church set me on the road to learning the truth about Jesus. It became pretty clear, pretty quickly that Christians worshiped Jesus. The fundamental fact of my religious upbringing had been that you only worshiped God (Jehovah), who is Jesus’ father. To worship anything or anyone else was to be guilty of idolatry. But there was a tractor beam on my heart. I had to figure out who Jesus really was.
Having left what I recognized to be a religion of error, I was very leery about falling into error or being misled once again. But I knew that I had to open my mind to the witness and the arguments of Christians around me in order to untwist the distorted way I had learned to read scripture.
A humorous skit put on one time at a meeting of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses illustrated what I was facing. It featured a “Christian” trying to “help” a recently-exited Witness. When the ex-JW expressed confusion about Christian doctrine, the Christian said, “Oh, it’s easy. Just believe everything the opposite.”
“What are you talking about?” the baffled ex-JW asked.
“Well, you didn’t used to believe in the Trinity, and now you do. You didn’t used to believe in the deity of Christ, and now you do. You didn’t used to believe in the immortal soul, and now you do. You didn’t used to believe in going to heaven, and now you do. You didn’t used to believe in celebrating Christmas, and now you do. See, everything is the opposite. It’s easy.”
The appreciative laughter with which this was greeted gave testament to the fact that it is not easy! And the more you care, really care, about the truth, the harder your struggle is. If you have always lived in the truth, you can’t imagine how hard it is.
For a while I lived in a partial shadow. I was in love with Jesus, but still didn’t know what to make of all the Christian adoration of Him? How could I explain this phenomenon if he were not God?
I found some relief by latching onto the biblical image of the Church as the Bride of Christ. After all, what would be more natural than for a bride to be focused on her bridegroom? Of course Christians sang love songs to Jesus! It was the Jehovah’s Witnesses who were strange — like a bride who ignored her groom and tried to give all her affection to her father-in-law instead.
Meanwhile, I was participating in Christian prayer and worship to the best of my limited understanding. I also asked questions, and I studied… and studied and studied. Finally I was turned on to reading the Early Church Fathers. It started to became clear to me that this teaching — that Jesus was Divine, was God in the flesh — was really Christian teaching from the beginning, was the apostolic witness.
There was just one problem left in my mind: If Jesus was God, then that man on the Cross was God.
It would mean that God had died.
It would mean that God had died… for me.
For all time, there will be no more astounding, no more elevating, no more humbling proposal to a human soul than this.
And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior’s blood!
Died he for me — who caused his pain –
For me who him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
He left his Father’s throne above
(so free, so infinite his grace!),
emptied himself of all but love,
and bled for Adam’s helpless race.
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
for O my God, it found out me!
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
The sun had come up in my life.
[The lyrics are from the hymn, "And Can it Be (Amazing Love)", by Charles Wesley. Enjoy the lovely rendition here.]
I know, and I’m with you in that it’s of relatively little importance. I think it’s just one of the straws they grasp at in attempting to undermine the resurrection story enough to give their wrong spin on it some implied credibility.
It’s also just one example of how they focus so narrowly on a secondary issue, and by doing so, horribly miss the bigger picture.
Look .. You can spew venom and use the definitions of a cult that other ‘Valid’ religious leaders have deemed as the last word if you want.
My point is .. Why is it you people who call yourselves Christians have this need or desire to Invalidate another’s belief?
No One Made the person who posted the ripping revue about the JW’s ‘JOIN’ the JW’s.
Contrary to what some may think .. I am not a JW even though I have known and associated with many of them.
I have also known and associated with: Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, Baptists and more.
It is Only the ‘so called’ main stream Christians who go out of their way in spreading untruths, fallacy’s and downright lies about the JW’s.
Enough!
If your happy with your beliefs .. more power to you and yours.
Practice the love for others and their beliefs that ‘mainstream’ Christians preach so much about and then Maybe .. Your faith will be a convincing beacon to lead the misguided ‘Cult’ followers into Your light.
A Christian who is ripping and tearing at another’s belief because they fall into someone’s definition of a cult, kook or .. Whatever .. That, my friend is not going to help anyone!
Hey, he said devotion. Now that’s funny!
You will know a tree by it fruit.
(1) I'm an ROTC instructor at George Fox University.
(2) I'm the food bank coordinator at the Jehovah Witness Church.
(I'm wicked - but God forgives ;^)
“No One Made the person who posted the ripping revue about the JW’s ‘JOIN’ the JW’s.
Contrary to what some may think .. I am not a JW even though I have known and associated with many of them.”
I’ve been a JW for most of my life. I can see through you. You’re either somebody who’s been disfellowshipped for some silly infraction and still feels loyalty to the religion or you’re facing a crisis.
Yup, I totally agree with you, William.
Never been a JW.
Haven’t been in a Kingdom Hall for twenty years.
Never been baptized by ‘any’ religion.
No crisis.
And I find it Very Hard to believe that you are a JW because the Last place a JW would be is in a ‘political forum!’
Your seeing throughers <—(made up word)need some adjusting my friend.
If I were a JW, I would be a very bad JW. They tend to disfellowship people who call the religion a cult and who call them out on their policy on child molesters. I’m not a JW. In fact, I’m a member of a local support group for former JWs.
My good friend .. You need to go back and read what you have posted!
(See Your post #86)
I wont call you a liar because I don't think that you 'honestly' Know Who or What you are!
When you slander a group of people .. at Least get your stories straight!
If you are helping X-Witnesses .. Who's helping You?
The anti Mormon crowd has pulled two members out and into Christianity here on FR alone, that we know about.
I do live my Christian faith, and part of that is
I have had enough of ‘lukewarm’ Christians who don’t bother to defend their faith and think all roads lead to heaven.
I was LDS for several years, if some Christians hadn’t cared enough to ‘tear down my LDS faith’ I would still be trapped in that cult.
Until you have walked a mile in my shoes, don’t accuse me of not acting Christian by warning others about Mormonism. I confess I don’t know much about the JW’s, I was never one of them. Mormons OTOH...
It is far more important than me just being happy with my beliefs, it is sharing the change in my life (from works to grace) with other.
I don’t expect you to understand in the least.
And what would those be? The lies, fallacy's and untruths.....that is.
And of course .. It was the anti Mormon crowd that is partly responsible for the Muslim in the White House.
Listen .. No One has a problem with YOU or with anyone else professing their New Found faith.
What I have a problem with is your incessant NEED to discredit the belief’s of others in doing so!
Reminds me of Radical ‘Former Smokers’!
Also, making the thread "about" individual Freepers is a form of "making it personal."
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
My apologies to everyone.
That’s great nOOb but no one here is anti Mormon, in fact, that Mormons are themselves becoming anti Mormon and claiming to be Christians, something they had never done before.
The had always been Latter Day Saints until recently and have decided the only way to remain relevant is to now profess they are Christians, though antithetical to their history.
They have always decried Christians as lower forms and to be disregarded. From Joseph Smith to Brigham Young from Fielding Smith to Kimball.
It is just nuts they are now putting on the mantle of Christianity, all the while calling Christians faux or manufactured.
It is the height of arrogance to call more than 1 billion people apostates and want to claim the very same title,which they believe they are the only ones who have authority(whatever that means)
To be sure there are plenty of Christians running each other into the ground but for LDS to be taken seriously, which their declining membership shows they are not, they will need to go through a reformation and stop this silliness of sending some 50,000 missionaries looking for converts and telling Christians they are worshiping in and apostate belief, with their salvation in serious doubt but, for being claimed by LDS and becoming a member.
Then again, since their whole premise is based on all other religions and creeds being invented errors I am not sure how they would overcome that hurdle.
thing is, I think the author of the article is inferring there was no cross and we know from the historical records there were.
“It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (namely that all are equal) is right. We are all exclusive in our beliefs about religion, but in different ways.” - Timothy Keller
Another face palm moment..
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