are Jehovah witnesses Christian?

[Albion]

No, they are not Christians.

Nobody that denies Jesus as their LORD (God) and Savior can rightly be called a “follower of Christ” (Christian).

The question is whether one can worship “Jehovah” and deny “Christ” and still be part of the Kingdom and an heir of eternal life. From His holy WORD, I am skeptical of such a possibility, but the final answer belongs to God alone.

?? Who the heck are you saying denies Christ??

 

[Albion]

It all hinges on what God regards as essential to salvation. Again, that's solely up to God - isn't it? I prefer to "work out my own salvation with fear and trembling."

In the main, I like your analysis, but when the question is asked ("Are the JWs Christian?"), the questioner is asking not if members try to live as followers of Christ ought or anything like that. Rather, it's simply a question asking if the organization (and the members, therefore) accept the basic beliefs of the Christian religion.

Most often, the absence of a belief in Christ Jesus' nature as historic Christianity has believed it to be is what makes the difference to people who are concerned about this matter.

 

[Albion]

Sure, I understand the issue. On the other hand, I hear serious Protestant scholars questioning whether Catholics are actually Christians all the time.

First, I'd have to wonder who those supposedly "serious Protestant scholars" are.

But beyond that, it does depend on what doctrines are faulted, right? The JWs deny the historic creeds of Christianity when it comes to the identity or nature of Christ. That's important. The critics of the RCC who would go as far as to call the church "not Christian" are picking at Catholic beliefs or practices that most observers do not consider to be fundamental to the faith (if nevertheless incorrect).

One of my pet projects on forums such as this is to ask people what they believe to be the absolute, bottom-line Christian essentials - the sine qua non of being a Christian. Invariably, the answers are all over the map. Invariably, some things some people regard as essentials strike me as very minor doctrines. People have very different ideas as to what is required to be a Christian.

That's true, but not all of these people's personal opinions are equally meaningful or persuasive. Most of them do not, for example, have anything to do with what the Nicene Creed outlined.

For most people, the JW perspective on Jesus as the firstborn of creation rather than the Second Person of the Trinity is a deal-breaker.

Right. Just about every cult-watcher would agree.

Having studied the history and development of the doctrine of the Trinity quite extensively - an almost 800-year history filled with political intrigue, theological flip-flops and even violence - I, even as a Trinitarian, am not prepared to speak for God and disqualify the JW from salvation on this basis (even though they may be prepared to disqualify me!).

I understand. Everyone is free to make his own decision. My comments here are entirely aimed at what is the usual "take" on the matter by theologians and academics as opposed to what Mrs. Smith in Omaha heard about the JWs, etc.

 

[Albion]

I find that in assessing the JW beliefs, it's wisest to go directly to JW.org rather than rely on what non-JW sites have to say. One will discover that the JW believe salvation is achieved via "the ransom sacrifice of Christ" together with demonstrating continuing faith through works.

What Does the Bible Say About Salvation? (jw.org) (On this latter point, they accord with the Orthodox, the Catholics - and little old me.)

All you are saying there is that they accord a special place to Jesus and say that he is critical to the possibility of any of us being saved. That's important, yes, but saying all of that doesn't do a thing to address the issue I referred to and which causes most observers to say that the JWs are not actually Christian. That's the fact that they do not consider Christ to be the eternal God whom we worship as one of the persons of the Trinity.

To declare the JW non-Christian, one would have to know that a correct understanding of who Jesus was, rather than what he accomplished, is the Christian essential.

Absolutely. And I'm glad you said it so clearly.

However, the lack of clear and unequivocal biblical authority for the doctrine of the Trinity, the long and often unseemly debate over the doctrine (which continued long after the Nicene Creed was formulated), and Jesus' own emphasis on living the right kind of life versus believing precisely the right things, leave me unprepared to speak for God and declare the JW are outside the scope of Christianity.

Well, some people do say that. However, the Bible DOES affirm the Trinity despite what some people think AND it is even more forceful in showing that Jesus was God in the flesh rather than some agent of God, a special creation of God for the purpose, or anything else along those lines.

What Mrs. Smith in Omaha believes about the JW is neither more nor less relevant than what learned theologians and academics believe.

I don['t think we can say that. Those who are the experts in any field probably do deserve more consideration when it comes to explaining what such things are all about than an average, untrained, person simply speaking about what seems logical to him or her.

Arianism was a major focus of the ecumenical councils precisely because it does have biblical support and isn't easily dismissed.

I have to correct that. Almost every Christian heresy can point to something in Scripture and say that what it means is different from what it actually IS teaching.

There's nothing special about them doing that, Arius' case included. What the church did not do is agree with Arius and his many followers, not any more than it did with the Gnostics or dozens of other early dissidents, all of whom would have to be considered correct about their teachings if the only criteria were that they had a following and they claimed that Scripture supported their views.

 

[Albion]

By way of disclaimer, I should note that, long before I knew anything about the JW, I read the NT as objectively as I could and came out with pretty much exactly what the JW believe insofar as Jesus is concerned. Ditto for my wife, who is otherwise a devout Baptist. After much, much further study, I accept the Trinity without insisting upon the doctrine as an essential.

In my experience, most Christians accept the Trinity as one of those things "you gotta believe" without pretending to understand it or what it's supposed to add to their faith. To me, the essential might be simply believing that Jesus' incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection were sufficient in God's eyes to accomplish the atonement and that we can participate in salvation by accepting this. I don't insist on this either, because only God knows what the essential is.

As a Trinitarian, I still have in the back of my mind a small concern that Jesus may actually be aghast that anyone thought he was God in a Trinitarian sense or should be worshipped at the same level as the Father.

I watched William Lane Craig's 12-part "Defenders" series on the Trinity. I was astonished to hear him suggest that there was no Father-Son dichotomy before the Incarnation and that the divine person we call the Father might have chosen to incarnate, in which case He would have been the Son and the Son would have been the Father. This strikes me as nearly as unconventional as the JW position, and yet Craig is one of the premier Christian philosophers and apologists of our times. So, no, I'm not prepared to declare the JW as anything more than "unconventional" and will leave their fate to God regardless of what theologians, academics or the Nicene Creed have to say.

Okay, but that explanation--which I am interested to have you give us--doesn't really come to grips with the issue here. I already conceded that you and others are free to believe anything you want. We're not going to set up an Inquisition to quash non-Trinitarians.

But getting back on track and back to the question of the thread...the reason JWs are not considered to be Christians by most theologians and Christian denominations is because knowing who Christ is...is about as fundamental to being a Christian as anything you can name!

If that is missing, no amount of honor or credit for his life on Earth erases the fact that when it comes to "What God do Christians believe in?" Jehovah's Witnesses are adherents of some other religion.

 

[Albion]

• JW are not "considered to be Christians" by most theologians and denominations. OK, fine. Theologians and denominations don't determine who is and isn't a Christian. This is a question solely for God. I'm unwilling to pretend to speak for God.

• 
  
• That's not an answer. The issue here deals with the reason Jehovah's Witnesses are generally not considered by humans to be Christians. I explained why that is. I also said that you don't have to like it.

As a matter of fact, if we were to apply your standard to any other doctrines held by Christianity, we'd arrive at the point that says "Believe anything you want and we'll still call it Christianity." To me, that's obviously not going to be a success. It's like arguing that you're a vegetarian and should be acknowledged to be a vegetarian by all the people who only eat veggies...even though you have a hamburger for lunch every day and ribs for dinner.

And as for the rest of your post, all I see is your attempted justification for an alternate religion. One that is similar to Christianity, yes, but fundamentally different just the same. And maybe it's even the case that the Christians don'[t know what their own religion stands for. But that would still not be relevant to the question that asked why they don't consider JWs to be Christian.

 

[Andrewn]

Some ostensible Christianties are clearly not Christian. I put Mormons in this category.

I wonder how you reached this conclusion, given your position regarding JW's?

By way of disclaimer, I should note that, long before I knew anything about the JW, I read the NT as objectively as I could and came out with pretty much exactly what the JW believe insofar as Jesus is concerned. Ditto for my wife, who is otherwise a devout Baptist.

Christians proclaim a belief in one God and 3 persons. It is my observation, that what most really believe in is the 3-persons aspect. And this duality is reinforced by the Penal Substitution theory of Atonement where one person tries to appease the other one who forsook the 1st person on the cross!!

Do most Christians really believe that the Father and the Son are one God?

I watched William Lane Craig's 12-part "Defenders" series on the Trinity. I was astonished to hear him suggest that there was no Father-Son dichotomy before the Incarnation and that the divine person we call the Father might have chosen to incarnate, in which case He would have been the Son and the Son would have been the Father.

This is obvious Monarchial Modalism. But Craig is not conventional. He also defends Monothelitism.

 

[KingdomLeast]

I've read that they're Christian & also read they're not maybe someone understands their beliefs & can answer question?

They believe in Jesus, so they are Christian in that regard. But they deny just about every tenet of orthodoxy. So they don't believe in the Trinity, Hellfire, the immortality of the soul. Orthodox Christians would say they're not Christian. Of course Seventh-Day Adventist, believe in the Trinity, and they are not considered Christian by Orthodox standards.

That being said, I believe the JW's are cult, not because of their doctrines, but because of their practices.

this week, got a 2 page written letter from a Jehovah Witness inviting me to a Bible study thinking of writing the person back. what would you include in such a letter? thanks in advance for answers

I get those all the time. I actually responded to them, and never got a response. You wanna know why? Because the return address is either the Kingdom Hall or a P.O. Box, where only the Elders have access too. They will screen the letters and if you include any material they will simply discard the letter.

 

[returntosender]

Their doctrine doesn't agre

 

[returntosender]

Their doctrine doesn't agree with the popular Christian doctrine but they believe in Jesus. That makes them christians In my mind. Jmo

 

[Strong in Him]

They believe in Jesus, so they are Christian in that regard.

Their doctrine doesn't agree with the popular Christian doctrine but they believe in Jesus. That makes them christians In my mind.

Believing in Jesus means more than believing that he existed.
It means believing in who he was - both God and man - and in everything he said and did. The Jews knew that he claimed to be God; that is why they tried to stone him, John 8:59, John 10:33. Jesus himself said, "I and my Father are one", John 10:30, and that he shared the Father's glory before the world began, John 17:5.
Jesus also used God's name - I AM - that he revealed to Moses. The Jews knew this too.

Even the demons that Jesus drove out of people knew who he was, Mark 1:24, Mark 1:34; that didn't mean they were Christians.

 

[Dave G.]

They believe in Jesus, so does the devil. The thing is they don't believe that Jesus is deity. I've never read their bible but you gotta wonder how they side pocket John the first chapter where the Father gives authority to Jesus and creation, that Jesus was always with the Father.. If they don't believe these things how can they be born again ? Well they can't and according to Jesus' own words lest you be born again you can not enter the Kingdom of God. They preach another Gospel. It's false Christianity.

 

[Dave G.]

I believe Christ to be the son of God, not God himself, Christ always referred to God as his father he never once said he was God.

"God" is in three persons, Father , Son and Holy Spirit.
If anyone believes that Jesus is not God in the second person they better examine their beliefs.

John 1:1

Amplified Bible


The Deity of Jesus Christ
1 In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (a]">[a]Christ), and the Word was with God, and b]">[b]the Word was God Himself.

 

[Strong in Him]

Of course Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians, they believe in Christ as being the only begotten son of Christ, that makes you Christian.

No; believing that Jesus, who was God, died for our sins on the cross, repenting of sin and receiving his forgiveness and eternal life, is what makes someone a Christian, John 3:36, John 6:40, Romans 6:23.

If JWs believe that Jesus was, and is, God; that is good.
But a number of them have told me that their Bible says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Go and the Word was A god." That is incorrect.
Their favourite verse, Isaiah 43:10, from where they get their name, says that there is only ONE God - Jesus was never a second, or inferior, God.

 

[Dave G.]

I don’t believe Jesus is God, but the Son of God, whom he sent to wash away the sins of the World, Jesus always referred to God as his father. One can not be one and the same, that is like me saying my son is me and we are both one and the same person because I am his father.

It's part of the mystery of the trinity that as humans we can't understand but accept by faith. So you must believe the Holy Spirit is not God as well ? They are all spirit but only one came to earth and put on the flesh of man to die for our sins, Jesus Christ.

One God in Three persons, then the titles Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That's the triune God.
Triune Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Definition of TRIUNE

Definition of triune ; three in one: ; a · of or relating to the Trinity ; b · consisting of three parts, members, or aspects ...

 

[Strong in Him]

I don’t believe Jesus is God, but the Son of God, whom he sent to wash away the sins of the World, Jesus always referred to God as his father. One can not be one and the same, that is like me saying my son is me and we are both one and the same person because I am his father.

The Trinity is one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father.
And as a human, God was his Father because he was conceived by God.

If you don't believe he was God, then it was ONLY a man who died on the cross, and he had no authority to take away your sins.
Also it means that the Jews were utterly wrong to accuse him of blasphemy - even though he used God's name, forgave sins and said he was one with the Father - even before the world began, John 17:5. And Jesus didn't correct the Jews who accused him of blasphemy. There is only ONE God; Jesus believed that as a Jew and even taught it. So why would he have claimed to be one with God, to have seen God and to have been with God before the foundation of the world; knowing that it wasn't true and being willing to die for an untruth.

You are not the same as your son.
But you, yourself, could be a father, a son and a brother - one man, three relationships.
You would not treat your mother in the same way you treat your son. You would not treat your son as you treat your sibling, nor would you have the same relationship with them.

 

[KingdomLeast]

Believing in Jesus means more than believing that he existed.

and what scriptural proof do you have for such a claim?

"Believe on the Lord Jesus and be saved" is what the Apostles said, NOTHING else. Where in Acts 16 did the Apostles tell the jailer when he asked "What must I do to be saved?" did the Apostles say, "well, first off, you must believe that Jesus is God, who died for you!"?

Ever hear of death bed conversion? While I don't, many Christian do. They're lying there dying and they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior and automatically go to heaven when they take their last breath. When was there time to accept Jesus as God? When even the Church Fathers took some 400 years to develop the Trinity doctrine???

It means believing in who he was - both God and man - and in everything he said and did. The Jews knew that he claimed to be God; that is why they tried to stone him, John 8:59, John 10:33. Jesus himself said, "I and my Father are one", John 10:30, and that he shared the Father's glory before the world began, John 17:5. /QUOTE]

"The Jews answered Him, saying, 'For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.'" - John 10:33

Notice, they acknowledged that Jesus did do good works. Earlier the Jews were annoyed at Jesus’ good works because they were done on the sabbath, but that issue was pushed under the rug because they now had a stronger charge: blasphemy. First, they said the devil was doing the good works, but now they admitted Jesus did them.

“You ... make Yourself God.” Did Jesus make himself God? No! According to the original (interlinear) Greek in the Diaglott, Jesus made himself a god. The Greek is not ho theos but theos.

Many will not accept reasoning that is based on the Diaglott because they have been warned it is a book used by cultists. However, the logic Jesus used in subsequent verses would make no sense at all if he were saying he was God. Jesus showed that “god” is used for a number of applications throughout Scripture. In fact, his whole argument was based on the understanding that he made himself a god, not the God.

Nestle’s New Testament tried to counteract the Diaglott by inserting a blank and a dash and then giving the title. The same is true for John 1:1. However, Nestle’s treatment is not justifiable—the translators are making a mistake. What they want to do is to support the Trinity and to counteract any reasoning along the lines of the Diaglott or a study of the Greek. The scholarship and degrees of the translators are emphasized, but the application is improper. In one or two places, the translators cannot improperly apply the Greek. In the meantime, however, the reader has been indoctrinated with footnotes regarding a word being a subject and not the predicate or vice versa, whereas actually the translators were mixing up the subject and the predicate. The reader takes their conclusion for granted because they are Greek scholars. The theological seminaries back up these wrong conclusions.

Proponents of the doctrine of the Trinity tend to take things out of context. The grammar of these “great” students is incorrect, but because they can speak the Greek language, their sophistry is accepted. They have subtly introduced rules and regulations that do not properly apply.

Jesus was a god, a superior being, who did great works with the Father’s power. The Jews back there realized that Jesus did not claim to be Almighty God. He was familiar with the Father and likened himself to a Son, and that was the blasphemy—that he put himself on a “divine” plane of being, having been there previously.

 

[returntosender]

Believing in Jesus means more than believing that he existed.
It means believing in who he was - both God and man - and in everything he said and did. The Jews knew that he claimed to be God; that is why they tried to stone him, John 8:59, John 10:33. Jesus himself said, "I and my Father are one", John 10:30, and that he shared the Father's glory before the world began, John 17:5.
Jesus also used God's name - I AM - that he revealed to Moses. The Jews knew this too.

Even the demons that Jesus drove out of people knew who he was, Mark 1:24, Mark 1:34; that didn't mean they were Christians.

So just accepting Jesus as your personal savior won't work?

 

[Strong in Him]

and what scriptural proof do you have for such a claim?

The Gospels.
The Pharisees knew that Jesus existed; they saw him, heard him and saw his miracles. They, mostly, did not believe, said that he did his miracles by the power of the devil and tried to trap, and then kill, him on more than one occasion.
Herod and Pontius Pilate knew that Jesus existed, saw him and talked with him; they didn't believe.
The demons that Jesus drove out of people, not only saw him but were well aware who he was - they didn't believe and become his followers.
The devil himself knew who Jesus was.

"Believe on the Lord Jesus and be saved" is what the Apostles said, NOTHING else. Where in Acts 16 did the Apostles tell the jailer when he asked "What must I do to be saved?" did the Apostles say, "well, first off, you must believe that Jesus is God, who died for you!"?

Have you read the next verse; "then they spoke the word of the Lord to him", Acts of the Apostles 16:32?
It is not impossible that the jailer heard Paul and Silas singing hymns and praying, Acts of the Apostles 16:25; he might even have known the reason that the two were in jail. Then he saw God's power, in the earthquake which set the apostles free.
Paul told him to believe in Jesus, and then explained who Jesus was.

Ever hear of death bed conversion? While I don't, many Christian do.

Of course I've heard of it.

They're lying there dying and they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior and automatically go to heaven when they take their last breath.

i) If they're Christians, they are already saved and don't need to accept Jesus again.
ii) Such a conversion would not come from nowhere; the person may have been in hospital for a while, been visited by the chaplain, had time to accept that they were dying, talked to other Christians etc. They may have heard the Gospel earlier in their lives.

When was there time to accept Jesus as God? When even the Church Fathers took some 400 years to develop the Trinity doctrine???

It would depend on how the Good News was explained to them.
If someone said, "Our sins separate us from God and without God there is no hope. But God himself came to live on earth as a man and experienced our lives, our temptations, pain, loneliness etc. This man was Jesus who lived a perfect life and then died on a cross to reconcile us to God and grant us forgiveness for all our sins."
A person could believe that, without necessarily completely understanding it. They wouldn't need to know, and understand, the doctrine of the Trinity to be saved.

It doesn't matter how long the church fathers took to develop the doctrine of the Trinity; Scripture says that Jesus was God, was with God before the creation of the world and was, and is, one with God.

 

[Strong in Him]

So just accepting Jesus as your personal savior won't work?

To a non Christian, Muslim, Hindu etc such a phrase is meaningless on its own; I hope no Christian would use it without explaining, with Scripture, what it means.
An unbeliever would need to know why they needed saving, and from what. How Jesus saves. Why other things don't save. And that Jesus said that he is the only Way to the Father.

It would be like if someone said to me that Buddha saves - who's Buddha, how does he save, what does he save from and how do you know that I need saving?