Stand By Night

Jehovah’s Witnesses have only been around since 1931, but before that there was a group called The Watch Tower Tract Society that was founded in 1881 by Charles Russell. The Society’s purpose was basically to print tracts containing Russell’s beliefs, and a magazine focusing mostly on the “last days”. But in 1916 Russell died, and the society’s lawyer Joseph Rutherford was elected president. Within six months he had dismissed all the board members that disagreed with him and started publishing his own doctrine. He later also dismissed the entire editorial committee, giving him sole control of what was published. He started demanding that his readers meet in congregations, and thus a new cult was formed. They called themselves “Bible Students” until 1931 when the name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” was chosen by popular vote. JWs claim to use the Bible as their source of teaching and practices, but it is often taken completely out of context. JWs have also attempted to predict the year of Jesus’ return several times. They said He was returning to Earth in 1914, and then they said 1925, and then 1975.

My neighborhood gets a lot of JWs knocking on our doors; I’ve talked with three in the last two months. If there are any JWs out there who read this, I have a question for you.

In the most recent conversation I had with a JW missionary he started by asking if I believed in God. After I said I did he asked if I believed God has a name and I said, “Yeah, His name is Yahweh.” The missionary agreed with me adding that “Jehovah” is the English translation of the Hebrew. He then asked if I would agree that the Bible is the Word of God, to which I said I absolutely did.

Then we had a long conversation about whether or not God is omniscient, during the course of which my missionary friend contradicted himself a few times and failed to defend his statements against his own previous statements when I showed the logical fallacy of his position(s?). But that’s not my point.
After almost an hour he said he had to go. I asked if we could say a quick prayer asking for the knowledge of God before he left (that was the one thing we agreed on: we all need the knowledge of God). Now here’s the weird part: he didn’t say he’d rather not, or that he didn’t have time, of that he wasn’t comfortable praying with a guy without a shirt on (that’s what happens when you knock on a Nightwatcher’s door at 10:30am); he said, “No. No offense, but I don’t think we’d be praying to the same god.”

Here’s my question: If we started the conversation by agreeing that God’s name is Yahweh (or Jehovah), and that the Bible is His word, why is my Jehovah is different than his? And even if we were not “praying to the same god” wouldn’t he still be able to pray for me to receive the knowledge of his god (whomever that may be)?

Just a thought.

-J