Are Jehovah’s Witnesses Christian?

Years ago; different job. One of my clients needed to get his life straight—which didn’t require him to go to church, but it definitely doesn’t hurt! And since he grew up Jehovah’s Witness, and since the JW church was right down the street from where he lived, that’s where he went. Very quickly he became a cage-stage JW, and tried to tell me how wrong I was… and I told him, “Come back and talk Jesus to me when you can demonstrate more fruit of the Spirit; maybe then somebody will want to listen to you.”

That’s pretty consistently been my experience with the JWs: They’re right, I’m wrong, and any time I ask ’em questions about their beliefs, they presume I’m just trying to sow doubt. Which—I’ll be honest, and I’ll upfront tell them this too—I totally am. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are a heretic church, and the reason they proclaim so many heresies is because of their one core problem: Pride. Pride in being right. Pride in being the only church that’s right, while the rest of us are wrong and going to hell. And because they figure we’re wrong, their founders looked at every orthodox thing Christians believe, and deliberately experimented with the very heresies we rejected. And kept a bunch.

And the JW’s really attract prideful people—because hey, you wanna be right about God, don’t you? I’ve no doubt there are exceptions; there are actual humble Jehovah’s Witnesses in existence. It’s just I’ve never met any of them. Ever. Maybe you have; that’d be nice. I simply haven’t.

Their history.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses began with Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916), a former Congregationalist from Pittsburgh, Pa., who got involved with the Adventist movement. At the time, the Adventists had ditched the popular postmillennial view of the End Times, pointing out it’s more biblically accurate to say Jesus returns before the millennium, not after. So they were looking for Jesus to return at any time. Problem is, a lot of early Adventists were picking dates on which they claimed Jesus would return—and when Jesus proved ’em wrong by not returning, they simply recalculated and tried again. Russell joined in on their date-setting, and came up with a bunch of disproven dates. Adventists kept doing this for decades! Some of them still do it.

Russell also came to the conclusion none of the denominations were right about God; that none of their primary doctrines, none of the creeds, reflect what’s taught in the bible. He started a bible study which intended to examine what is in the bible, and started publishing his articles and books through Nelson H. Barbour, a fellow Adventist. The two had a falling out in 1879 after Barbour grew tired of all Russell’s missed dates, and left the Adventists for the Age-to-Come Church.

So Russell started his own publication, Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence. In 1881 he founded Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society, which published all his stuff, and moved to Brooklyn, N.Y. By this point his bible study had grown to hundreds of members and followers, all of whom called him “Pastor Russell,” and called themselves Bible Students. Many of them ditched their churches and only attended Russell’s bible studies.

When Russell died in 1916, his lawyer Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869–1942), after a legal battle with a few of the society’s directors, took it over. He published Russell’s last book, The Finished Mystery, and quickly got into trouble with the U.S. and Canadian governments for sedition—apparently, Russell’s interpretations of Ezekiel and Revelation made a few declarations about the then-current World War 1, which the governments who were busy fighting it did not appreciate. Rutherford and the society’s directors were arrested and sentenced to 20 years. They won their appeal and were released in 1919. But ever after, Rutherford blamed the government and other churches for his prosecution, and treated them as enemies. Jehovah’s Witnesses still avoid government involvement, military service, voting, and saluting the flag. But they do pay taxes.

Once freed, one of Russell’s first acts was to reorganize the society: Each bible study now had a director, and each director reported weekly to headquarters. Elected leaders and elders were gradually abolished. Rutherford’s teachings slowly began replacing Russell’s. Active door-to-door evangelism was encouraged further. Christmas and Mother’s Day were abolished. The Bible Students were renamed Jehovah’s Witnesses, and their meeting places were renamed Kingdom Halls; they avoid the word “church.” Singing in Kingdom Halls was abolished—but quickly reinstated two years after Rutherford died of colon cancer in 1942.

There have been five presidents since, but leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses have since moved to the Governing Body, a ruling council of currently nine men; the council’s size varies. Its members are appointed by the existing members, meet weekly in private, rule by a two-thirds majority, and rule for life. They run six committees which handle all administrative functions, and they’re in charge of all doctrines and teachings. Jehovah’s Witnesses tend to call them “the faithful and discreet slave” of Christ, who supposedly work under his direct control, make sure their doctrine is accurate, and adjust it as necessary. Individual JWs are expected to follow their lead, not try to hear God on their own.

Are they a cult? Well yeah, a bit.

Ever since Walter Martin’s 1965 book The Kingdom of the Cults was published, Evangelicals have referred to every heretic church as a cult. Since the word “cult” has lots of meanings, and people aren’t always clear about which one we mean, lemme make it clear: By cult I mean what popular culture does: A graceless totalitarian church. One where you obey the leadership or you’re going to hell. And many churches, heretic and orthodox, can be cults. Too many Evangelical churches get away with cultish behavior because they believe the same things every other Evangelical believes, but the way they control their people… yeah, they’re totally cults.

So when people call the Jehovah’s Witnesses a cult, they usually just mean they’re heretic. But when I say it, I mean they have a totalitarian culture. When they baptize you, you gotta agree to obey “God’s spirit-directed organization,” meaning them. You gotta attend their meetings. You gotta be loyal. Challenging them is like challenging God himself. And if you get the ire of the leadership, they’ll disfellowship you: You’re no longer going into God’s kingdom. You’re not going to hell either; they don’t believe in hell. When you die you’re gone, and if Jesus doesn’t recognize you as his, Jesus won’t resurrect you. The JWs believe in annihilation.

In order to keep you loyal to the organization, Jehovah’s Witnesses discourage minimal interaction with the world. Don’t make pagan friends. Don’t get attached to anything or anyone. Keep your head down. Don’t go to college, or get any form of higher education; they’ll just lead you astray; Satan is everywhere. If Christian apologists try to engage you while you’re evangelizing, dismiss everything they tell you; they work for Satan too. Trust no one but JW leadership. Make sure your kids trust no one but JW leadership too. (Even if they molest the kids a bit; yep, the JWs have that problem too.)

One of the more-publicized Jehovah’s Witnesses beliefs is in sharing resources when disaster happens. But because JWs don’t trust outsiders, whom do they share those resources with? Right you are: One another. Not everyone indiscriminately, like the Salvation Army does; just fellow Witnesses. They look out for one another. And hey, we Christians should look out for one another; I don’t object to that part of it. Just the part where the JWs actively don’t love their neighbors like Jesus taught us to, because they’ve been trained to fear their neighbors. Fear’s a popular cult tactic, ’cause it works great to keep people in line. But it also works great to keep people from being like Christ.

What JWs believe.

You already know they’re big on the name Jehovah. That’s the English translation of YHWH, which they fully acknowledge is God’s Hebrew name, but they prefer to use his English one, and use it a lot so you’re fully aware which god they mean. After all, “God” is just a title, and could mean any god, like Woden or Xenu or Thor or Mammon. The United States motto “In God We Trust” never specifies which god, which is why the courts don’t say it violates the First Amendment. But JWs definitely specify which god: Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus.

They’re Arian, which means they don’t believe God’s a trinity; Jehovah is a spirit being, and Jesus is his son, Jehovah’s very first creation, a lesser god created in heaven, ruling as the angel Michael until he became human. The Holy Spirit (they use lowercase, so “holy spirit”) isn’t even a person; it’s just a term for God’s activity in the world. They definitely believe in Satan.

They figure Jesus did become human, but was merely human, not Jehovah incarnate, like the rest of us believe. Did die for our sins; crucified on a pole, not a cross, and they prefer the word “impaled.” He rose from the dead, but we say physically and they say spiritually; he’s just a really visible ghost. He ascended to heaven; he’s gonna come back. But in 1914 he inaugurated his kingdom, ruled by himself and 144,000 carefully selected humans who live in heaven with him, and the plan is for him to run his kingdom remotely—turning the world into a paradise, freeing it from Satan, evil, death, poverty, and sickness.

About that 144,000: They’re the only ones who go to heaven. Everybody else gets resurrected at the End, and if they follow God after they’re resurrected, they get to live forever on earth. If you’re one of the 144,000, God will personally tell you, and you get to partake of holy communion when they remember Jesus’s death every Passover. Otherwise don’t expect special treatment; you’re supposed to be humble! But after you die, you get resurrected in heaven, and you’ll stay there, ruling the world.

Jesus’s death atones for sin, and if you want him to atone for you, you gotta trust God, and trust Jesus’s substitutionary sacrifice. And other stuff: Get baptized, zealously preach their version of the gospel, live a righteous lifestyle, use the name Jehovah, be a faithful member of their church, and actively support fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses. So, there’s a little grace and a little works involved; but it’s not properly Pelagian because they do believe in human depravity, and that it’s impossible to save ourselves. If you reject Jesus, like I said, they don’t believe in hell: When you die, you’re gone.

Jehovah’s Witnesses do believe in the bible; they consider it inerrant, but strictly follow the interpretations of the Governing Body, as published in JW magazines in literature. Governing Body interpretations vary between literal or symbolic. They publish their own translation of the bible, the New World Translation, completed in 1961 and revised in 2013. Since the JWs eschew higher education, your guess is as good as mine as to where they got their Hebrew and Greek scholars; they don’t disclose the translators’ names. If I had to guess, I’d think they just used a bunch of interlinear bibles to make adjustments to an American Standard Version, and made further adjustments to suit important JW doctrines.

Jehovah’s Witnesses actually do observe holidays—just not secular ones, not Christian ones, and not birthdays. They observe Passover, and remember Jesus’s death at that time. Other emphasized beliefs include avoiding relationships with non-JWs, complementarianism, old-earth creationism, helping the needy, helping each other in times of disaster, rejecting blood transfusions, and that Jesus had short hair and kinda looks like Kenny Loggins.

And they are huge on publishing. The Watch Tower Society cranks out hundreds of millions of magazines a year, used to instruct Jehovah’s Witnesses and to evangelize everyone else. Yep, even in this digital era.

Leading them to Jesus.

Because Jehovah’s Witnesses firmly believe they’re right, and firmly believe non-JWs aren’t to be trusted, you’re gonna have the darnedest time trying to convince ’em otherwise. I know there are Christian apologists who claim it can be done, but I seriously doubt it’s gonna happen unless the Holy Spirit gets involved and flips ’em personally. Even then they’re gonna be mighty resistant.

Me, I just stick to personal testimonies of how God and I have interacted, question ’em about any discrepancies in their beliefs, and otherwise try to get ’em to question it for themselves. Doubt is our friend here. But the JWs try to discourage their members from ever doubting, and make ’em terrified that their doubts will undo their salvation. You know, as cults do.

John Piper has a fun challenge he likes to pitch ’em: “I’m a Christian who believes deeply that Jesus Christ is not a mere angel and that he is very God of very God. I know you don’t believe that, so I don’t want to get into a discussion, but I would like to pray for you, and if you would just bow with me, let’s ask Jesus to come and show us who’s right here.” You know, kinda like how Elijah did it with the prophets of Baal. 1Ki 18.20-40 Because he could show up, y’know. Unfortunately, Piper says the Jehovah’s Witnesses have never taken him up on that: “One old man ran as fast as he could off my porch.” Because some of ’em certainly do have doubts about their beliefs—so let’s use that, shall we?