Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Leaving JWN

I apologize for my absence from this blog over the past couple of weeks. I know there are a few of you that wished to follow this blog.

As some of you know, I decided to stop posting to JWN. There are several reasons for this, and I would like to clarify a few things that I said on the site when leaving.

First of all I am thankful for the amount of support that I've received from many people on that site. My abrupt halt from posting prevented me from letting everyone know how thankful I am that they were there for me when I needed it. While I don't agree with most people on that site, I was happy to be friends with everyone anyway.

There became a point, however, when I didn't find it very healthy to participate any more. Anytime any sort of Christian discussion would come up, the thread would be hijacked by atheists. That too was fine. I am happy to defend my faith and allow others to do the same. The problem came, however, when attacks were made against God and his personality. Nothing was treated as sacred. I got tired of the "Jehoober is a disgusting monster" sort of comments.

There does need to be a certain amount of mutual respect for people to remain being friends. For example, I do not believe in reincarnation and I do not believe that cows are sacred. However, if I was in a land (i.e. India) where the cow was viewed as sacred, I wouldn't act in a way that insulted their view of the cow. If I did, I would expect to get a very angry response.

My God is special to me. My relationship with Him is special to me. It is special in the same way that my wife is special to me. If someone was to call my wife a disgusting monster and that was the general consensus of the group, then I would be genuinely offended and could no longer consider those people friends.

That being said, there are many wonderful people on JWN. It hurts to have to say goodbye to the site, but I also wish to remain friends with those people. There are those on JWN that are atheists and yet are respectful of my beliefs, and to those I genuinely feel friendship for as well. But the repeated attacks on ANYTHING Christian began to get very discouraging for me.

I would like to answer one claim that was made about me personally that I have issue with. I made the comment that I was upset at those that were trying to destroy my faith. My faith has NOT been destroyed. One person commented that I must not have any faith to begin with. Obviously that is not true. But when a person surrounds themselves with those that think they have to attack anything that is not godless, then that can start to get very discouraging.


I am a "new" Christian. I don't have all the answers. One bone of contention that I have had in the past is that Jehovah's Witnesses claim to have all the answers. It reminds me of 1Cor 8:2: "If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know." We all should realize that we are foolish in God's eyes and need to focus on His wisdom. We must always be open to the possibility that something we have held as a cherished viewpoint could be proven to be wrong. That is where I am at in my spiritual life. Reading the Bible without preconceived notions has been incredibly eye opening.

 Another eye opening experience has been seeing the amount of Jehovah's Witnesses that leave the organization, only to be trapt in atheistic thought. They have allowed men to completely destroy their faith. They experienced spiritual shipwreck. They no longer believe in God. They live for themselves. And they seem happy to be accountable to no one besides themselves. I find it so sad. But the Bible did fortell that this would be the result of those that put their trust in men.

Now is the time to put our trust in Jesus Christ. It is the time to throw off the yoke of men made rules and allow God to show us the way. They lead to the best way of life. They lead to true happiness. And they lead to a life with God that will be never-ending.

5 comments:

  1. Amen!

    Colossians 2 :)

    Love in Christ,
    Stephen

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  2. I well understand your point of view and certainly do not fault you in anyway with the decision you made. There was a time myself when I avoided JWD, except for WT gossip, as I saw the site as basically a collection of faithless atheists. I spent some time on a variety of ex-JW forums which started out with good intentions but all involved into mini-Watchtowers were there was no spiritual growth beyond coming to a different opinion on a doctrine or two. Now JWD is the only forum I visit, mainly because it allows for freedom to express all points of view.

    I contrast this with a popular web forum that I was involved that was predominantly ex-JW. I had come to the understanding that God answers prayers, not just in big things but small things too and that the so-called "gifts of the spirit" were still available to believer through Jesus. I was thrilled with this and shared this on their forum. Although the website was nominally Christian I was directed not to post such things. When I continued I was disfellowshipped from their forum. On JWD I have the freedom to share these things without similar repercussions. Of course I'm well aware that I will be confronted with individuals that would believe very strongly that such things do not exist and would probably beat me up some on it. But, at least I could share it.

    From what I have read Dan I know you have a strong love for God and for the Truth. If you keep walking with Christ your faith is going to continue to grow and what you may find down the road is that you no longer have to fear that others will jeopardize your faith in some way. Today, I feel quite secure in my belief in Jesus, because he has been in my life for about four years now. (Well he has always been there, I should say when I started recognizing him.) I don't have all of the answers, but I know him and I will continue to know him more and more as our relationship grows. What this means for me is that atheist views cannot rob this from me.

    Continued blessings to you and yours!

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  3. Hi Dan

    If you are interested in a Christian XJW forum here is one.

    paradisecafediscussions.net

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  4. The more I read the more thrilled I am to have discovered Dan this wintry Saturday.

    May blessings flow for you brother!

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  5. As most of you know, I'm back on JWN. I thought it may have been hasty of me to leave. I want to be a voice for Christianity there. I just need to learn some maturity in not letting what other people believe effect me so much. It has been a good learning lesson.

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