My Witness to a JW, Part 2

Ah, what a blessing that the JW decided to pay a return visit! Unfortunately, the hoped-for young JW partner did not come with him–I was hoping to be able to address 2 for the price of 1. But alas no.

This time I decided it was good to lay all of our cards on the table, so to speak. I told him that I know that he has come with his trained answers and that I have my set of answers, too. But rather we should talk more just as people rather than as mutual projects. He agreed.

My approach was to be upfront with him and say, "Look, I know that no matter what I say or suggest about interpretations or doctrines contrary to the Watchtower's, you'll have a trained, pat answer for it. I'm not interested in engaging that. For the fact is, it's not a genuine 'conversation' or even 'discussion'. You don't take my views seriously b/c you're not even remotely open to the possibility that on ANY point of theology that disagrees with the Watchtower's that I could possibly be right and that they could possibly be wrong. So instead, I'd rather talk about that very fact–that you depend entirely on their interpretations for everything and that I'm not confident that these are truly YOURS."

He of course assured me multiple times that in the 35 years he's been a JW that these are indeed "his" views as well. He's studied them and concluded that the JW interpretation is the (only) correct one.

For the whole two hours I essentially pressed this point, which had the predicted, thankful effect of limiting the number of times he could leap to his trained-pat-answer reservoir.

Interestingly, he admitted (though I don't know if this represents the JWs or not) that this "discreet" body of Watchtower interpreters can be wrong in gray areas and in eschatology. So objections that they got prophecies wrong now have a pat-answer: the admission that they have been wrong on it! He admits that Charles Taze Russell, their founder, got somethings right and wrong on the 1914 prophecy of Jesus' return (which is an invisible one, of course). That he and others continue to occasionally get things wrong is a huge admission, from what I can tell. They can just brush it off saying, "Well they didn't get the 'essentials' wrong." Wow, that's huge. I guess for someone 35 years committed to this belief-system, things like that don't faze him. He's already in for a pound. I wonder if those just in for a penny, whether it would affect them. Hmm...

There were a couple of moments where he didn't seem to know how to respond.

One was when he admitted that he was conforming to the Watchtower's theology completely and argued that this is biblical (for "unity"). He "conforms" because he "agrees". Then I countered that while that's the reason HE'S claiming, the truth is many "agree" because they want to "conform". And in truth, ALL of us face that temptation and there's a mix of both in all people. Claims that it's only one way is not at all honest. He seems to be frozen a bit by the statement that people agree b/c they want to conform. I have no doubt that in their system of pressures, that one hit home.

Another point was when I was trying to insist that interpreting the Bible is not quite as easy as he's claiming. If it were so easy, there wouldn't be so many problems. He then tried to insist that this was due to "independent" thinking, which I pointed out was tantamount to "disagreement with the Watchtower". All those who don't line up under the Watchtower are "independent" thinkers (which is a nice way of saying apostate and heretical). Then I pointed to the 1st century where the Jews and their bible experts got the interpretation of Jesus wrong–not so easy to interpret the OT, is it? He then pointed out that the problem was the Pharisees and their "independent thinking". I then countered by saying, "And that's the real problem isn't it? When you have a small group of people who control the interpretation of the Bible–what you should believe and think. Don't you think the Jews thought the Pharisees had it all right? And wouldn't they be pressured into conformity with their system of beliefs? Failure to do so would be the same result as the man born blind in John 9: de-synagogued."

Again, I kept on insisting that there was a monstrous danger in their system of authority: their leaders had too much power and authority over the correct interpretation of the Bible. While he denied any parallels to the Catholic church, I kept asking how different really they were from Catholics in the sense of an oligarchy controlling what all the others have to believe and practice. He kept pointing out small areas of "freedom" but I pointed out that the Catholics allow the same but the fundamental question of a minority controling absolutely the core beliefs and practices of the majority without question.

Another point that he didn't respond to was when I asked him whether he was allowed to disagree with these fundamental teachings. He said that he didn't disagree. I kept pressing, "Yes, but what IF you wanted to disagree? Could you?" He just kept insisting that he didn't. I kept insisting that that's the problem: there's no freedom to question and put their teachings to a TRUE test. He kept insisting that such an attitude showed "independent" thinking, which is of Satan. How convenient!

As far as I'm concerned we've reached an impasse around which there is no realistic progress. All he wants to do is hammer his 35 years of trained, conditioned answers to fulfill his works that will bolster his salvation.

He wants to come back for a 3rd (and supposedly final) meeting where he can share with me his "good news". I told him I already knew what his "message" was and wasn't interested b/c it's not good news to me at all. If he tries to insist on a final follow-up I'm going to insist that I will only agree upon it if he brings someone else along with him. Only that will make it worth my time.