The Problem: An Identity Crisis
This review of the Watchtower's 'golden age' (and that, by the way,
was the new magazine which Rutherford launched in 1920, predecessor to
Awake!) has been necessary to make vivid the central problem the
Christian encounters when witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses (now with a
capital 'W'!). The JW no longer 'witnesses' by playing on your doorstep
Joe Rutherford's 78s, nor has he even read any of JFR's books. But he does
carry Joe's main message. And that message is essentially this: the
fact that I'm at your door and you're NOT at mine proves I'm a Christian
and you aren't. Salvation by works, yes, wrapped up neatly in a disguise
that even fools the Jehovah's Witness himself. For HE thinks he's there
to preach the name of Jehovah and Jehovah's kingdom. But, as I hope is
now abundantly clear, his identity among Jehovah's Witnesses is
the only thing proven by his presence at your door.
And this unique 'badge' is graphically – and incessantly – set
before the JW by the Watchtower publications. You Can Live Forever in
Paradise on Earth, their most successful publication in recent decades,
reinforces what is the bottom line for JW's on its last page:
You must be a part of Jehovah's organization, doing God's will,
in order to receive his blessing of everlasting life. (p. 255, emphasis
added)
And in case we don't know what 'doing God's will' means, here's a clarification
from the Watchtower:
It is by our endurance in proclaiming "this good news of the kingdom"
that we may attain to salvation. (Watchtower, July 15, 1979, p. 14)
If we have satisfactorily established that door-to-door evangelism is what
makes one a Jehovah's Witness, let us proceed to a scriptural evaluation
of the central question – Did Jesus and the apostles preach
door-to-door? For if we would get anywhere at all with a Witness,
we MUST take away his 'badge', that which separates him from everyone else
called 'Christian'.
Were the Apostles Really 'Jehovah's Witnesses'?
As outlandish as that question may seem, Jehovah's Witnesses
take pride in the claim that they -- and they only – are imitators
of the method of evangelism practised by the early church. But did 1st
century believers -- even the apostles -- go door-to-door, or does the
book of Acts present a different picture of preaching work of the early
church?
