"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
I’ve just discovered that the Jehovah Witnesses have an interlinear Bible with curious admissions about some key passages…
It doesn’t try to say that Jesus was a god:
It doesn’t try to suggest that Jesus created every other thing:
Since I haven’t written about Jehovah Witnesses in a while, I thought that today I would address the origin of one of this group’s distinctive practices – exclusive use of the name “Jehovah”.
If you ever come across Jehovah’s Witnesses, either on the street or if they come to your door, it’s not unusual for them to emphasize that God’s name is “Jehovah” and the only appropriate name to be used in reference to Him. They might even go further and claim that other Christian groups have “hidden” the name of God despite, as we will see, that this word was first invented inside the Catholic Church.
The other day I received an email from a reader who had spoken to a non-Catholic with a rather rare point-of-view, and who asked for helpful suggestions when speaking to him…
During a discussion about the Saints, the Protestant in question made the following statement:
“…no one is in Heaven except Jesus, Enoch, and Elijah.”
This sort of theological position is rarely held by those in mainstream Protestantism, but how might we respond to this?
There’s a good chance that by now, if you read a lot of Catholic blogs, you’ve heard of Charlie Johnston.
Charlie is a Catholic layman who lives in Denver, Colorado. A convert from Protestantism, he claims to have received visitations from Jesus, Saints and angels for most of his life.
I’d like to take today’s post to give a little introduction to what Charlie has been teaching and share a few thoughts as to how one might respond to this sort of thing.
So what has Charlie been saying? His central message is that there is “a Great Storm” coming, a series of catastrophic events for the entire world. He speaks of wars, governments falling, economic collapse and millions dying. North Korea, China and the Islamic religion have all made appearances in his messages at some point.
In addition to his warning of coming troubles, Charlie spends a lot of time talking about how Christians are to behave during this coming tumult: “Acknowledge God; take the next right step; and be a sign of hope to those around you, knowing that God is always close at hand”.
Charlie says that, during the the troubles, people will think it’s the end of the world but that will not be the case. He speaks of of an eventual rescue through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which ultimately renders his message as one of hope. After this divine rescue, Charlie says that there will be a long period of peace, prosperity and Christian unity.
A few of you have asked, so I thought I’d do a quick post to say that I haven’t had any more visits from the Jehovah Witnesses following my last meeting.
I went through the material they left concerning the Deuterocanon/Apocrypha. It wasn’t very good, just the usual objections. It was rather amusing though to find them trying to marshall St. Athanasius, particularly given that he vigorously opposed Arius who taught something similar to what Jehovah Witnesses believe about Jesus.
So, as many of you know, a couple of weeks ago I had Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) scheduled to visit my home. I had already received two rounds of visits from them but had not yet managed to get them across my threshold. However, on their previous visit they had promised that next time they would have time to come in and have a proper chat.
I had received my first visit about a month earlier when two female JWs had called. During our discussion on the doorstep, I had spoken a little bit about my reversion to Catholicism and about how the question of the canon had played an important part in my return, being rather unimpressed with the various Protestant explanations as to the Bible’s Table Of Contents. Since JWs are distinctly set apart from Protestants, I asked the ladies on my doorstep how they would justify the contents of the Biblical canon. They had no explanation, but said that they would find out and get back to me.
Several weeks later, two gentlemen rang my doorbell, saying that they had heard from their associates that I was interested in knowing about the “hidden” books of the Bible. I explained that my question was not about the deuterocanon/apocrypha per se, but rather about the Biblical canon as a whole. How did they know the right books were in the Bible? How did they know that there were no wrong ones included and no books missed out? Unfortunately, they said that they didn’t have time to talk with me there and then, but they booked an appointment for the following week.
In today’s blog post I’d like to explain what happened on this next visit and the rather interesting turn of events towards the end…
