Quasi-Christians with a Semi-Arian Bent: The Intruiging tale of Jehovah's Witnesses and How I Managed to Save Myself from Being Inducted
This is a rather personal tale that I have to tell, because I once studied the Bible with these kinds of people. You'd see them most of the time: they're dressed up extremely well, as if they're dressed to work in an office, but they're just standing at various transit stations and bus depots, handing out two pamphlets. On one hand, you have the Watchtower, which is basically their main pamphlet, and the other would be Awake!, which is basically a side piece. Then there's also the services at what they call the Kingdom Halls, which is essentially a church, but with a complete lack of decorations.
What I have described just now is the typical life of a Jehovah's Witness. However, the real question is, what are Jehovah's Witnesses? On the surface, they seemed to be like any other Christian: believing in Jesus Christ, studying both the Old and New Testament, and so on. However, the main difference in this case, is that Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in the Trinity. There was once a man named Arius, who did state that Christ was not really divine, but created by God, and that the Son of God is actually subordinate to the God itself. Why do I say that Jehovah's Witnesses are basically Semi-Arian? Because both JWs and the Arians of old have rejected the Trinity due to the Trinity not being completely mentioned in the Bible. There are also a lot of other complicated matters that would make someone who isn't well versed in what JWs are doing, but there is only one thing that makes them truly stand out from all the other Christians: they never celebrate any kind of holidays whatsoever, viewing them as pagan in nature. Even Christmas and Easter isn't worshipped, mostly because they truly believed that Jesus died on some random day according to the Jewish Lunar Calendar, and that his death was actually on the aforementioned Jewish Lunar Calendar Nisan 14. They also reject the immortality of the soul, hellfire (curiously, the only thing that I would agree with them on), and also view the Trinity as unscriptural as well.
So why label them Quasi-Christians? Even if they proved themselves to be genuine, there has also been intense controversy that surrounded them, mostly dealing with the incidents that involved certain individual members who were subjected to Disfellowshipping, or the practice of actively excluding them from the organization, for various 'crimes' that were committed. In most cases for the worst, the overseers of the trial of the disfellowshipped individual do not even have the basic educated background in criminal and civil law, but rather Elders who go by the Bible teachings alone. The power of the organization over its individual members can easily be seen as a kind of cult, in that the individual members do not have the power over their finances and even independence. It also seems that the world surrounding JWs have been closed off, like it's a theocratic version of North Korea mixed in with the worst Islamic theocracies that one can think of. That you've devoted most or all of your time to conducting missionary work leaves you without any time for careers, or even schooling as well. Worst of all, they are raised in a climate of fear, or they live in fear of displeasing God. This kind of upbringing is not really healthy at all, and it doesn't seem to surprise me that there would be people brave enough to risk disfellowshipped in order to regain their independence.
Ironically, what allowed me to set myself free from this kind of cult is my own foray into the doctrine of another totalitarian religion in itself, Islam. The things that I learned while studying Islam and what I've learned from JWs was enough for me to completely discard and reject both. In conclusion, if the price for a certain of eternal life is constant psychological fear and a total loss of your own personal independence and individuality, then it's simply better to reject that kind of eternal life in favor of independence and individuality.
