DAMON

December 14, 2010 Tuesday

We spent a couple of hours this morning with Damon, a Jehovah’s Witness. Orson had spent a ton of time preparing a presentation for them. We’d checked out a book from the library written by the JWs explaining their history, accomplishments, and doctrine. We also had a book by Milton S Backman that told the history of Mormonism and the development of new sects after the death of Joseph Smith. It was interesting to learn that Russell Taze, the founder, contacted members of an apostate Mormon group, the Millerites, when we was beginning his bible study group. The JWs are the only other sect we know of that believes that God and Jesus Christ are separate beings. They also have a group of 12 men that govern the Watch Tower and Bible Study Corporation. Coincidence?
Anyway, we proceeded to show Damon how his church was merely formed by a man who claimed no inspiration. Doctrine has been changed at times (Damon explained that happens when the leaders learn something new). They anticipated that Christ would come again in 1914. When He didn’t, they claimed He had come spiritually, but not to everyone. Another JW had given us copies of 3 articles about Mormonism that had appeared in the Watch Tower over the years. We spent time showing Damon that the articles had gross errors in them concerning our doctrine. We told him our church publishes no derogatory literature about other churches as theirs does. He then wanted to discuss the fact that we were building up “man’s kingdom” when we support it by voting and also the fact that we go to war. We explained we “render unto Caesar…” but he said he did too by paying taxes, but these other issues were totally wrong to take part in. He couldn’t accept that we had more scriptures that God’s Bible that He had protected over all the time since Christ so we could have what it teaches today. He also complained that we hadn’t used God’s name, Jehovah, once during our entire presentation. We asked him why Jehovah isn’t mentioned at all in the New Testament. He explained that during the ancient period when governments ruled the church, they had taken His name out. We challenged him that then he was admitting that the Bible hadn’t come through unscathed. He replied that it had since been fixed (obviously in their translation.) We asked him about baptism for the dead and read I Cor 15:29. He read it out of their Bible; it gave the connotation of “Why should man be baptized if he’s just going to die.” (We aren’t sure of their teachings about baptism so we couldn’t continue with that. We then explained that we could discuss differences all day long, but that all we really wanted was for him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He said he was too busy with his study of the Bible. At that point, we asked if we could have a closing prayer. It’s interesting that with both Damon and Ally, another JW, neither of them would pray in front of us. They allowed us to pray, but they don’t seem to want us to hear them pray. We hope to be able to talk to more of these folks. They have a nice chapel just a block away from where we live that could easily be converted to a Mormon chapel if we could convert the whole group ;o)