Dr. Jeffrey Schwehm: A Jehovah's Witness Who Became a Catholic - The Journey Home (05-10-2004)

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program in which I have the great privilege of introducing to you men and women who because of the great love for Jesus Christ were brought home to the Catholic Church often we receive emails from viewers who say they particularly like Jewish converts or they like Mormon converts but another request offer comes in they love to hear the stories of those who convert to the Catholic Church from Jehovah Witness and such as our guest tonight Jeffrey schwim is not only convert from Java witness we'll talk about he's a little bit wider journey which is I think a very interesting and very unique tonight so I'm glad you've tuned in but you're an important part of the program so we have a question for Jeffrey give us a call at one eight hundred to two one nine four 600 or if you're outside North America you give us a call at 205 to seventy one two nine eight o or you can send us an email at journey home one word at E wtn com Jeffrey welcome to the journey home program Jamarcus as I was mentioning to the audience we don't have that many converts from the Java witness it's great when we do have one but don't have convert who's both a convert from the Jehovah Witness and the Missouri Synod Lutheran it is a bit more rare I know that there's at least three of us if include my wife and a friend of mine in Atlanta all right is there some direct connect between Joel witness Missouri Synod Lutheran and the Calvin I don't know about that as I said it seems that's not exactly three dots makes a straight line so it's not necessarily is not it's great to have you on the promo for having me I appreciate it and you probably never dreamed that you'd be on the side of a Catholic tell God no never in a million years that I would ever do something like this it's great to have you here because you used to watch the journey home program right oh yeah the journey home program had a big part in my conversion to the Catholic Church I could imagine trying to get the thoughts that first time you saw the show and and you know now here you are on that side right right it's it's unbelievable it's great to have you here every week if you the program you know I like to begin by inviting the guests to give us a background check so give us a little summary of your spiritual background um my mother when when I was about five years old my mother became a Jehovah's Witness this occurred not long after her mom had died my mother was the Missouri Synod Lutheran and my earliest years of going to church I remember going to a Lutheran Church it was a st. John Lutheran Church on Canal Boulevard in New Orleans Louisiana and I was baptized there so I received that grace from my Lutheran brothers and sisters and also I remember going to Sunday school and learning that Jesus loved me and all those great and wonderful things when I was around five and I don't think I completely understood what was going on but my mother quit going to the Lutheran Church my father who was actually a non-practicing Catholic tried to take us to Mass periodically but I never really could figure out what was going on there and then I started going from door to door when I was six years old I gave my first speech in front of the congregation at a Kingdom Hall which is where the Jehovah's Witnesses meet when I was eight they didn't recognize my baptism in the Lutheran Church so had a believers baptism when I was 17 and then I became a what they call a pioneer minister that's someone who goes from door to door a thousand hours a year looking for non-believers to convert them to the watchtower course the non-believers anyone who is in a job with correct correct then when I was 19 I was invited to serve at the world headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses in Brooklyn New York and I spent a year there that's where I met my wife Kathy my wife Kathy was raised Catholic and her family had come into the Jehovah's Witnesses in her late teens early 20s well so she was already active yes she was honored at a similar level to you yes she was what they called an auxilary pioneer where they spent about 60 hours a month going from door to door so when YouTube met got married during that time well what happened was I actually started having doubts while I was at the headquarters and we met and I had been there such a short time they weren't going to accept us as a married couple there so we moved to new tune it back to New Orleans and I started college and we got married and during that time I started reading different things about the Jehovah's Witnesses mainly it was mostly Protestant converts from the Jehovah's Witnesses to different Protestant denominations the interesting thing though is that the place where I would go read these things was Loyola University of New Orleans I would sneak it to their library and make sure no one was following me and go sit in the stacks and just read these books about the Jehovah's Witnesses um so it's a good Jesuit institution and then time went on we moved to Arkansas where I got my doctorate in chemistry and we went through a time where we really didn't have any strong religious but we had strong religious convictions but we didn't know where to go we didn't know what was true back up this little bit you may not have wanted to go into this but what was the issue that started making you doubt um there were in one of the many Asian yeah there there a variety of issues one of them was this whole idea of the way a person is saved the Javas witnesses teach that their 144,000 people who are going to go to heaven and rule with Christ and see Jesus face to face they're considered declared righteous for life now they fully partake in the ransom sacrifice of Christ they're considered members of the New Covenant and this is a literal literal number little number taken from Revelation correct they misinterpret a scripture in Revelation they know who they are um yeah that it this kind of a was a predestined thing or the sort of it's kind of a weird hard thing to explain basically what happened was one of the leaders of the watchtower said that that heaven had a No Vacancy sign in 1935 and so you have this sort of if a person claims they're of the heavenly calling after 1935 they're sort of taken as going to kind of look that side what he's you know sort of thing any case um what happened was I started reading scripture more closely and the rest of mankind they teach will live forever in paradise and earth but these individuals will never get to see Jesus face to face they're also not considered part of the New Covenant they're also not considered full-blown sons and daughters of God and what happened was this really bothered me and I started reading the New Testament and the book that I started reading was the book of Romans and that scripture romans 8 i believe it's verse 17 or it talks about how god has called all of us to be his sons and daughters and that he in since we're sons were also heirs and that was the first time I really realized that God was calling me to be with him in eternity to see him face to face I can remember when I was first discovering this um I had a discussion with my mother about it and my mother said that one of the hardest things she ever had to give up when she became a Jehovah's Witness was the hope of seeing Jesus face to face that's sad and and and that really touched me um it actually led me to do even more research into into going into what Christianity really taught so you and your wife are married you've got your doctorates in chemistry and you're kind of floundering a bit right well I'm still working on my doctorate in chemistry and we decided we would go to the Lutheran Church I had very positive memories of being Lutheran and we went to your wife open because she was very open coming to the Lutheran Church with me and we went to a Missouri Synod church in Springdale Arkansas and I got very active in teaching Sunday school and things of that nature and then I had a opportunity to teach at Concordia University - at Nebraska which is one of the Missouri Synod sin nautical schools and I went up there in January of 1999 and started teaching and became very very actively involved in evangelism I would speak all over the country on the topic of cults I would assist people I would get calls from all over the country where people would say hey uncle so-and-so studying with the witnesses what do I do now that sort of thing and we would try to assist as best we could I worked with a ministry based out of st. Louis who had a radio program and I would be in that radio program and speak about those things and it was very very active um the problem became though I started meeting people who were leaving the witnesses and they were still in the process of leaving the witnesses was this kind of that next step for you right I was thinking it's interesting there you are you probably felt you you'd come through the deluge and now you've arrived I mean you had a great opening opportunity for for ministry radio speaking teaching we were very very committed at this point even in other words you're very happy to be out of the job witnesses at this point absolutely so you were completely convicted and convicted Lutheran yes and actually did you feel yourself as having quote come home yes to the Church of your childhood your family's Church absolutely cuz I can remember when when we first got to UM Seward I gave a presentation at one of the local congregations and I even said I'm finally home um but God had other things and so okay so at this point in the in your wife is solidly Lutheran yes she was solidly Lutheran yes okay all right okay let's talk what got your heart interested in the Catholic Church well I started discussing scriptural interpretation with some friends of mine many of whom were on their way out of the Jehovah's Witnesses and since the Jehovah's Witnesses always deny the divinity of Christ that was inevitably what we would talk about when we started talking about doctrine and and we would read scripture and I would tell them that you know as Jehovah's Witnesses we interpreted the scripture incorrectly and then their response to me was how do you know that yeah what by what authority do you know that those kind of things so I said well you know there had to be some people who were alive around the time of the Apostles who wrote down with the early church taught so I got a cd-rom that had the ante-nicene Church Fathers only early church father church fathers and this may be the audience the significant if the anti niece in it means there before before weren't against nicey right right right they were before the council I seen before in other words so they learn the faith directly from the Apostles right that's very forget about those particular fathers of courage and I picked up and started reading the letters of st. Ignatius of Antioch and I was all excited because I mean he clearly calls Jesus God and clearly says we worship Christ and all those things and the date on those letters is around 180 or so and but then he said other things that really bothered me he called the early church Catholic and I wasn't sure what he meant by that and then he would say things like the true church is wherever the bishop is and you should treat the bishop because if he's Christ and all this kind of stuff and I was like why this you know this is really bizarre what's going on here to see that you know I kind of expected to see that maybe three centuries later not that close to when the Apostles had died or actually maybe one was still along right um then I started looking at other books I read Eusebius history of the church I read about halfway through it and I threw it down I said this can't be because it made the early church appear to Catholic then I kept going and I started finding out that there were other books in circulation that were claiming canonicity and that brought up the whole question of a where'd we get the New Testament from and so I went to some of my Lutheran colleagues in the theology department I said recommend to me a good book that will teach me about the New Testament canon and so they recommended to me this book by Bruce Metzger on the history development Canon and you read that book and it's clear to me when I read that book that the Bible is a product of church tradition and at that moment I was like wow what denomination teaches tradition in Scripture it's the Catholic Church and it was hugely eye-opening but I still wasn't ready I still wasn't right IMed your wife probably wasn't all that ready either no she wasn't you share this stuff with her I did share some things with her and I would read different things to her and she would say oh my goodness what Catholic thing are you reading to me now and things like that and I just kept reading in the meantime I started getting in touch with Catholics on the Internet and I ran into a friend of mine from high school who unbeknownst to me had become an Eastern Rite Catholic priests his name is father Jim and father Jim and I would email back and forth and he knew I was reading all of the early church fathers and he challenged me to read the Catechism which I did in about six months and that's when I came home one day and said honey if I'm going to be honest with God and you and others I'm going to have to become Catholic and your wife said oh goody I know she said uh why but she was really good about it and she would say well you know um God is drawing you there for a reason so I'm going to find out I'm going to go with you to our seyh and find out what it is that's drawing you to the church so we went to our CI a at the Cathedral the risen Christ in Lincoln Nebraska oh you picked a good place oh absolutely and father I was going to ask if you had a good RCA provel awesome and I said I had to be it was on the best it was very very good it's very very good and he father Tucker was there he led us through that and Daniel the catechist was there and we just learned so much and I really feel like what happened to me was I had been converted on an academic level but I'm not so sure my heart had caught caught ups quite yet because I can remember walking into the Catholic Church and and go out to Mass for the first time and seeing people do this kneeling thing and saying what is that my wife would explain it to me said she had been raised and not understanding why you stick your finger in water when you want that sort of thing so becoming a Catholic in that way but then also um I'm not so sure my heart understood about the mercy of God and just how much God loves us until my wife asked me one day what I wanted for Christmas and I said well I'd like the diary of st. Faustina um and you heard about it from someone I had heard about it from EWTN okay and everyone was and everyone was saying what a wonderful book this was so I started reading it well actually I didn't start reading it my wife started she took it from me after she gave it to me for Christmas she brought it back and so she starts reading it and finally we started reading it together in the evening before we would retire at night while we were doing our CI a and that just had such a strong effect on me and my wife and we really came to understand just how much God loves us through these writings of st. Faustina and how his love is unconditional because when you come out of a group like the Jehovah's Witnesses where there's lots of rules and there's lots of punishment particularly with shunning and those sorts of things you really believe that God's love is conditional and when you see what the Saints have written you start seeing just how much it is that God loves you wants to reach out to you wants to make you a full member of his universal family that they're full members interesting especially look at the Jehovah Witnesses view of these two groups of folk the 144,000 and then everybody else and yet as illustrated by the the button the aware of the divine mercy of emphasize that God's mercy is to everyone right it's love for every single person correct all right yes so you came when you come into the church it'll be a year on Pentecost Sunday all right you had kind of a hard time because um in order to become Catholic I had to give up my job at Concordia because you're required to be Lutheran there and actually my wife entered the church before me because of that she came back at Easter Vigil and I can remember looking for a job and having difficulty and I would go to this convent in the middle of Lincoln known as the pink sisters and they had Perpetual Adoration there and I would go in and I'd say Jesus please help me find a job and finally in May of last year I found this position in Lakeland College in Sheboygan and I gave my notice and the only day that we could confirm me was a perfect day it was Pentecost Sunday and then I turn back and say well you know Pentecost Sunday the Feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit right well the pink sisters convent are the Holy Spirit adoration systems right now so I think God had something planned there and you know you think you're in control but you know that's really teach chemistry I teach chemistry at Lakeland College all right then did I hear this summer you might be teaching at a Catholic University I mean at Lutheran universe it's right you had mentioned before we take a break first of all might be good to talk to the audience about the origins of the Jehovah Witness movement and how they see themselves connected to christened um the history of Christianity back to Jesus and the Apostles um the Jehovah's Witnesses came out of the Adventist movement of the 1800s they actually come off of the Miller rights if you want to go back far enough and then they give it another bird connected yes they were connected to the Millerites eventually a group known as the second Adventist that came off the Millerites greatly influenced this young man from Pittsburgh by the name of Charles Russell and Charles Russell started the watchtower society which is the publishing house for the Jehovah's Witnesses and then it kind of grew from there the publishing house was established in the 1870s the way in which the Jehovah's Witnesses view themselves they view themselves as the only true church on earth they view Christendom as being false religion be the equivalent of any pagan religion out there and doesn't matter if you're Catholic or Protestant they view all of them in the same boat they basically consider themselves the re-establishment of the true church honor hmm they saw that Jesus was just on the Prophet Jesus is actually Michael the Archangel incarnate so Jesus came down well before Jesus came to earth he was Michael the Archangel then he becomes just basically a man that's all he is as a man he dies and I he's back in heaven as king but they still refer to him as Michael the our communion it's a very different Christology makes you want to back up a step and check out the millerite movement to see how these people were influenced that were they themselves break away from Lutheran Church or the Catholic Church or some other group themselves the Millerites were kind of a an interdenominational group that kept trying to predict the end of the world and so they had the 1844 they try to predict the end there and that became the great disappointment of 1844 which is where the Seventh day Adventists come off and then you have 1848 they tried again and got that messed up and then most people went back to their respective denominations except for some of the ones that still wanted to continue to predict and they became the second Adventist and then eventually the Jehovah's Witnesses and now you actually have quite a few of those groups around all right in fact the Mormons also began during that same basic period they did but there's not a whole lot of theological connection between the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses although there's some style similarities especially this Adventists of the second coming right and you're going from door to door and Reza Bree you also mentioned something to me earlier which I found it very important to talk about and that is that the question of why your mother for example when you were five would be drawn out of Lutheran movement Lutheran Church into the Java witnesses you mentioned this desire for family talk about that unique draw that pulls so many people into these yes I'm there's some been some research on this that people who go into these very close-knit sort of fundamentalist groups are looking for a new family they're looking for a place to belong if there's some reason I don't know that a person might not feel like they belong with their current family that's a place where they'll go there's also this very strong authoritarian structure that is attractive to some people where you can be you know told what to do how the thing that sort of thing in many respects and so different groups have that two different degrees but if you look at cults as a whole that tends to be a draw to did it make sense because often I think of the Mormons often the biggest calling cards in emphasis on family and it's kind of bizarre in a way because some of the most beautiful writings on family are things that our Pope has written in the theology of the body and if I haven't I've read a lot of the Mormon stuff on family in them a lot of the Jehovah's Witness stuff on family but nothing comes close to what the Catholic Church has written on families in the role of families and that sort of thing we just have to live it out right I mean that's our call that you know by grace and sure fighting is the temptations have been drawn into our culture and taking a stand for the family that's our calling us Catholics curse oh well it's great to have you home yes let's take a break back in just a moment your questions for Jeff we swam maybe the phone number again it's one eight hundred two two one nine four six so if you're outside North America you can call us at 205 two seven one two nine eight oh and we're back in just a moment you you welcome back to the journey home program Jeff has been sharing his journey and also kind of opening up the door of discussion about the Jehovah Witness movement and let's jump right into we've got an email that's from Dan Russ Kowski in aura Utah two fine questions God's peace be with you thank you Dan when a Jehovah Witness comes to the door and I invite them in now actually that's something that a lot people don't even do right then you know what if you invite them in what is the best subject to discuss with them to see that the Catholic Church is true and then a second question is how is the Jehovah Witness Bible different from the Catholic Bible dan thanks for your email um I'll take the second question first the Chavez Witness Bible is different from other Bibles in the in that in the New Testament they remove references to the deity of Christ how did explain that they just there's a variety of ways in which they explain that basically they're neo Aryans meaning they followed the Christology of areas who was a third century heretic basically who didn't believe Jesus to be God and so what they do is they go through and remove references as much as they can to the deity of Christ us many of these differences are not textually supported in fact you can get a copy of their own interlinear and see how they have kind of messed with the text and it doesn't support their own Christology the first question is it's very difficult for you to invite a Jehovah's Witness into your home and show them that the Catholic Church is the true church there if you'd had done that to me when I was going from door to door I would have just thought you were nuts okay and gone to the next house when I tell people is when a Jehovah's Witness comes to your door show them the unconditional love of Christ and there's a variety of ways you can do that well one of the best ways is to tell them what Jesus means to you what has Jesus done in your life how has Jesus changed your life tell them about Jesus and how Jesus loves you unconditionally and what's the same for that individual um I think if you do that you've planted a seed I can remember when I was going from door to door many years ago I went to gentleman's home and I knocked on his door and I said to him I said wouldn't you like to live forever in paradise on earth and that was the pitch that I gave him basically and he said to me no and I said why and he said because I'm going to heaven to be with Jesus for eternity and there's no better place to be than that including a paradise Earth and I had absolutely no comeback for that I walked away I looked at the person who was with me and we looked at each other and the guy with me said do you think he had the Holy Spirit and that was something that really got me thinking but it's that you know tell them about Jesus that's what I would say you know I remember the last time a Jehovah Witness came to our house with a way out in the country when you got to really work hard to find us and we're out a dirt road and you know our driveways better shape than the road that comes to our house and in this old car pulled in down our driveway and the dogs are barking the whole typical scene and it was just chock-full of ladies and just stuffed in that car and one got out and handed this thing kind of thank you you want to visit it but they didn't say much I just felt like like they were doing their duty and I wondered whether they believed it or they just completely figured we were infidels you know on sand I mean I didn't even know how to respond to him well in order to be a good Jehovah's Witness you're required to go from door to door and the organization puts a lot of pressure on people to put in a minimum of 10 hours a month and you actually to fill out a form and turn it into the congregation elders so 10 of them are crammed in a Volkswagen they all come one comes out they all kinda sign okay I just forget how they all did it all right okay so in fact those are our favorite thing really yeah because you could count the Drivetime two in front oh sure okay alright there's always a way around it yes it's always the way let's take our first caller Edie from Nevada hello ed what's your question for us hey thank you very much for taking my call uh Marcus and dr. I really appreciate it I had a question underneath your name on the television screen that we're watching here it says better right and I was wondering what that term meant and what it signified and what it meant to the Jehovah's Witnesses thank you um people who work at the world headquarters and at the other branch offices of the watchtower society are known as Beth alights and Bethel means house of God and so those places are considered to be the houses of God and the people who work there consider to be methylates and that was a significance of that term so I was a Bethel ight for one year according to this last Bethel that vessel Bethel light that's right now Bethel light is in you know like an Israelite are that sort of the from you so that that's what it meant you weren't elevated into the 144,000 are you a higher level within the other no not really I worked construction there and took care of their buildings and that sort of thing so I was a volunteer worker and worked on their buildings that they used to print the watchtower and their other books alright okay let's take this next email Jacqui Hubbard SFO from Astatula Florida asked why did you hold witnesses believed so strong that Catholics are going to hell thank you jack well they believe that after all the Apostles died the church went into apostasy so the Catholic Church is an apostate Christian Church it's a church that's cheap teaching falsehood now as far as hell is concerned they don't believe in the same health at a nominal Christian would they believe in soul sleep they believe in eternal non-existence so their belief is that Catholics who refuse to become jehovah's witnesses will not live forever in paradise on earth and will be eternally non-existent okay thank you stick your next caller Paul from Maryland hello Paul what's your question for us well I appreciate the program very much I'm on a journey from the Missouri Synod myself the clergymen yeah and you're in our prayers Paul thank you appreciate that very much had wonderful help from various Catholic friends here one issue is still working through a bit is the Marian doctrines and that would be something I'd like to ask of dr. schwimmen generally what's good mentoring for a Missouri Synod Lutheran at a time like this thank you Paul and I hope you'll see the address about the coming home network somewhere on the program and that you'll give us a call especially talk to Jim Anderson because we'd like to know and do what we can to help in your journey we don't push pull or prod anyone our goal is to stand next to you and help answer questions like this but Marian issues are often the biggest hurdle for so many coming into the church and it wasn't hurdle for me as well um what I did is actually I started praying Hail Marys in private long before I entered the church which was kind of interesting and when I revealed that to my priest friend he said oh you're going to be Catholics any day now but what happened is if you go back and you you look at um John and the Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross and when Jesus says mother look your son sound like your mother and what does the apostle do he takes her into his home but he doesn't say the Apostle John he says the disciple whom Jesus loved and you know as a good Missouri Synod Lutheran I always read the Bible as a love letter from God to me and who is the disciple Jesus loved he's not just the Apostle John he's me and you and everyone and that's how God is God doesn't just want to give us little bits and pieces he wants to give us everything including his mother and that always floors me and when I when I think about that I think about how Jesus loves me so much that he wants to give me his mother his father his brothers and sisters the Saints his entire family he wants me to be a part of that and that's something that was very powerful and drew me into the into the church and that's kind of how I look at the the Marian doctrines and I would encourage you Paul to check out the EWTN website there's lots of information on ewtn.com that you can look up do a search for Marian stuff that will answer a lot of questions as well as ask us at the coming home network if you go to CH Network dot o-- r-- g-- you can get some information i remember the thing that helped me in my journey on Mary Mary was not easy because we always presume that Catholics tried to demonize her make her God and that's not it what mary is is what we would be if we were full of grace that's the difference full of grace and she was protected from conception by that grace right and then when you go back and read the early church fathers they refer to her as the new eve they referred to her as the Ark of the Covenant and all these things in scripture that refer to her role as the mother of God and it's an it's an honored role but she's a creature she's our mother she's not a goddess as some would say Catholics believe yeah and look in the Magnificat where it says in Scripture that she will be called blessed that scripture you know did we that I as a Lutheran Presbyterian that I call her blessing that's a scripture says she will be called so I mean we're just following Scripture I can remember one time I was on an email list and I was having a discussion with one of my Protestant brothers and he referred to Mary as a incubator yeah see that's sad and to think of any woman just as their and and I I wasn't Catholic yet but even then I said you know that's Jesus's mother it's more than an incubator and and I think another good book is that hail holy queen by Scott Hahn it really shows us how as Christians we need the Blessed Mother recommend another book called Mary of Nazareth by dr. Kenneth Howell has been on the journey home program a number of he's a convert to the church and it's very sensitive to the issues of Marian so wrote the book Mary of Nazareth specifically to address Mary from the perspective of Converse I recommend any of those books in also Scott's book let's take our next email this comes from Elizabeth and Delaware gentlemen they eat this Easter Vigil I came into the Catholic faith welcome home Elizabeth my son's girlfriend came over for Mother's Day and began asking about what we believe her aunt is Jehovah's Witness she wanted to know where they fit with other Protestant religions could you help me answer her watch a shorter week thanks Elizabeth um the Jehovah's Witnesses like I mentioned earlier that they came out of the millerite movement you could kind of think of them as theological cousins to the seventh-day Adventists because they both come out of that millerite movement also they deny the Trinity they don't celebrate most holidays you can't have blood transfusions if you need them and there's some other really unique thing right those are some of the unique things but it's they don't view themselves as Protestant they view themselves as the only true church on earth and then all of Christendom both Protestant Catholic is considered to be pagan and run by Satan basically do they believe that that that one man that you mentioned at the beginning that he rediscovered it is that's how they would understand it Charles Russell rediscovered the true church and was appointed by God to be his messenger to reestablishing they actually refer to well in the older literature they refer to Russell as the angel of Laodicea that out of a out of Revelation which is kind of a interesting apocalyptic interpretation so as a special messenger from God well be interesting to read his diary you can get some of his older we already believe that did he believe himself it was a good salesman or was he he was very charismatic he evidently started Bible study groups all along the east coast and even though he wasn't physically present at all of them all of those Bible study groups considered him their pastor and so he was evidently a very charismatic individual who could keep people well connecting alright take our next caller hello Marty from Wisconsin what's your question for us tonight hello hello Marty yes Miriam hi Oh Miriam I'm sorry no problem I am Jeffrey yes hi I wanted to ask you I'm also a next job as witness welcome thank you and I'm going through RCIA right now hers are with you ma'am thank you and I just wanted to ask you Jeffrey M as we know it's not easy to make a clean break from the Jehovah's Witnesses I want to ask you if we were actually disfellowshipped we're you did you have to dissociate yourself do you have a relationship still with your mother or with any of the other members of the congregation you once belong to what what is yours you know how did you get away basically what I wanted to find out it was not easy for me at all and I would never tell my mother that I'm becoming a Catholic at all all right Miriam thank you very much and our prayers are with you Maria your continued journey um it for me what happened was when I moved from Louisiana to Arkansas and I got out of that environment it was easier for me in many respects to break away because we didn't know any of the witnesses in Arkansas and we didn't associate with them I did dissociate myself in 1996 when I decided to become lutheran because I felt like I needed to make a clean break that has strange relationships with numerous family members and with many of my friends that I grew up with so I know where you're coming from it's a painful thing when people turn their back on you particularly to the extent that the witnesses do where you're encouraged to treat your relatives you've left the churches if they're dead and it does make make like very hard I would encourage you to look for support among your your catholic brothers and sisters um and you're in wisconsin you can get in touch with me I'd be glad to assist in any way that I can and there's quite a few of us former Jehovah's Witness Catholics believe it or not and we can we can assist you along the way all right let's take this next email Ron from San Antonio Jeff I have always wondered how the pamphlets of booklets that the Jo witness pass out are financed does the witness have to pay for these out of his pocket Thank You Bryan for the question years ago what would happen is we would go from door to door and we would ask for contribution so like the watchtower was like 25 cents a piece then in the mid-90s they decided that they weren't going to ask for a specific donation they would just let the person at the door know that you could give money if you wished either way the Jehovah's Witness that comes to your door pays for those magazines out of his own pocket at the kingdom hall and then comes back to your door and offers it to you if you give them a donation at this time they are told to put that into the contribution box at the kingdom hall also they don't get reimbursed for what they paid from not anymore oh very interesting so it's they're required to do so many hours which essentially means required to buy so many magazine correct correct what you do is you go in and there's a deacon type person who is in charge of the literature you tell them how many magazines or books you want to have that month and they get that for you and you you pay and then you try to distribute this alright okay our next phone call Marty from Wisconsin hello Marty what's your question for us hi Marcus thank you for taking the call and um I wondered why dontcha Hova witnesses celebrate any holidays Thanksgiving Christmas Easter birthdays of all things I wonder if you could help me Mom Thank You Marty what they do is they look at many of the traditions associated with holidays and say well those came from pagan origins so therefore that makes the entire holiday pagan and so then they don't partake in that birthdays they honestly believe that when you celebrate someone's birthday you're engaging in creature worship and so they refuse to take part in that I had a birthday when I was five and my next birthday when I was thirty as far as a party I still my wife says I still have to count the birthdays in-between even though we didn't celebrate him but anyway yeah I think another reason too is that it wasn't until the 1920s that the Jehovah's Witnesses stopped doing that and stopped celebrating Christmas and other things and that had to do with their leader at that time a guy by the name of Jeff Rutherford who did everything he possibly could to make the witnesses separate from other Christian denominations including given them the name Jehovah's Witnesses they didn't take that name until Rutherford became their leader and so I think that also has something to do with it as well when did the idea about not blood transfusions or the blood aspect the blood transfusion band started in the 1960s really that late in the 1960s in 1962 they came out with a watchtower article that said that to take blood and to have organ transplants was the equivalent of human cannibalism and then in the 1980s they decided that organ transplants were okay but they still haven't let up on the blood transfusion all right I mean if you think about there's just an example of when somewhat lists themself as an authority lifts himself up as an authority with great influence influences hundreds of thousands s of people and sometimes leads to great tragedy oh absolutely absolutely yes yeah all right let's take this next email from I Gor in Connecticut tell us about Java witnesses worship is their worship is their communion how about conventions okay baptism is it a sacrament as Catholics understand it the sacramental nature of things would be totally foreign to a jehovah's witness baptism is a outward sign that you've made a commitment to Christ or to the church okay and so that's what baptism would be when it comes to communion they have a yearly event called the memorial of Christ's death where they will pass around the bread and the wine but the only people who are allowed to partake you that are people who have the hope of going to heaven to be with Jesus and then when you go to a Jehovah's Witness service is it's not really a worship service they have some singing and I have a prayer to begin an N but the rest of its a class you have someone who lectures or you have a discussion on some article that's been written by someone in Brooklyn the headquarters that they discuss so it's not a worship in the Catholic sense of worship so their worship of God in the midst of that though well they'll sing some hymns that they write that has been written themselves but it's not I thought the liturgy was beautiful when I first became Lutheran and it was a totally different way to pray to God and to sing and that sort of thing but you had five meetings a week at the kingdom hall and the vast majority of them were focused on how can you go from door to door how can you overcome arguments at the door how you can get the literature in the people's hands how you can get people back into the church and become jovis listen very interesting we need to pray for those yes or lockstep in that I almost hate to say it faith because it's really more works than faith it's a lot of work yes it's allowing okay let's take our next caller Mary from Texas hello Mary no yes what's your question well I have been inactive for years and years and I need to go to another religion but it's the first commandment that they teach especially their worship any other idols that Idaho but your God for I'm a jealous God and your guest knows that exact same scripture that I'm talking about and I'm so confused and I'm tore up I feel like if I go back to where I came from I am sinning against the Holy Spirit which is the unforgivable sin all right Mary thank you very much for your call I'm going to ask every single person that's listening and watching to be praying for you right now as you try and discern your direction because you know this is not just an issue of Jehovah Witnesses it's often with those especially any fundamentalist group you've got those voices that are always there talk about the ones particularly she's talking about the use of images I guess it's because I didn't hear the over where she was talking about she's she's out of the well she's out of the witnesses but she's the memory of the the verse you know that's yes right not worship any other God your sinned against Holy Spirit so she's kind of caught sure sure I can remember when Cathy and I first left the witnesses there's this uneasy stage that you're going to go through where you're going to be asking the same question postures Pilate asked which is what is truth and what I would say to you is that Jesus is truth okay focus on Christ Jesus is there for you he loves you unconditionally you are asking good questions and he wants you to ask those questions because he's going to bring you home just as he wants to bring everyone home when it comes to going to a church I can remember the first time I walked into a Lutheran Church I got physically ill because of the same things that you were talking about but if you go back and you look at the early church what you'll discover is that when you go to these Lutheran Church or a Catholic Church and we see the liturgical worship the church has been worshiping in this manner since the beginning with images and other things to help with catechesis because people couldn't read back then and they could read they probably did have enough money to own a book and so in the early church you had things there that would help with catechesis and that's basically where the use of images came from and I would tell you that you're going to go through some rough times but the Lord is with you and I understand your trepidation and and the pain that you're going through right now but you'll be in my prayers believe me and rely on God Jesus is going to bring you home and you'll you'll enter into a family that you never knew you had just waiting to embrace you with open arms and that family is God's family the universal family in on heaven and on earth often this issue of the early church fathers come as it just did again Marian you know that one book that I would highly recommend as as an introduction to early church fathers a book by rod Bennett called for witnesses for witnesses it's written in a very welcoming style what he tries to do is to take for the most important earliest witnesses of the church who learned their faith from the Apostles directly from the Apostles and we know that all scholars agree on that and he talks about their own biography quotes from their writings what they taught their connection with Jesus and the Apostles it's a good introduction it's you know in those early steps into the early fathers sometimes just jump into the early fathers or some stuff and they're it's hard to understand read but I would recommend rod Bennett's book the four witnesses all right let's take another break be back in a minute with some final words for the journey welcome back our guest tonight has been Jeffrey schwim quick email then another final question this email comes from matt c abbott chicago greetings in christ what distinguishes a cult from a major religion well depends on how you define colton is a variety of ways to do that some people define cult as whatever group disagrees with me their call that's not a very good way to do it a cult i would define as a group that is highly controlling on what they do is they use inappropriate techniques to keep people from questioning and things of that nature in addition cults tend to be very insular and keep to themselves in many ways other than when they're proselytizing so if you look at major religions major religions canon can their broad enough so that they can support an entire culture cults can't do that and that's another difference between the two you don't find too many cults committed to accumulate i know as catholics our commitment to accumulation ships to help people discover the fullness of the church right so we welcome dialogue for they're actually one of the reasons why I became Catholic is because the Pope impressed me with his work in that area that's right he's very committed with it alright Jeffrey I was becoming a Catholic strengthen your faith in Christ well it strengthened my faith in Christ in that I actually believe what Jesus said which is that his church will never die you know it's Matthew 16 the church the gates of hell will never prevail against it this understanding that I had before where Jesus just came here started something and then left and then we're out to flailing around by ourselves I mean that was very disconcerting for me for many years to realize that he really did leave behind a church leave behind a Magisterium a teaching authority that can guide me in coming home to him and becoming a full member of his family and also this idea that I have 2,000 years of history and stories of Christian brothers and sisters who have lived lives of holiness that I can read and who have taught me how to pray and tell me how contemplate god I never had that as a Protestant I never had that as a job as witness for sure those things have really drawn me to Christ I pray more now than I ever did as a Protestant because this church that has been praying for 2,000 years is such a good teacher at how to pray I don't want to be on the one hand too critical of Joe witnesses but to the Jehovah Witnesses produce Mother Teresa's I know they don't you know me really deeply committed to surrender your whole life for the good of others it's it's it's a different mindset this idea of of sacrificial love and suffering for the good of others is something that in many cases is uniquely Kath Geoffrey thank you so much for joining us we share the opportunity right and God to bless your apostolate same to you to reach out thank you for joining us I do want to let you know that something pretty neat is happening the journey home program of course has always been available on videotape from ewtn religious catalogue but now starting with last week's program it's also available on CD so you can get the audio to stick in your CD player wherever you're traveling if you're interested EWTN calm or 808 five four six three one six god bless you thank you for joining us on the journey home I'll see you again next week you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 70,424

Rating: 4.7160749 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television, Jehovah's Witnesses (Religion)

Id: iHI0tYHtlQM

Length: 53min 47sec (3227 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 31 2014