they believe it’s every believers duty to give people opportunity to repent hence going door to door (I think they’ve stopped doing this now) or standing on the street offering their standard magazine “Awake”
They now stand outside places, like a university a few miles away from me, and have incredibly idiotic stands meant to take advantage of people going through hard times.
they practice ‘shunning’ family and church members who won’t repent of sin which sees some parents totally rejecting their children, people acting like people don’t exist if they see them on the street. (Again to be fair, this is what the new testament tells Christians to do). For this they (rightly) get flak for being cultish and overly controlling
They do far more than that to be considered cultish. The elders of an area have a large degree of input on things like marriage, for instance, which goes hand in hand with men moving their new wives to areas far away from any family. Combine that with the typical cult emphasis on only socializing with people in the cult, and you’ve got a beautiful combination to keep women oppressed and without options. I’ve had to sit and listen to a poor woman come to terms with leaving everything, adult children included, behind and hope that her family would still help her after 30 years, because she had no other means of support. It was horrifying, because even the resources I was trying to pair her with wouldn’t be enough to help.
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
They still go door to door and the newsletter is called The Watchtower.
And to clarify the very specific 144000 number: that’s made of up 12k people from the original 12 tribes of Israel. When I pointed out that I wasn’t Jewish so does it mean I don’t get to go to heaven, they clarified that it was 11 tribes and one “lost tribe” that allows non-jews eligibility. “So only twelve thousand get into heaven, out of about 9 billion?” They agreed that it’s the gospel and many people weren’t good enough Christians. I asked how many Jehovah’s Witnesses there were. They left after they figured out I was going to ask questions that exposed their awkward answers.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the only cults that tell people that they most likely aren’t going into heaven for believing and giving your life to a religion. And don’t even insinuate that better Christians might appear in the future and take their places in heaven. The end will happen before new Christians have a chance to prove how good they are.
JW are super petty and very mean to even their own. It’s all passive aggressive and it’s constant.
I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
They send me hand written Hallmark cards. They don’t know my name (yet) so mine get addressed to “our neighbor” but my neighbors get them addressed by name and are very creeped out by it. The latest one came during the LA fires and is about how “the bible” will help me “cope” with extreme weather:
dojan@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
I got a letter like this a couple years back. No hallmark card, just the thinnest and flimsiest paper you’ve ever seen. It was pretty eerie to have a random handwritten letter addressed to me by name, but since name and address is public information here in Sweden it’s hardly surprising they have it.
My old workplace happened to be right next to a JW cult church, “Rikets Sal” as it’s called in Swedish, which I’m guessing translates to like “Halls of the Kingdom” or something like that in English. They were terrible neighbours. They tended their property meticulously, and wouldn’t be obstructive, but they’d come over during business hours and they were intensely misogynistic. They’d also attempt to kill the hedge that sat between their church and our offices because they were unhappy with how tall it was. That is up until my boss threatened to charge them for it.
murmelade@lemmy.ml 17 hours ago
I got this in my letterbox last new years day Image from them. It says in Swedish: “On new years eve a lot of fireworks create light phenomenon in the sky. In the near future the greatest light phenomenon the world has ever seen will appear, it will be like when the lightning flames from east to west and shall occur when the Human Son return with his angels return. Vigilance is needed for this event!”
It’s been on my fridge ever since. Still waiting for the return of the king.
P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br 18 hours ago
Well, I guess they had good intentions, at least?
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
“Awake!” is also a thing. I’ve seen it many times.
FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Looks like they have two: “Awake” and “Watchtower”: www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/
In London in recent years I’ve only seen Awake. Maybe Watchtower is American or only in Kingdom halls?
As far as I’m aware there are 10 lost tribes. Only Judah and Benjamin were not regarded as lost. They might have a different view on that of course…
They don’t see the “vast multitude” (who are believers besides the 144,000) as having a bad deal in any way. They get to live on the restored earth which is basically Eden paradise. That’s why all their magazines / tracts have pictures of an idyllic life in a park / nature type setting
MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
I did econmerce for a grocery chain during COVID. A JW retirement community was a huge source of customers. They spent ungodly amounts of money on cheese and crackers