Bridge of Reason

Below is a copy of a letter, from the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, that was read to all Watchtower Congregations at the end of the Watchtower Study during the week of April 21 - 27, 2008. It gives an insight into the way that the Society change policy so easily and wrap it up as new light instead of just an administrative decision. What was looked upon as a very serious issue and an indication that you were not a loyal member of the Society - not regularly coming to the Book (sorry Bible) Study - is now not an issue at all. In fact they will have put three meetings together and they will be 75 mins than the 3 individual ones used to be. Maybe it shows that Jehovah Witnesses were not attending as many meetings as they should or that because they were attending the meetings it was was affecting the reaching out on the doors. Reading it though I cringed when they say they are fully aware of the mounting pressure on YOU precious sheep. Really? Then why are they still putting ...

At the back end of 2007 there was a flurry of interest in the media in Mormons and Mormonism because of Mitt Romney's involvement in the race for the presidency. In the ongoing debate over what Mormons really believe and what Mitt Romney will admit to believing the following was reported: "On Tuesday, December 11, 2007, the Associated Press reported that Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee would, in an upcoming article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, ask "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" By the end of the following day, Wednesday, December 12, Huckabee had already begun back-pedaling and apologizing for the remark. Earlier on Wednesday Mitt Romney had appeared on NBC’s Today show criticizing Huckabee for “attacking” his religion." Read the full story here. In response the Mormon Church issued a statement to 'clarify' the Mormon position on the subject. Here are the main points in the statement: Mormons b...

The Barna Group is a Christian organisation founded by George Barna in 1984 which, among other things, provides important primary research, especially in service of the Christian Church and is described on their web site: “The Barna Group provides primary research (through The Barna Research Group); printed resources (through BarnaBooks, an imprint of Tyndale); leadership development; spiritual training; and church facilitation and enhancement. We seek to use our strengths in partnership with Christian ministries and individuals to be a catalyst in moral and spiritual transformation in the United States. We accomplish these outcomes by providing vision, information, strategy, evaluation and resources.” They have just produced some very interesting research examining the faith of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, comparing them with each other and both with Evangelical Christianity. The full report can be read here . After looking at each respective group’s attitude to God, Jesus, Satan,...

Bob Millet is a professor of ancient scripture and emeritus Dean of Religious Education at the Mormon Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is especially known to us as a distinguished Latter-day Saint author and speaker and apologist whose prolific work includes more than 60 published works on virtually all aspects of Mormonism. He appears frequently in the media and as Manager of Outreach and Interfaith Relations for Church Public Affairs. In these efforts at interfaith he is especially successful in selling Mormonism as a Christian church and in promoting dialogue with Evangelicals. In an April 2008 email to Mormons working on interfaith initiatives with Evangelicals he wrote about the highs and lows of such dialogue, observing: Its hard work Its about understanding, not converting people Trust and respect are paramount People who disagree with you are not necessarily anti-Mormons LDS leaders are getting involved Attack/defence discussion is not good Gordon B Hinckley set a g...

The Catholic News Service reports: "In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons' Genealogical Society of Utah. An April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, obtained by Catholic News Service in late April, asks episcopal conferences to direct all bishops to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitizing information contained in those registers." Certainly, the Catholic Church doesn't recognise ordinary Mormon baptisms as Christian, although neither do Mormons recognise baptisms from any other church, even though they insists that they are Christians too. Now they face doors slamming in their face in the after-life as well as this one. CNS STORY: Vatican letter directs bishops to keep parish records from Mormons

The Watchtower Society claim that the New Testament Scriptures were tampered with and the name of Jehovah was taken out. The following quotation can be used to show this is false. “The Bible comes from... God... it was a simple thing for him to make certain that the integrity of what was written was preserved down to our day. Of this a leading authority on Bible manuscripts, Sir Frederic Kenyon, in 1940, said: ‘The last foundation of any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.’ ... a God-inspired, permanent written record is much less likely to contain errors.” - What is the Purpose of Life, WB&TS, 1993, p.15. In this light, I wonder if the Society will add the following to their list of ‘J’ references [references regarding Jewish translations of the NT in their Kingdom Interlinear Translation.] “In several places this approach brings into bold relief a key theological issue separating Messianic from traditional Judais...