I’ve been trying to figure this verse out in light of my own recent efforts to get a close JW friend to study and question WTS reasoning as I believe Jehovah wants all of us to do. Here’s the verse:
(1 Corinthians 1:10) Now I exhort YOU, brothers, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that YOU should all speak in agreement, and that there should not be divisions among YOU, but that YOU may be fitly united in the same mind and in the same line of thought.
This is one of the scriptures that he cites as his reason for not wanting to read any so-called “apostate” books- that it won’t do anyone any good to read it and get discouraged because there’s only one Organization to turn to anyway.
The w86 3/15 likens apostate literature to reading pornography. Paragraphs 3-5 state the following: “Their propaganda is designed to weaken our faith, to cool our love for God, to sow doubts in our minds—yes, to make the spiritual paradise appear to be no paradise at all…Then the only satisfaction, of a perverted kind, may come in beginning to beat one’s fellow slaves with slander and half-truths. (Matthew 24:45-51) …Yes, we could not only lose the blessings of the spiritual paradise now but, more seriously, also lose the hope of living eternally in the earthly Paradise.”
So here are some legitimate questions: What is the definition of “apostate literature”? What if an active JW wrote it? What if a former JW wrote it? What if it is written by a person that has never been one of JW? Who decides? What is the content? Is there a list of titles that are banned books for us to read? Should there be?
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