Questions to Ask a Jehovah's Witness
Questions to ask a Jehovah's Witness at your door, at a literature cart, or across the table from a friend, relative or coworker, written for the curious and for Christians who want a conversation and not a debate. They are grouped in the order a talk tends to go: openers, beliefs about God, Jesus and the Bible, the ministry and meetings, daily life (holidays, birthdays, blood), then the organization and what happens when someone leaves. Each one carries a note on what Witnesses generally teach on the point, what to ask next and when to let the subject drop.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Openers
Did you grow up as a Witness, or did you become one as an adult?
Why ask it
Witnesses talk about being raised in the truth or coming into the truth, and the two make different conversations. Someone who joined can usually name the person who studied the Bible with them and tell you how their own family took the news. With someone raised in it, ask how old they were the first time they spoke at a door.
What is the message you most want people to hear from you?
Why ask it
At a door or a cart there is usually a short presentation ready: a question, a scripture, something to read. Let it run, because it nearly always arrives at God's Kingdom, which Witnesses understand as a real government in heaven that will end suffering and restore the earth. With a friend or relative, ask it as what their faith is mostly about.
What does a normal week look like for you?
Why ask it
This faith is organized by the week more than by one day of it: two meetings, time in the ministry, study at home. A good answer has real evenings in it, and it also tells you which nights not to invite them out.
What do people most often get wrong about Jehovah's Witnesses?
Why ask it
The usual candidates are that they are not Christians, that they refuse all medical care, or that they think nobody else has a chance with God. Ask where they last ran into it. A hospital desk, a classroom and a family dinner are three different stories, and the one they tell is the one that still stings.
What is the hardest part of knocking on a stranger's door?
Why ask it
This asks for a story and nearly everyone has one: a dog, a slammed door, a classmate answering in pajamas. People who were taken along as children remember it vividly. Laughing with them here earns a good deal of patience for the heavier questions.
What do you enjoy most about being one of Jehovah's Witnesses?
Why ask it
Expect something concrete: a congregation that brought meals when they were ill, friends in any city they travel to, or a restored earth they can describe down to the animals. Ask it before the harder subjects. The answer tells you what a later question about leaving would be asking them to give up.
Beliefs
Are Jehovah's Witnesses Christians, as you see it?
Why ask it
They will say yes without a pause: they follow Jesus as the Son of God, pray in his name and aim to copy the congregations of the first century. Churches that define a Christian by belief in the Trinity say no. Knowing both answers before you start saves a quarrel over a word, so ask what the word requires as they see it.
Why does using the name Jehovah matter so much to you?
Why ask it
Jehovah is an English form of the four-letter Hebrew name for God in the Old Testament, and Witnesses hold that God wants to be called by it. If you pray to the Lord or to the Father, ask what they feel is lost without the name. A good answer is about closeness and not only about translation.
Who do you believe Jesus is, and what does he mean to you personally?
Why ask it
Expect to hear that he is God's Son, the first of God's creations, the Messiah and the one whose death pays a ransom, and that he is not Almighty God. A Christian who believes otherwise does best to let the whole answer come out first. Wait for the second half: what the ransom means to them is usually said in their own words, and it is ground you share.
Why don't you believe in the Trinity?
Why ask it
Witnesses teach that Jehovah alone is Almighty God, that Jesus is a separate and lesser being, and that the holy spirit is God's active force and not a person. They have had this exchange many times and arrive with verses, so a list of yours will be met with a list of theirs. Ask which verse they find hardest to fit with their view, and offer your own hardest one in return.
Do you pray to Jesus, or only to Jehovah?
Why ask it
Witnesses pray to Jehovah alone, in Jesus' name, and where many Bibles say people worshiped Jesus, theirs says they did obeisance to him. For most Christians this is where the Trinity question turns practical: what you may say to Jesus. Ask how they would describe their relationship with him on an ordinary day, and the answer is about a life and not about Greek.
How does your Bible translate John 1:1, and why?
Why ask it
Their translation reads "the Word was a god" where most English Bibles have "the Word was God", and no single verse is argued over more between Witnesses and other Christians. Listen for reasoning in their own words. If neither of you reads Greek, say so, and agree it will not be settled on a doorstep.
What is the New World Translation, and do you ever read from other Bibles?
Why ask it
It is the organization's own translation, revised in English in 2013, and its translators are not named. Many Witnesses will gladly look at a verse in your Bible as well, which keeps the talk on the text. Reluctance to open any other translation tells you how the rest of the conversation is likely to go.
Is it true that you believe Jesus is the archangel Michael?
Why ask it
It is: Witnesses understand Michael to be a name Jesus has in heaven, which startles most churchgoers. Ask which passages lead them there, and ask it as a question you want answered. A laugh or a wince here closes the subject for good.
Why do you say Jesus died on a stake and not on a cross?
Why ask it
They hold that the Greek word means an upright pole, and they do not use the cross in worship. The shape matters less than it sounds. Follow with what they believe his death accomplished, and you are on the ground that counts for both of you.
What do you believe happens when someone dies?
Why ask it
No immortal soul and no burning hell: the dead are unconscious, as if asleep, and wait for a resurrection. If you are asking because you have lost someone, say so. The answer moves from doctrine to comfort, and that is where many Witnesses speak most naturally.
Who goes to heaven, and where do you expect to live forever?
Why ask it
The teaching is that 144,000 people rule with Christ in heaven and everyone else who is saved lives forever on a restored earth, which is the hope of nearly every Witness you will meet. Ask what they picture. A garden, an animal, a grandmother alive again: the picture tells you more than the number does.
What do you believe happened in 1914?
Why ask it
Witnesses teach that Christ began ruling as king in heaven that year, unseen, and that the world has been in its last days since. The reckoning behind the date is long. Ask for the short version, then ask what it changes about how they plan their own life, which is the half worth hearing.
What do you expect Armageddon to be, and what happens to people who are not Witnesses?
Why ask it
Plenty of neighbors want to ask this and do not dare. The usual reply is that God reads hearts and Witnesses do not judge anyone's outcome. Notice whether it is said easily or uneasily, and do not push for a verdict on yourself.
What does a person need to do to be saved, as you understand it?
Why ask it
You will hear faith in the ransom together with dedication, baptism and staying faithful, and the word their Bible has for grace is "undeserved kindness". Put as a charge that they earn salvation, it gets a defense. Put plainly, with a follow-up on whether they feel sure of where they stand with God, it gets a truer answer.
Which teaching convinced you that this is the truth?
Why ask it
Witnesses call their faith "the truth", as in being in the truth for twenty years, and conviction is usually described as the result of study, one teaching at a time, more than of a feeling. Common answers are that there is no burning hell or that the earth will be a paradise. Ask what they believed about it before.
Ministry and meetings
Why do you go door to door when so few people want to talk?
Why ask it
They will point to Jesus sending his followers out and to the first Christians teaching from house to house, and most see it as owed to God and to the neighbor both. The better follow-up is what a good morning looks like to them. It is seldom a conversion.
How much time do you spend in the ministry, and is that expected of you?
Why ask it
Every active Witness is called a publisher, and those called pioneers sign up for a set number of hours. What gets reported to the congregation has changed in recent years, so ask how it works now, and how a month feels when they manage very little.
Why do you stand by the cart and wait for people to come to you?
Why ask it
Cart work is meant to be low-key: the display does the inviting and the people beside it wait to be approached, which is why it feels so unlike a knock at the door. Ask which of the two they would pick for a Saturday morning. The reason they give tells you whether they like the talking or do it in spite of nerves.
If I am not interested, what is the kindest way to tell you?
Why ask it
Saying plainly that you would like no more visits is easier on them than a curtain that twitches. Congregations generally keep a note of homes that have asked not to be called on. Ask how long that request holds where you live, because practice differs.
What is a Bible study with you, and what would it commit me to?
Why ask it
It is a free weekly course, at home or online, that works through one of the organization's study books, and it is meant to lead toward baptism as a Witness. A straightforward person says so without being pressed. If a few conversations are all you want, say that at the start.
What happens at a meeting in the Kingdom Hall?
Why ask it
There are two a week. The weekend one has a talk and a question-and-answer study of a Watchtower article, and the midweek one includes practice for the ministry, with songs and prayer at both. Ask what part they had most recently, since ordinary members, children included, take turns.
Could I sit in on a meeting without being signed up for anything?
Why ask it
Anyone may walk in, and no collection plate goes round. Dress is closer to a job interview than to a casual church, and a visitor gets a lot of handshakes. If the reply comes with an offer of a study, you can accept one and decline the other.
What is the Memorial, and why do most people there not take the bread and wine?
Why ask it
Once a year, after sundown on the date that matches the Passover in the Bible's calendar, Witnesses mark the death of Jesus, and it is the one religious observance they keep. The bread and wine are passed along the rows, and only those who believe they are among the 144,000 partake, so in most halls nobody does. Christians used to communion should ask what the evening means to someone who only passes the plate.
When were you baptized, and how did you know you were ready?
Why ask it
Babies are not baptized. A person asks for it, goes over a set of questions with the elders and is immersed, often at a large assembly, and many raised in the faith do this in their teens. It matters for later questions, because the congregation's discipline applies to the baptized.
Daily life
Why don't you celebrate birthdays?
Why ask it
The reasons given are that the only two birthday feasts in the Bible both end in an execution, and that the customs have non-Christian roots. They have explained it since grade school. The useful follow-up is practical: what they would like you to do when their birthday comes round, or yours.
Which holidays do you skip, and is there anything you do celebrate?
Why ask it
Christmas, Easter, Halloween and national holidays are all left out, while wedding anniversaries are kept and presents turn up on no particular date. Ask what late December looks like at their house. The answer is usually an ordinary week described in detail, which is easier to picture than a list of things not done.
What was it like as a child to sit out the class parties?
Why ask it
Only for someone raised in the faith. Some recall being proud to stand for something and others recall the hallway, and plenty remember both. Teachers with a Witness child in the room can put the same question to the parents and ask what has worked before.
Why do Witnesses refuse blood transfusions?
Why ask it
The belief rests on Bible commands to abstain from blood, which they apply to medicine as well as to food. It is held as a matter of obedience, so arguing risk misses the point they are making. The thing to hear is that they seek out medical care otherwise, because the common assumption is that they refuse doctors.
Do you carry a card about blood, and which treatments do you decide for yourself?
Why ask it
Many carry a signed card setting out their wishes, and some products made from blood and some procedures are left to each person's conscience. How a hospital treats that card, and what happens when the patient is a child, depends on where you live, so ask how it works there. For a relative the point is simply to know their wishes and who speaks for them.
Why don't you vote, salute the flag or serve in the military?
Why ask it
They call it neutrality: loyalty goes to God's kingdom, which they regard as a real government, while they pay taxes and keep the law. What refusing military service costs differs by country and era, so ask how it works where they live. Older Witnesses sometimes have a relative who went to prison over it.
What were you told about college and career, and what did you choose?
Why ask it
The emphasis has long been on keeping life simple enough to leave room for the ministry, and the guidance on higher education has been restated more than once. Families apply it differently. Ask what they chose and whether they would choose it again, and do not assume the answer is regret.
Are most of your close friends Witnesses?
Why ask it
The counsel they hear is to find close friends inside the faith, so the honest reply is often yes. A neighbor or coworker can take that without offense. What stays open is the ordinary kind of friendship: a shared lunch, a ride to the airport, help with a fence. Offer that and do not keep score of what is declined.
How does it work in your family when not everyone is a Witness?
Why ask it
A husband who never joined, grandparents who want to give birthday presents, a wedding in a church. If you are the relative outside the faith, ask what they would like from you at the times of year that are awkward. Specific arrangements hold up better than a stand on principle from either side.
What are dating and marriage like among Witnesses?
Why ask it
Dating is treated as a step toward marriage and not as recreation, often with other people around, and the counsel is to marry another baptized Witness. If you are outside the faith and interested in one of them, ask this early and plainly. A vague answer now is harder on both of you later.
Organization
How did Jehovah's Witnesses begin?
Why ask it
With a Bible study group around Charles Taze Russell in Pennsylvania in the 1870s. The present name dates from 1931. Members tend to describe a return to first-century Christianity and not a founding, so ask where they think the first-century pattern was lost. The answer explains why they keep apart from other churches.
Who are the Governing Body, and how do you see their authority?
Why ask it
A small group of men at the world headquarters in New York State direct what is taught everywhere, and Witnesses identify them with the faithful slave in one of Jesus' parables. The body has said it is neither inspired nor infallible. Ask what that means in practice when a member is unsure about something it has written.
Who leads your congregation, and are they paid?
Why ask it
Each congregation is led by a body of elders, men from the congregation who are unpaid and mostly hold ordinary jobs, and nobody is addressed by a clergy title. Ask what an elder does when a member is struggling. The reply shows whether leadership feels like care or like supervision from where they sit.
How is the organization paid for, and are you asked to give?
Why ask it
Giving is voluntary: there are donation boxes at the hall and ways to give online, with no tithe and no plate, and the literature is free. Ask whether the congregation is told how its own money is spent. People guess about this more than they ask, and members tend to answer it readily.
What do you make of 1975 and the other years when the end was expected?
Why ask it
The organization's publications raised hopes around particular years, 1975 being the best known, and some members arranged their lives around it. Most Witnesses you meet were not adults then, though an older one may tell you what it was like. A candid answer admits the disappointment before explaining it.
When a teaching is revised, how do you think about what was taught before?
Why ask it
They speak of adjusted understanding, or of light growing brighter, after a proverb. Ask for a change they lived through and whether it came easily. A fair second question is whether a member could have held the new view before it was announced.
Can you read the Bible on your own and reach a different conclusion from the organization?
Why ask it
Easy to turn into a trap, so ask it only if you want the answer. Private reading is encouraged, while teaching a contrary view to others is treated as serious. A thoughtful reply separates having a question from campaigning for it, and says where they would take the question.
When something in The Watchtower does not sit right with you, what do you do?
Why ask it
The counsel members hear is to wait on Jehovah: keep studying, pray, and trust that an adjustment will come if one is needed. Some describe that as peace and some as setting the question down unanswered. Do not offer doubts of your own here. Members are cautioned about exactly that, and it turns a friend into a risk.
What happens when a baptized Witness does something seriously wrong?
Why ask it
Elders meet with the person, and what they are looking for is repentance. Someone judged unrepentant is removed from the congregation, which for decades was called disfellowshipping. The wording and some of the procedure were revised recently, so ask how it is handled now and do not rely on what you read years ago.
How are you asked to treat someone who has been removed or who has left?
Why ask it
Outsiders call it shunning, and of everything they know about Witnesses it troubles them most. Members sharply limit contact, with allowances inside a household, and explain it as discipline meant to bring the person back. Ask how it sits with them, not for a defense of it. You may hear loyalty, sorrow or both in one sentence.
What is the difference between drifting away and formally leaving?
Why ask it
Witnesses separate someone who has gone inactive, who stops attending but is still counted as one of them, from someone who formally resigns, who is treated much like a person who was removed. Ask what the way back looks like in each case and how long it took for someone they know. A relative of a wavering member needs this answer more than any other on the page.
Is anyone in your own family no longer a Witness, and what is contact like now?
Why ask it
Only for someone you know well, and never at a door. If there is someone, you may hear how often they text, or about a wedding that one side missed. Let them end the subject when they want to, and never bring it back later as a point in an argument.
Closers
What would you like to ask me about what I believe?
Why ask it
They are practiced at asking questions on doorsteps and seldom get to hear a long answer. If you are a Christian, keep yours short and personal, a testimony and not a rebuttal. Their questions also show what they have been told about churches like yours.
Could we read one passage together, from your Bible and from mine?
Why ask it
For a Christian who wants a real conversation, this beats any single question on the page. Choose a whole chapter, such as John 1 or Colossians 1, read it in both translations, and take turns saying what you see. Agree beforehand that nobody has to win by the end.
How can I be a good neighbor or coworker to you, given what you do and do not take part in?
Why ask it
Entirely practical, and most people of any faith are never asked it. You may learn to skip the birthday card and still come for dinner, or to offer a lift to the hospital and not a holiday gift. Then do the one thing they mention.
Is there one article or video you would want me to start with?
Why ask it
The answer will be something on the organization's own website, which is the right source for what is officially taught and the wrong one for how members differ. Ask for a single item, read or watch it, and bring back one thing that surprised you. That gives a second visit a subject.
What do you wish people asked you at the door and never do?
Why ask it
Save it for the end and let it be the last thing said. It is often about someone they hope to see again in the resurrection, or what the congregation did for them in a bad year, and it tends to be the answer you remember.
Talking with a Witness at the door, at a cart or at home
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you start
Their words for things
The name is Jehovah's Witnesses, and most members just say Witnesses. The initials JW sit fine with some and badly with others, so follow their lead. The building is a Kingdom Hall, not a church. Members are publishers, full-time volunteers are pioneers, the local leaders are elders, the magazine is The Watchtower, and the faith as a whole is often just called the truth. Asking what one of these means is a question in itself.
Ask about the person, look up the position
The official position on nearly everything is published and easy to find. What you cannot look up is how this person lives it, which is what most of these questions ask. Expect a convert, a third-generation member and a teenager to answer differently, and do not hold one of them to what another said.
Tell them why you are asking
A Witness at your door is there in the hope of starting a Bible study. If you are curious and not looking to join, say so in the first minute. Most will still talk, and neither of you spends the next month working out what the other wants.
Same words, different meanings
A churchgoer and a Witness share a vocabulary and mean different things by much of it: Son of God, the kingdom, the soul, salvation, even the word Christian. Before you reply to a statement, ask them to define its main word, then give your church's meaning as information and not as a correction. Witnesses rehearse replies to questions designed to corner them, so a cornering question gets the rehearsal and nothing else.
Door, cart, or someone you know
At your door
They usually come in pairs, they have other calls to make, and one of them may be new. Ten minutes and three or four questions from Openers and from Ministry and meetings is a good visit. If you would like more, ask when they could come back, and if you would not, say so kindly.
At a literature cart
The people standing by a cart wait for you to approach, so the pace is yours. It suits a single question about beliefs and one follow-up. A busy sidewalk is a poor place for anything under Organization.
A friend or coworker
You have time, so spread it out: one question over lunch, another a month later, and always after something ordinary has been talked about first. The Daily life group matters most here, because it covers what the two of you will actually run into, which is birthdays, holidays and invitations.
A relative
The stakes are higher and the history is longer. Ask to understand their week and their hopes before raising anything that worries you, and pick a time that is not a holiday table. If someone in the family has left or been removed, read the notes under Organization before you say a word.
Choosing what to ask
How the groups are ordered
The list follows the way a conversation with a Witness usually unfolds. Openers are safe with a stranger on the step. Beliefs and Ministry and meetings are the subjects they came prepared for. Daily life is for people who share an office, a classroom or a family with one, and Organization holds the questions that need trust first. The Closers hand the conversation back to them.
If you only want ten
For one visit or one lunch, here are ten questions to ask a Jehovah's Witness that cover the ground: whether they grew up in it, the message they most want heard, what people get wrong, who Jesus is to them, what happens when someone dies, why they go door to door, why no birthdays, why no blood transfusions, how they see the Governing Body, and what they wish people asked. Choose your ten before the knock, not during it.
Reading the Bible together
Witnesses respect the Bible and are glad to open it, which makes a shared passage the best common ground a Christian has with them. Read a chapter and not a single verse, look at it in both translations, and let them go first. One passage left unresolved is worth more than a dozen raced through.
Mistakes that end the conversation
Leading with blood or shunning
Both are fair subjects and both are in the list, under Daily life and Organization. Put first, they tell a Witness you have come to argue, and you get the prepared answer and a short visit. After half an hour of ordinary questions, the same words get a person talking.
Handing over what former members have written
Witnesses are taught to avoid material from people who have left and now oppose the organization. Printing an article or quoting a website of that kind ends the conversation and can make them wary of you afterward. Ask your own question in your own words.
A duel of verses
They practice for these exchanges at their meetings and you probably do not. More to the point, people are rarely moved by losing one. Slow down to a single passage, or ask what the teaching means in their own life.
Pressing on a doubt or a family wound
If a question about leaving, doubt or a relative brings a pause, that pause is the answer for today. Pushing may feel like progress, and it usually costs the trust that made the question possible.
Stating rules as facts
What a hospital does with a refusal of blood, what a school does about the pledge, what refusing military service leads to: these depend on the country, the state and sometimes the employer. Ask how it works where they live, and do not tell them what the rule is.