A Biblical Response to Jehovah Witness in Surabaya, Indonesia

Abstract

Issues around Christology are never ending. Both from within and outside Christianity the existence of Jesus as God continues to be discussed. From within the ranks of Christians who systematically deny the Divinity of Jesus are Jehovah's Witnesses. Their spirit of visiting from house to house is commendable and it doesn't matter if Christians are visiting, but what makes noise is visiting non-Christian homes. This is a separate issue in a Muslim majority Indonesia as a Christianization project. On the other hand, visiting Christian households has also created problems in the ecclesiastical sphere. Many have left the church and became members of Jehovah's Witnesses. That is why it is necessary to investigate the cause of such a move. This study uses a qualitative method and a literature study related to Christology and field studies were conducted through interviews with three groups of informants. The result is that the understanding that Christians have, is only built from the belief that 'just believe that Jesus is God'. Even if there is an argument, it is also too weak to be accounted for logically and even easy to break, because the Jehovah's Witnesses even use the original language (Greek) approach, even though only for certain verses that are important to talk about or argue about. Mainstream Indonesian Christians met the group of Jehovah's Witnesses in diverse ways, namely: being randomly visited when they came from house to house, being introduced by friends to help answer important questions, being invited to attend an event held by Jehovah's Witnesses, then also through the printed media which had an interesting design and because of their own curiosity, and then they were ultimately bound.