Even though the title of his talk on the Saturday afternoon session of the 2021 “Powerful by Faith” Regional Convention: “Put Up a Hard Fight for the Faith” is taken from Jude’s words, as you listen, it becomes apparent that the faith that David Splane is encouraging his audience to fight for is not the same as what Jude was writing about.
He is encouraging putting up a hard fight not necessarily for faith in Christ but for faith in the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses as being the only true Christian religion. The apostates he is concerned about are not necessarily those that reject Christ but those that no longer agree with the teachings and policies of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and its governing body and speak out against their harmful practices. The negative reports in the media are not about Jesus, his ministry, resurrection, his enthronement or his role in God’s purpose but about Jehovah’s Witnesses.
He warns that they should be avoided like poison.
How does a person recognize that something is poison? Someone would have to label it as such. But doesn’t that call for a level of trust to be placed in the person or persons that made the label?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are two United States federal agencies charged with protecting the public’s health. Both disseminate health information through nationwide campaigns and are expected to serve as reliable and accurate sources of information. The effectiveness of these agencies (as measured by individuals’ responsiveness and compliance with governmental messages and regulations) likely depends on the extent to which these agencies are perceived as trustworthy, competent, and credible. So if the FDA were to develop a track record of giving false and misleading information their trustworthiness would suffer would it not?
The determination of who is and who is not to be regarded as an apostate is not left to each individual member of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Rather it is the Watchtower society that makes that determination for them. They reserve the right to label the bottle as poison as it were. But what is the track record of the Watchtower society? Over their past 100 years of existence have they proven themselves to be trustworthy, competent and credible?
At one point the organization condemned vaccinations, organ transplants and blood fractions. How many people suffered or perhaps lost their lives due to following these directives? If they consider teachings that are out of harmony with the Bible as poison have not they themselves been guilty of serving poison? Can anyone legitimately say that their medical or scriptural advice can be trusted? Why then should we trust their advice to stay away from former members of the religion because they have discovered and want to warn others by exposing, among other things, this terrible track record?
If our desire is to continue in the things that we have learned from the Christ and not the doctrines and opinions of men in an earthly organization it is important to answer that question. But David Splane avoids it because he is counting on his audience to assume that the organization is teaching the truth about Christ. That way, separating a person from the lock step uniformity of the organization, causing them to stumble in their loyalty to it by pointing out its flaws can be viewed as a terrible thing. When Paul wrote those words, he didn’t have in mind the teachings of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. But if the aim of the organization is to help persons to develop a relationship with God through Christ why should pointing out where it can improve in that be discouraged? Can the leadership of the organization honestly say that no one has ever been stumbled by its actions? Are there policies in place presently that have the potential for stumbling others? If so, how could silencing those bringing these things to light, labeling them as liars possibly be in line with Christianity? (Matt. 12:20; Acts 6:1)
Well, in order to warn against the danger of apostates someone must have listened to what they have said. Or is David Splane just speaking about the results that he has heard about that come to witnesses that listen to any challenge of the religion without knowing what that challenge is? Is he including himself when he says: “We are not so strong, so spiritual, so intelligent that we can’t be affected by the poison of apostate ideas.” Does he too protect himself? If so, then how can he possible know what he is talking about? How can his warning be trusted?
Rather than encourage witnesses to run to a sterile environment in order to avoid encountering any ideas that could be poisonous to their faith, would it not be better to provide an antidote? But sadly there is nothing in his entire talk that strengthens the spiritual immune system of his listeners. All he can do is label anyone that disagrees with him as someone with a contagious incurable disease, like the Jews regarded anyone with leprosy and urge his listeners to avoid them.
But consider again the analogy of the bottle of poison. Actually, it is a fact that some beneficial medicines would be poisonous if used incorrectly, combined with certain foods or substances or if too high a dosage is taken. If we merely relied on someone else to interpret for us what poisonous means instead of reading and analyzing the label for ourselves we could be missing out on a valuable cure for our illness if they get it wrong. Really how wise and mature would it be to rely on someone to just tell us what to do rather than to develop and use our own God given thinking ability? (Pr. 2:11-13; Heb. 5:14)
But did you notice that David Splane does not give any specific examples of what apostates have said? Why? Who’s being sneaky?