Are Jehovah's Witnesses considered Christian

Answer 1

Jehovah's Witnesses are classified as a Christian denomination (group) by the majority of doctrinally neutral agencies, journalistic and historical experts

**the Encyclopedia Brittanica and the American Heritage Dictionary, they are a Christian denomination. [...] they are of the Christian faith.

**They are also listed with the United States Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)3 Christian religious organization. The United States Armed Forces recognizes them as amongst the Christian faiths.

**BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation : Jehovah's Witnesses are members of a Christian-based religious movement.[end quote]

**Wikipedia "[...] a Christian group who say that they have gone back to what early Christians did. [...] Witnesses are known for preaching their beliefs from door-to-door and in other public places."

**encyclopedia.com: "Christian group originating in the United States at the end of the 19th cent., organized by Charles Taze Russell , whose doctrine centers on the Second Coming of Christ."

AnswerJehovah's Witnesses have a theology and a set of doctrines that are very different from the rest of the Christian Church. They do not believe that Jesus is divine nor in the Trinity, which is one (and always has been one) of the key beliefs of the Christian Church, and central to its theology of salvation. The vast majority of Church leaders, bible historians, theologians, bible scholars and so on have indicted JW theology as very flawed and even, in some cases, heretical.

Therefore the JW organisation cannot be classed as a member of the mainstream Christian Church worldwide. Despite JWs usually being sincere people, whose sense of evangelism puts many a member of the mainstream Christian Church to shame, the mainstream Church, since the conception of the JW organisation in the 19th Century, has regarded it as not Christian in the same sense as the Christian Church. This is simply because of its refusal to regard Jesus as divine, a concept stated quite categorically in scripture (especially John's gospel) and in the early Church. To some in the Christian Church, it is a splinter Christian group; to others it is a sectarian group. To others it is seen as a cult. But virtually no members of the Christian Church worldwide sees it as a maintream Christian denomination.