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To begin this story we must go back to the 1800's. William Miller had begun a
movement that became known
as the Adventist movement or Millerite movement around the early
mid-1800's and predicted the return of Christ
visibly on 3 occasions during the year 1844.
After this disappointment the group split up into several new
movements. Two of those are known as the "Seventh day Adventist Church"
and the "Advent Christian Church". In 1871,
Nelson H. Barbour, who had previously been associated with the Millerites,
published his views on the matter stating that Christ would return
visibly in 1873. When this failed he pushed the date to
1874. When Christ failed to appear once more,
instead of admitting his error, he began teaching that his return
had been invisible. He supposedly based
his new conclusion on his findings in Benjamin Wilson's
"The Emphatic Diaglott translation of the New Testament,"
noticing in it that, at Matthew 24:27, 37, 39,
the word the King James Version rendered coming is translated
presence. Charles Taze Russell was born on February 16,
1852, in Old Allegheny, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
He was the second son of Joseph L. Russell and
Ann Eliza Birney. He was originally raised a Presbyterian.
When Russell was 16 years old and a member of the Congregational church
in 1868, he found himself losing faith.
He had begun to doubt not only church creeds and doctrines,
but also God and the Bible itself. At this critical juncture
a chance encounter restored his faith and placed him under the influence
of Second Adventist preacher Jonas Wendell. For some years after that
Russell continued to study Scripture with and under the influence
of various Adventist laymen and clergy, notably
Advent Christian Church minister George W. Stetson
and the Bible Examiner's publisher George Storrs.
From 1870, he met locally on a regular basis with a small circle of friends to
discuss the Bible,
and this informal study group came to regard him as their leader
or pastor. In January, 1876, when he was 23 years old,
Russell received a copy of The Herald of the Morning,
an Adventist magazine published by Nelson H.
Barbour of Rochester, New York. One of the distinguishing features
of Barbour's group at that time was their belief that Christ returned invisibly in
1874,
and this concept presented in The Herald captured Russell's
attention. Although the idea appealed to young Charles Taze Russell,
the reading public apparently refused to 'buy'
the story of an invisible Second Coming, with the result that
N. H. Barbour's publication The Herald of the Morning
was failing financially.
In the summer 1876 wealthy Russell
paid Barbour's way to Philadelphia and met with him to discuss both beliefs
and finances. Russell became the magazine's financial backer
and was added to the masthead as an Assistant Editor. He contributed
articles for publication as well as monetary gifts, and Russell's small study
group
likewise became affiliated with Barbour's.
Together Russell and Barbour jointly published
"Three Worlds and Harvest of this world"
Russell and Barbour believed and taught that Christ's
invisible return in 1874 would be followed soon afterwards,
in the spring a 1878, by the Rapture,
the bodily snatching away of believers to heaven. When this expected rapture failed
to occur,
The Herald's editor, Mr. Barbour, came up with
"new light" on this and other doctrines like the rejection of the ransom
sacrifice.
Russell, however, rejected some of the new ideas.
Finally, Russell quit the staff of the Adventist magazine and started his own.
He called it Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence
and published its first issue in July 1879.
At this point Charles Russell continued to view William Miller
and Nelson barber as instruments chosen by God to lead his people in the past.
The formation of a distinct denomination around Russell
was a gradual development. His immediate break
was, not with Adventism, but with the person and policies
of N. H. Barbour. Russell traveled about speaking from the pulpits of Protestant
churches
as well as to gatherings of his own followers.
In 1879, the year of his marriage to Maria
Frances Ackley and also the year he began publishing Zion's Watch Tower,
Russell organize some thirty study group or congregations
scattered from Ohio to the New England coast. Each local "class"
or ecclesia came to recognize him as "Pastor".
Inevitably, Russell's increasingly divergent
teachings forced his followers to separate from other
church bodies and to create a denomination of their own.
Beginning, as he did, in a small branch of Adventism
that went to the extreme of setting specific dates for the return of Christ
and the Rapture, Russell went farther out on a limb in 1882
by openly rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity.
His earlier mentor Nelson H. Barbour was a Trinitarian,
as was the Herald of the Morning's other assistant editor
John H. Paton who joined Russell in leaving Barbour to start Zion's Watch Tower.
The writings of Barbour and Paton that Russell had helped publish or
distribute
were Trinitarian in their theology. And the Watch Tower itself
was at first vague and noncommittal on the subject. It was only after Paton broke
with him in
1882, and ceased to be listed on the masthead,
that Russell began writing against the doctrine of the Trinity.
In 1881, William Henry
Conley was the first president of Zion's Watch Tower
Tract Society. At that time the operations were situated at 101
Fifth Avenue, was used until 1884.
in 1884 they moved to 151
Robinson Street (earlier designated as 44,
and then 40, Federal Street) Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
In december fifteenth 1884,
the Society was incorporated with Charles Taze Russell as president
and became the legal corporation used by the International
Bible Students. In 1886 Russell went on to publish a series of books called
"Studies in the Scriptures" in which he taught his beliefs
and strange Bible chronology using pyramidology
and the "inch per year" rule in which he measured the interior passages
of the great pyramid in "pyramid inches" to predict dates of future and past
biblical events.
in 1896 the society was renamed Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.
in 1889 a four-story brick building
at 58-60 Arch Street, Allegheny,
was completed. Valued at thirty four thousand dollars it was known as the
Bible House.
It served as the Society's headquarters for approximately 20 years.
Russell also believed in Phrenology,
a theory which claims to be able to determine character,
personality traits, and criminality on the basis of the shape of the head
by reading bumps and cavities. He claimed that at the restoration of all things,
when God's kingdom would be established on the earth, people of darker skin tones
would be restored to a lighter skin tone, which was originally intended
by God at the creation. In 1906 he claimed to be God's mouthpiece
and went as far as pretending that if he did not speak,
the very stones would cry out! In 1909
the headquarters were moved to the "Brooklyn tabernacle"
in Brooklyn New York. In pre-1910 editions of the third
book of his Studies in the Scripture series "Thy kingdom come"
Russell predicted that the rapture of the Church would happen in 1910.
This date was also taken from the measurements of the interior passageways
of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh in Egypt. In 1912
he claimed that appendicitis and Typhoid fever were caused by bitting
worms in the colon. In 1914
Russell and his associates produced a movie on the Bible story
in which he added many of his strange beliefs. It was called "The Photodrama
of creation" and lasted up to 8 hours.
In only one year, 9 million people
around the world had viewed it. A book with the same title
was also published. By the time of his death,
Charles Taze Russell had traveled more than a million miles
and preached more than 30,000 sermons. He had authored works totaling some
50,000 printed pages,
and nearly 20 million copies of his books and booklets
had been sold.
Followers had been taught that Russell himself was the "faithful and wise
servant"
of Matthew 24:45 and "the Laodicean Messenger,"
God's seventh and final spokesman to the Christian church,
but by 1928 the Society applied that to its leaders.
They taught that the scripture was a prophecy, and that by 1919 they
had been chosen by Jesus
"over all that he hath". Since they believed Jesus was ruling the world invisibly,
they claimed for themselves a position as God's channel of communication
with mankind. Russell had preached that 1914 would see the end of the world has
we know it.
As he stated in his book, "The Time is at Hand" : "1914;
... will be the farthest limit of the rule of imperfect men."
As a result, many farmers refused to plant their crops
in the spring in the firm belief that the end was nigh.
When 1914 failed it was pushed foreward to 1915,
but the end only came for pastor Russell when he died at age 64
on October 31, 1916, near Pampa, Texas,
while returning to Brooklyn by train, of complications caused by cystitis.
he was buried at Rosemont United Cemetery,
Pittsburgh. The gravesite is marked by a headstone, nearby stands a 7-foot-tall
pyramid memorial
emblazoned with the cross and crown masonic symbol erected by the Watch Tower
Bible and Tract Society
in 1921.
Right next to the Cemetery stands a masonic temple.
His disciples, however, saw the World War
then raging as reason to believe "the end" was still
imminent. According to instructions Russell left behind,
his successor to the presidency would share power with an editorial committee
and with the Watch Tower Corporation's Board of Directors,
whom Russell had appointed "for life." But vice president
Joseph Franklin ("Judge") Rutherford soon set about concentrating
all organizational authority in his own hands.
A skilled lawyer who had served as Russell's chief legal advisor,
he combined legal prowess with what opponents
undoubtedly saw as a machiavellian approach to internal
corporate politics. Thus he used a loophole
in their appointment to unseat the majority of the Watch Tower directors
without calling a membership vote. And he even had a subordinate
summon the police into the Society's Brooklyn headquarters
offices to break up their board meeting and evict them from
the premises (Faith on the March by A. H.
Macmillan, pp. 78-80). In early May
1918 US Attorney General Thomas Watt
Gregory condemned The Finished Mystery as "one of the most dangerous examples
of ... propaganda ... a work written in extremely religious language
and distributed in enormous numbers". Warrants were issued for the arrest
of Rutherford and seven other Watch Tower directors, who were charged
under the 1917 Espionage Act of attempting to cause
insubordination, disloyalty, refusal of
duty in the armed forces and obstructing the recruitment and enlistment
service the US while it was at war.
On June 21st, seven of them,
including Rutherford, were sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.
In March 1919
the directors were released on bail after an appeals court
ruled they had been wrongly convicted. To escape his prison sentence,
"Judge" Rutherford made a deal with the government. It was agreed that Bible
Students should cut out
pages 245 to 254
deemed offensive from the "Finished Mystery", and that the Society would cease
printing them. After securing the headquarters complex
and the sect's corporate entities, Rutherford turned his attention to the rest of
the organization.
By gradually replacing locally elected elders
with his own appointees, he managed to transform a loose collection
of semi-autonomous democratically run congregations
into a tight-knit organizational machine run from his office.
Some local congregations broke away, forming such Russellite splinter groups
as the Chicago Bible Students, the Dawn Bible Students,
the Laymen's Home Missionary movement, all of which
continue to this day. Most Bible Students remained under his control,
and Rutherford renamed them "Jehovah's Witnesses" in 1931,
to distinguish them from these other groups.
In 1919 the Watchtower
began publishing a magazine called "The Golden Age"
a publication filled with strange medical declarations
and wild various teachings. It was renamed
"Consolation" in 1937 and "Awake!"
in 1946. Since Jesus had lost his personality
has part of the Trinity in the Godhead during the Russell era, he needed a new identity,
so he became Michael the Archangel in 1920
under Rutherford ... Michael had previously been taught to be the pope
in the "Finished mystery" published in 1917.
Under Rutherford's
leadership several changes were in order ... Joining the Armed Forces became
a disfelloshipping offence.
The pyramid teachings, once coined "God's stone
witness in Egypt" became Satan's bible. No more celebrating holidays or birthdays.
Saluting the flag became idolatry. Wearing a beard became non-professional.
Since the cross was a pagan object in origin,
Jesus was transferred onto a stake, which is somehow, not pagan,
according to Jehovah's Witnesses today.
Meanwhile, he shifted the sect's emphasis from the individual "character
development"
Russell had stressed to vigorous public witnessing work,
distributing the Society's literature from house to house.
By 1927 this door-to-door literature distribution
had become an essential activity required all members. The literature
consisted primarily
of Rutherford's unremitting series of attacks against government,
against Prohibition, against "big business," and against the Roman Catholic Church.
He also forged a huge radio network
and took to the air waves, exploiting populist and anti-Catholic sentiment
to draw thousands of additional converts. His vitriolic attacks,
blaring from portable photographs carried the people's doors
and from the loudspeakers of sound cars parked across from churches,
also drew down upon the Witnesses mob violence and government persecution
in many parts of the world. Like Russell,
Rutherford tried his hand at prophecy and pushed forward the fear of Armageddon
hitting around the time of WWI. The period of 1918 to 1920
was first advanced. Later on he predicted that the biblical patriarchs
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others would be resurrected in 1925
to rule as princes over the earth. They failed to show up,
of course, but he held onto his story and in 1929,
the Society built a mansion called "Beth Sarim" to house the resurrected prophets,
who were expected to arrive soon. When the "resurrected prophets" did not show,
Judge Rutherford moved in. The "great depression" hit hard
but Rutherford lived like a king as he summered in Europe
and wintered at Beth-Sarim. He also owned two
luxury Cadillac's.
During the early nineteen-thirties
Rutherford began claiming that the holy spirit had been removed
and that God gave him inspiration for the writing of Watchtower publications
directly to his mind through angels.
From 1931 until 1952
all vaccinations were banned as being in violation of God's
everlasting covenant with Abraham. In 1935,
the society presented some "new light"
and taught that 1935 (not 1881,
as Russell had taught) marked the final year one could become part of the elect class
of "anointed" Christians who had a heavenly hope. So two destinies were invented:
The great crowd or great company, coined "Jonadabs"
were to spend eternity on a paradise on earth while the remnant,
the 144 000 or little flock, were to go to heaven
and rule with Christ over the great crowd. in 1935
the title "Kingdom Halls" was given to the many assemblies
of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Rutherford also taught that world war 2
would see the coming of Armageddon but refrained from being too specific this
time.
He published a book called "Children" in which he encouraged
witnesses to put off marriage and childbearing
until after Armageddon. Many Jehovah's witnesses remained childless
and bitter until their death because of this false prophecy.
Rutherford kept on preaching the soon
return of the Princes until his death at Beth Sarim
on January 8, 1942 at the age of 72
due to kidney failure caused by a cancer of the ***.
Vice President Nathan Homer Knorr
inherited the presidency upon Rutherford's death in 1942
but left doctrinal matters largely in the hands of Frederick W. Franz,
who joined the sect under Russell and had been serving at Brooklyn headquarters
since 1920.
Lacking the personal magnetism and charisma
of Russell and Rutherford, Knorr focused followers' devotion
on the 'Mother' organization rather than on himself. During the 1940's
the Society explained that all of the prophecies in Matthew 24
and 25 would take place within a "single generation" (Matthew 24:34),
when the generation passed away in shame after stretching it
up to 5 decades until 1995, the Society changed the meaning
of "the generation" several times to eventualy mean
an overlap of generations in the hopes of escaping
from another blatant false prophecy. In 1942
they obtained the rights to publish the King James Version
and in 1944, the American Standard Version.
in 1943 the invisible presence of Jesus was officially changed
from 1874 to 1914. Also in 1943,
the Watchtower inaugurated the Gilead School in New York state
to train their missionaries. A superb administrator,
Knorr initiated training programs to transform members into effective
recruiters.
Instead of carrying a portable phonograph from house to house
the average Jehovah's Witness began receiving instruction on how to speak
persuasively. In 1945
the watchtower officially began the world-wide genocide if its own people
by banning blood transfusions and blood products and in 1961
made it a disfelloshipping offence causing the deaths of many thousands of
Jehovah's witnesses.
Strangely enough, of all those who "abstained
from blood" for over 3500 years since the book of Leviticus was written,
none has ever died. In 1950
the watchtower published its own version of the Bible, the "New World Translation"
in which they refused to reveal the names at the translating committee
stating that they did not desire to take any merit for their work.
Strangely the new translation seemed to accommodate
their peculiar doctrines which could not be found previously in the Scripture's
Also, the only New Testament
found that had similar views to theirs was that of Johannes Greber's
translation,
a spiritist.
In 1962 the organization began quoting from Greber's New Testament,
for support of their strange doctrines, but they were exposed in the early
80's by counter cult movements for quoting from a spiritist!
From 1967 until 1980
the Watchtower banned all organ transplants causing the death of many
more members.
Meanwhile Fred Franz worked behind the scenes to restore faith
in the sect's chronological calculations, a subject largely ignored following
Rutherford's prophetic failure in 1925.
During the 1960's, the Society's publications began pointing to
the year 1975
as the likely time for Armageddon and the end of the world.
In 1974, daring Jehovah's Witnesses
who had sold their homes and businesses donating the money to the society,
were paraded on the platforms of Kingdom Halls.
Knorr's training programs for proselytizing, plus Franz'
apocalyptic projections for 1975,
combined to produce rapid growth in membership, the annual
rate of increase peaking at 13.5 percent
in 1974. All of this pushed meeting attendance
at Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Halls from around 100,000
in 1941 to just under 5 million
in 1975. During the 1970's
changes took place at Watchtower headquarters in regard to presidential
power.
First it became accepted in theory that the Christian Church should not be
under one-man rule, but rather should be governed by a body similar to the twelve
apostles.
the seven-member board of directors
of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
had previously been portrayed as fulfilling this role,
but in 1971 an expanded Governing Body was created with a total of eleven
members,
including the seven Directors. The aim was to demonstrate that the leadership
derived authority
from an apostolic source, rather than from Pennsylvania corporate law.
This new Governing Body was displayed as further evidence of the sect's being
the one true church with carefuly styled artwork
in "The Watchtower" depicting the apostles as a governing body.
After Knorr's death in 1977,
Franz inherited an organization troubled by discontent
over the obvious failure of his prophecies of the world's end
in the autumn of 1975. Even at Brooklyn headquarters
little groups meeting privately for Bible study were beginning to question
not only the 1914 base chronology that produced
the 1975 deadline, but also the related teaching
that the "heavenly calling" of believers ended in 1935.
The hitherto fast-growing sect actually began losing members for the first time
in decades,
as people who had expected Armageddon in 1975
became disillusioned. When membership loss grew into the hundreds of thousands,
a fact masked by new conversions in figures released by the Society,
president Franz and the conservative majority on the Governing Body
took action. In the spring of 1980
they initiated a crackdown on dissidents, breaking up the
independent Bible study groups at headquarters, and forming "judicial committees"
to have those seen as ringleaders put on trial for "disloyalty"
and "apostasy." By the time this purge
culminated in the forced resignation and subsequent excommunication
of the president's nephew and fellow Governing Body member
Raymond V. Franz, a siege mentality took hold
on the world-wide organization. Even Witnesses who left quietly
and voluntarily for personal reasons were denounced as disloyal
and were ordered shunned, former friends forbidden to say as much as "a simple
'Hello'"
to them.
Thus, although Frederick W. Franz served
as the sect's chief theologian for some fifty years
from the start of Knorr's presidency in 1942
until his own death on September 22nd 1992
the fact that he outlived his failed prophecies by more than 15 years
required him to impose a mini inquisition on the membership
in order to keep his doctrinal and chronological framework
in force for the remainder of his lifetime. As for the explanation for the
failure of
the 1975 date? They simply accused former members
of starting and spreading the rumors!
in 1985 the baptism questions were changed by the leadership,
rather than follow the biblical example if confession to the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit prior to baptism,
a Witness must now prove they intricately know
Watchtower doctrine and law, and then devote themselves to a man-made
organization. Milton G. Henschel's selection as fifth Watchtower president
on December 30, 1992, is truly significant for the
13 million now
attending Kingdom Halls. At first glance
the choice of a staunch conservative for the post may
seem to guarantee a continuation of the status quo.
But a closer look reveals this appointment as the conservative
old guard's last stand-an indication that radical changes in the sect's
leadership and doctrines were imminent. At age 72
Henschel became the second-youngest member of the Governing Body, and he was
selected to lead by men several years
older than he was. Henschel was no doubt chosen in part
due to his having vitality the others lacked. Obviously,
these aging leaders would not be able to hold the reins of power
much longer. The men who shared in building the Watchtower into what it is
today would soon leave it behind
for others to run. Adams became president of the Watchtower Society
after Governing Body member Milton G. Henschel stepped down from the position
in 2000. By 2010 the governing body was now down to 7 members.
In 2012 the decision was made to enlist a new member
who was born in 1965, Douglas M.
Sanderson. In the past few decades,
many allegations of child abuse and *** were claimed
against the Watchtower Society before the courts with more and more victories
by the victims
against their former religion. As the Internet grows
the many schemes, lies, and manipulations of the Watchtower organization
are being exposed on Youtube, Facebook, blogs,
and web sites in general many prisoners are being freed from the clutches
of this fraudulent religion that claims to be Christian and has been ruining the
lives of millions of individuals around the globe
with its propaganda techniques and goal gaining power
and fortune. For over a century this evil organization
with it's corrupt leaders have broken apart and destroyed
entire families, deceived many into false hopes of a fabricated paradise,
brought many to insanity and suicide, caused
others to die out of refusal of medical treatments that would have otherwise
save their lives,
destroyed the lives of children by protecting pedophiles in their ranks,
ruined many financialy by prophesying false dates for the end of the world
then accusing them for spreading false rumors,
used fear tactics of eternal destruction by God to bring many to slave
for a man-made organization, caused useless persecution
and imprisonment of its members by imposing useless rules and dictates and
discouraging
higher education. All this while turning them away from the true hope that is
presented
in the Bible through Christ Jesus alone. Who knows how long this organization
will continue on its destructive path until its final demise.
Hopefully sooner than later! Thank you for watching!