|
The History of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The founder of this cult was Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916). Heavily influenced by Seventh Day Adventism in his early years, Russell broke with the Adventists and began publishing his own magazine, Zion’s Watchtower and Herald of Christ’s Presence, and in 1884 founded the Zion Watchtower Tract Society. A voluminous writer, Russell’s most important work was a seven-volume series entitled, Studies in the Scriptures, published over the period from 1886 to 1904. A man of questionable character and ethics, Russell is today disowned by modern Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Russell was succeeded in 1917 by Joseph Franklin Rutherford. Rutherford gained absolute control over the Watchtower Society and, in 1931, following Isaiah 43:10, he renamed the movement Jehovah’s Witnesses. He also denounced all organized religions and fostered a tone of hostility toward Christianity. A more prolific writer than Russell, Rutherford built on the teachings of Russell.
Nathan Homer Knorr followed Rutherford and under his leadership the Jehovah’s Witnesses stressed the training of their disciples. Under Knorr, the image of the movement changed. It became more respectable and organized. The movement began to focus on intense training of its layman and its leaders in what are known today as “Kingdom Halls.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses have produced their own “translation” of the Bible, known as The New World Translation. As Ken Boa argues, “As with other Witness literature, this translation is being widely distributed around the world and its producers are anonymous. Thus, there is no way of knowing the credentials of its translators and whether they worked from the original languages . . .”
Why are Jehovah’s Witnesses so aggressive and energetic? It stems from their eschatology (doctrine of the end times). As Boa demonstrates, Witnesses teach that Christ’s second coming has already occurred. It involved three stages: in 1874 Christ came to the “upper air” and later caught up the apostles and dead members of the 144,000, who will be immortal; in 1914 Christ ended the times of the Gentiles and began to reign; and in 1918 he came to the spiritual temple and began the judgment of the nations. They now eagerly await the imminent battle of Armageddon in which Jesus will lead Jehovah’s forces to defeat evil. Only faithful Witnesses will escape death in this battle; and only those who earn their place among the Witnesses through their “door to door” work are the “saved.”
In the Witnesses door-to-door ministry, their most effective tools are their publications. Two publications dominate--The Watchtower and Awake!, which are distributed by Witnesses through their door to door “evangelism.” The Watchtower is the more theological of the two, for in it are found doctrinal treatises and historical reviews of how the Witness movement developed . The other major publication of the Society is The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, completed in 1960. Hoekema writes of this “translation” that it “is by no means an objective rendering of the sacred text into modern English, but is a biased translation in which many of the peculiar teachings of the Watchtower Society are smuggled into the text of the Bible itself.” Witnesses are aggressive and passionate in their use of this translation.
The Theology of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
God. Jehovah’s Witnesses reject God as trinity. God is one (called Jehovah) and the first being he created was Jesus Christ, who then created everything else. The Holy Spirit is an impersonal and active force of Jehovah.
Jesus Christ. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Jesus, while in heaven, was the archangel Michael, but that Jehovah, after creating him as Jesus Christ, made the physical universe through him. He lived a perfect life on earth and after dying on a stake (not a cross), he was resurrected as a spirit and his body was destroyed. Jesus is “a god,” not the God.
Scripture. As mentioned in the historical review above, the writings of the founder and early leaders (Russell and Rutherford) are important for the foundational teachings of this cult. However, today Witnesses also depend on the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures and their magazine publications, The Watchtower and Awake!, to guide their thinking about doctrine and theology. The result is that they teach the Bible cannot be understood without the guidance of the Zion Watchtower Society.
Salvation. The first step for Witnesses is that they be baptized as a Jehovah’s Witness. But the core teaching of Witnesses is that followers merit everlasting life through “door-to-door” promotion of Witness beliefs. However, eternal life in heaven is limited to 144,000 “anointed ones” who have already been chosen by Jehovah. The remaining Witnesses who merit Jehovah’s favor through their works will spend eternity on the rejuvenated earth, not in heaven.
See James P. Eckman, The Truth About Worldviews: A Biblical Understanding of Worldview Alternatives, pp. 95-104. |
