Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses are a controversial Christian denomination founded in the 1870s by Charles Taze Russell.

Russell's successor, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, oversaw the transition of their organization from a congregationalist structure into a centrally organized structure. The members are known for their racially diverse, close-knit brotherhood and door-to-door evangelizing. This form of proselytizing in particular has brought the organization into conflict with a number of other religious groups, who view the Witnesses with suspicion.

Doctrines

The doctrines (beliefs) of the movement are an exceptionally complex issue, as they have changed substantially ever since the religion was created. Critics of the Jehovah's Witnesses note the tendency of official Witness books to rewrite history in order to deny that any changes have ever taken place. Thus, all claims made on this subject, by both Witnesses and non-Witnesses alike, must be taken as provisional, and should be compared with the best available evidence, including scans of original copies of Church documents (some of which are not publicly available and have been suppressed, but some of which have been made public.)

Jehovah's Witnesses view themselves as a Christian movement. However, mainstream Christian denominations outside of this movement have rejected this claim, holding that the movement is non-Christian in content and practice. Jehovah's Witnesses reject the classical Christian idea of the Trinity, and reject all formulations of the Nicene Creed. Instead, they espouse a form of Arianism and explicitly affirm the teachings of Arius, which were rejected by the First Ecumenical Council and Second Ecumenical Council.

The Witnesses call their churches "Kingdom Halls", to indicate that the place itself is not sacred, but that the gathering of the congregation inside it is. They do not pass a collection plate around or directly solicit money in church. They have a culture of donating money privately and voluntarily, as each individual sees fit. Their most distinctive beliefs are a historical premillenialism (see Eschatology), an interpretation of the year 1914 as marking the return of Christ as a King in heaven, and an Arianism christology. Their theology is Henotheism.

They derive their doctrine in a rigorous fashion from two axioms: the first, that a Creator exists and is characterized by love, justice, wisdom, and power. The second axiom is that the Bible is the only current communication from the creator, Jehovah, to humankind. Their teachings are spread through two monthly journals, published simultaneously in many languages; Awake! (in more than 80 languages) is a general-interest magazine covering many topics, and the Watchtower (in 130+ languages) focuses mainly on doctrine. They firmly believe in free will. They are encouraged to read the Bible regularly, to meditate on it, and to apply it in their lives.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in a soul that is separate from the body. This has several consequences for their beliefs about the afterlife. They believe that people who die merely cease to exist. Counter-balancing this, they believe that God can and will restore a small number of people to life and that God's intention is for humans to eventually live forever in a state of robust and perfect physical health on earth.

The Witnesses believe that a group of 144,000 Christians, chosen through the ages since Christ's death, will be or have been restored to life in the form of spirit beings and will rule with Christ in heaven after the event known as Armageddon. They believe that all other human beings will be restored to life (resurrected) in the thousand-year period directly after Armageddon, known as Judgement Day?. During Judgement Day, God will provide a new communication to humankind which will supersede the Bible and will gradually restore all humans to a state of physical perfection. By the end of that time, all individuals will make clear their choice to submit to God or not. The ones that do not will die again without hope of future resurrection.

The leaders of the movement predicted that the end of the world would occur in 1914. This was not merely suggested as a possibility, but was held as a mandatory doctrine of belief. When the world failed to end, they recalculated the end of the world to be in 1918. When this failed to occur, they recalculated this date again, and again. Each time this was held to be a belief that Witnesses must accept. Further predictions for the end of the world were set for 1920, 1925, and 1975. After the last date passed without note, the movement changed its theology, and began teaching that one should not attempt to set a firm date for the end of the world. Since then a mood of historical revisionism has set in among their religious publications; many more recently published works now deny that the previous claims for the end of the world were ever to be held as a matter of doctrine. The newer, current beliefs are that only God and Jesus know the time for Armageddon, and that a Christian should be prepared for the event to happen at any moment.

They use a translation of the Bible that they commissioned in the early twentieth century, known as the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. In making this translation, they held that the common text of the Bible had approximately 50,000 errors, and thus many changes needed to be made in order to correct the Biblical text. (Source: Awake! volume XXXVIII, number 17, Sept. 8, 1957). The majority of Christian groups, and most Jewish scholars, hold that the large numbers of changes they made had no historical or biblical basis, and were merely made to support new beliefs that had developed in the movement. One such example is their translation of John 1:1, where they refer to the Word as "a god", rather than the translation "God" preferred by many English-language versions of the Bible.

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum details the persecution of this group in Germany between 1870 and 1936. In summary, because Jehovah's Witnesses would not give allegiance to the Nazi party, and refused to serve in the military, they were put in the concentration camps. Interestingly, they were unique in that they had a choice in their persecution, unlike the Jews and Gypsies who were persecuted for perceived racial reasons. If they would submit to the state authority and serve in the military they would be free to go. They did attempt to work with the Nazis to end the persecution, by explaining their beliefs and political neutrality. The letter stated that Jehovah's Witnesses "have no interest in political affairs, but are wholly devoted to God's Kingdom under Christ His King." This effort met with intensified persecution of this group. Refer to article linked above for specifics. During the same time period this group was also persecuted in the United States for similar reasons, mainly because they refused to serve in the military.

Controversial issues

Jehovah's Witnesses have frequently been involved in legal controversy over their uncompromising stands on many issues. They refuse to salute flags, to pledge allegiance to states, to serve in military organizations, and to receive blood transfusions. All of these acts are disallowed by their faith. However, they do go to great lengths to seek medical treatment without blood, and the medical community has taken notice of this area of study. Their stand against vaccination was equally uncompromising from 1931 to 1952, but vaccination is now permitted; organ transplants were banned by their faith from 1967 to 1980, but organ transplants are now permitted. Blood transfusions have been banned from 1945 to the present, and that ban remains in effect.

Jehovah's Witnesses try to protect their unity and cohesiveness by shunning? members who reject the core aspects of their religion and morality. Shunning, called "disfellowshipping" by the Witnesses, is widely protested against by critics of the religion, though the organization states that the form of shunning they practice is much less extreme than that of the Old Order Amish. Shunning by the Witnesses is often not permanent. Shunned individuals who still want to associate with the Witnesses are often reinstated after a period of 8 or more months. Jehovah's Witnesses point to passages in the Gospel to support this practice.

The Jehovah's Witnesses adopted their current name in 1931. They were originally known as "Bible Students". During the transition period under Rutherford, a group split off keeping this original name or becoming known as Russelites. Jehovah's Witness headquarters are located in Brooklyn, New York. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., functions as their main legal representative. As of the year 2001, Jehovah's Witnesses claim a world-wide membership of more than 6.1 million active individuals.

External Links

Pro-Jehovah's Witnesses information

Opposing Views

The Watchtower Observer - by former Witnesses
Watchman Fellowship