WHAT HAPPENS When A Lawyer Starts His OWN RELIGION?

 By Terry Walstrom(JWN)

First, Pastor Russell had joined Adventist bible students in their enthusiam for End Times chronologies.
Next, Russell teamed up with leading Adventist thinkers like George Storrs and Barbour to publish these chronologies and apologies.
Finally, Russell used his private wealth to cut and paste ideas from all over the religious map into his own peculiar name-brand version of Adventism which included pyramidology.
Local congregations kept autonomy. Russell would have it no other way. But, Russell had died in 1916.

Judge Rutherford crept in to wrest control of the Watchtower for himself and begin a new agenda which would transform local congregations of bible students into a cult of mind-controlled salesmen serving a religion of Business Organization.

This is what happened.
Rutherford's key strategy succeeded in wresting a personality cult (Pastor Russell) away from "creature worship" and transforming it into a business concern or Organization which could claim and demand loyalty in terms of statistical productivity (preaching and book sales.)
If you produce you get more responsibility. If your productivity wanes, you get fired. (Disfellowshipped.)

ORGANIZATION to Jehovah's Witnesses is serving a faceless corporation headed by God himself who keeps them on permanent probation whereby they may be fired (destroyed at Armageddon) if they don't keep their productivity at maximum and loyalty as unquestionable.

The transformation was dramatic and sinister, taking these former Adventists from being cast-off apostates of mainstream christian churches to followers of a charismatic ex-clothing store owner and, finally, captives of a man hellbent on creating a cult of complete and utter mind control.
Under Adventism, after the failures of William Miller's predictions and other johnny-come-lately end times guessers, sincere christians with a knack for believing seemingly ironclad chronologies found themselves in local congregations with autonomy beyond the control of any central authority.
Indeed, Pastor Russell would have it no other way! He himself experienced an evolution of sorts from Presbyterian to Congregationalist to Adventist and, finally, inventor of his own domain.
Russell would brook no central organization! Like the other Adventists who followed his writings, the Pastor identified the Roman Catholic Church with the "whore of Babylon" and would have no authoritarian organization such as it was invading his christian freedom.
But, Russell died and J.F.Rutherford squeezed himself in gradually to Russell's shoes under Russell's teachings...just long enough to secure himself and begin changing everything he could lay his hands on!

In 1932, Rutherford finally did away with the local, elected elders. For a time, many elders had been opposed to the growing emphasis on the preaching and book-selling work that took up more and more of the movement’s focus. Even though Rutherford had weakened their positions by centrally appointing special ‘service directors’ responsible for magazine sale, in theory a congregation was still independent and chose its own pastors, or elders. The main articles in The Watch Tower for August 15 and September 1, 1932 should put an end to that. The elders were for a time replaced by a special service committee still elected locally, but in 1938 this arrangement was also replaced by one in which the leadership were centrally appointed. While the JWs reestablished a form of elder arrangement again in the early 1970s, these were – and are – centrally appointed.

When the Bible Students group began to form around Russell and his teachings, Russell made clear his opposition to creating any Central Governing Body.
Each congregation of Bible Students, Millennial Dawn fellows or Russellites elected their elders and leaders locally by vote and not by appeal to Russell.
This continued until 1938!

Russell died in 1916 and J.F.Rutherford commenced a long range effort of consolidating power under himself alone as leader.
Rutherford's scheme for control was in three parts.

1.Get himself elected to the Board of Directors and make other administrators mere puppets and rubber stamp committees.
2.Appoint traveling "service directors" as organizers, sales trainers and magazine promoters. (Much like later Circuit Servants.)
3.Replacing local election and control with a centrally appointed leadership and elder arrangement.

Russell's faithful followers were united in hatred for the Roman Catholic church and its central authority and organization. Previously, as Adventists, they had railed against the RC church as "the whore of Babylon".
For J.F.Rutherford to go against Russell's view of central authority and "organization" he had to overcome a huge built-in abhorrence in the local congregations.

This began in earnest in 1938 (the year before WWII commenced in Europe.)
Rutherford’s control of the headquarters and publishing arm had been undisputed since the early 1920s at latest. Now he also had a direct control into the lives of every Jehovah’s Witness. Rutherford decided what they should learn at the meetings – less devotional and more commercial than ever – and what they should sell and say.

Rutherford also told JWs that ‘character building’; emphasis on personal Christian qualities, virtue and morality was quite unimportant and indeed a form of ‘creature worship.’ It is very illustrative to look up the word ‘adultery’ in the Watch Tower Publications Index 1930-1985.
(Here you will not find a single reference to sexual adultery anywhere in the WTS literature before 1947. Later, in the 1950s, and until this day, articles denouncing all sorts of sexual sins flourished. In Rutherford’s vernacular, the word ‘adultery’ was reserved for his opponents’ religious sins.)
Under Rutherford a crackdown on controlling the personal behavior of local congregations began after the embarrassment of 1925 failed to produce a resurrection of "ancient worthies" as Rutherford had predicted.
Rutherford's obsessive preoccupation with tightening the screws on every person involved in his empire ratcheted up from 1926 onward commencing with the eradication of birthday celebrations (denounced as pagan).
******* ****** ********

Birthdays and practically all religious celebrations were condemned as of ‘pagan origin.’ The Bible Students celebrated Christmas for the last time in 1926 (Proclaimers 200; Yearbook 1975, 147-9). The cross, until then an almost universal symbol for Christianity, was rejected as a pagan symbol. The Watchtower Society has since then insisted that Jesus was executed on an upright ‘torture stake’ without a crossbeam.

Rutherford could bend non-ambiguous scriptures into corkscrews in order to enforce his personal interpretation of how things should be done.

This trend towards a growing alienation & hostility towards the world culminated in Rutherford’s reinterpretation of Romans chapter 13, published in The Watchtower, June 1 and June 15, 1929. Here Rutherford insisted that the "higher authorities" to which Christians should subject could not be the earthly authorities. These "higher authorities," he argued, had to be God and Christ. This only increased the Bible Student’s hostility towards the secular state, which was now openly denounced as demonic (Penton 1985, 65).

Clearly and forcefully J.F.Rutherford had taken a small group of Adventist bible students enamoured of Pastor Russell's chronology and pyramidology and compacted them into a mind-control cult obsessed with proper behavior and adherence to rules, regulations and quirky interpretations from a central authority.
Under Rutherford, the almost "universal salvation" beliefs and teachings of Pastor Russell darkened into a vicious and vindictive ideology of blood and destruction.

Perhaps the most striking turnaround in JW doctrine in this period was Rutherford’s view of salvation compared to Russell’s. Russell was very close to teaching universal salvation and was not at all eager to condemn people to destruction (the existence of hell, we remember, he dismissed). Rutherford, perhaps partly due to the persecution he had experienced in the war years, should take a much stricter view of salvation. Gradually he came to argue that only Jehovah’s Witnesses had any real chance of surviving Armageddon, Jehovah’s war against Satan and – in effect – mankind. A part of this was Rutherford’s new doctrine about "The Vindication of Jehovah’s Name," still a central tenet of JW beliefs. Unlike Russell, who held that the redemption was the central doctrine, Rutherford preached that God’s vindication, by wiping out his enemies Old Testament-style in a large battle, was more important than individual salvation.

Between Rutherford and his crony C.J.Woodworth, the Watchtower and the Golden Age (Awake!) began publishing anti-medical anti-science articles fomenting radical faddist notions and downright crackpot denunciations.

(There was a limit, however. Woodworth, the eccentric editor of The Golden Age, found that limit when he, in 1935, tried to persuade Rutherford and the JW community to abandon pagan month and day names. Rutherford harshly censured and ridiculed Woodworth in front of the whole ‘Bethel family,’ a spectacle that shocked many who may nevertheless have agreed with the sanity of Rutherford’s decision to not force such a radical change (Penton 1985, 66-7).

Woodworth was second only to Rutherford as an important influence on the JWs in this period.
One oddity about him was his burning hatred for medical professionals. He considered the compulsory vaccination programs a Satanic and commercial conspiracy to weaken Christians by introducing animalistic tissue into their veins, and he even rejected the germ theory of disease, preferring strange ‘electronic’ and ‘radio’ based apparatus instead. Actually, the Watchtower Society at one time marketed and sold alternative ‘medicine’ through The Golden Age. The only part of these ideas that remain in the JW organization and culture is the blood prohibition – which still gives the movement tragic headlines in the press worldwide – and perhaps a tendency among JWs today to be preoccupied with homeopathy and other ‘alternative’ quasi-medical procedures.

The downward spiral of madness, cult control, anti-science and hatred of other religions mark the Jehovah's Witnesses of this period as followers of lunatics who, themselves, were anti-social misfits hellbent on putting their thumb in the eye of every OTHER authority on earth!

Further, the doctrinal changes Rutherford ordered were often based on whim, personal animus and pressure from reality threatening to disprove the Judge's theology.

For example:
Under Russell the 144,000 little flock were glorified resurrected Christians who went to heaven along with non-glorified Great Crowd Christians who also went to heaven.
Rutherford saw his membership figures climbing beyond 60,000 and threatening to exceed 144,000.
This would be embarrassing. Consequently, a doctrinal change or "new light" emerged making the Great Crowd an earthly group of Jehovah's Witnesses distinct in kind and nature from the heavenly anointed.

Now, in 1935, Rutherford changed this doctrine and started to teach that the members of the ‘Great Multitude class were all followers of the Watchtower movement, but they would be saved to live eternally on paradise Earth. It was the duty of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, then, to preach to all people and ‘harvest’ this ‘Great Multitude class.’ That there was any possible salvation outside the Watchtower movement was thus finally denied. Somewhat later, the term ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ should come to include this secondary class as well.

What does this signal? The CULT was fully formed as an "Only JW's will survive Armageddon" group of True Believers!

Pastor Russell took personal pride in self-financing his preoccupation of publishing due to his private fortunate. Rutherford, however, had no such money at hand.
Rutherford schemed to control local congregations and turn the membership into salesmen collecting funds from householders and passersby through peddling his books (of which there was an unending stream.)
Thus, the worldwide evangelizing work began in earnest as a way for Rutherford to establish cash flow and make his megalomanical empire financially sound.

Russell’s productivity of publications was no match for Rutherford’s. The first major bestseller, The Finished Mystery, was marketed as Russell’s posthumous book. Already in 1920 Rutherford managed to create his own first major international bestseller, the booklet Millions Now Living Will Never Die. Already the next year came The Harp of God, a book that would eventually reach a circulation of 5,819,037 copies in 22 languages.

As a lawyer steeped in legalism and terminology, Rutherford chose the name witnesses to construe a testimony in a Universal court on behalf of Jehovah. But, his worldwide witnessing was for cash which began flowing into the coffers of his enterprise with himself in sole control.
Rutherford's key strategy succeeded in wresting a personality cult (Pastor Russell) away from "creature worship" and transforming it into a business concern or Organization which could claim and demand loyalty in terms of statistical productivity (preaching and book sales.)
If you produce you get more responsibility. If your productivity wanes, you get fired. (Disfellowshipped.)

ORGANIZATION to Jehovah's Witnesses is serving a faceless corporation headed by God himself who keeps them on permanent probation whereby they may be fired (destroyed at Armageddon) if they don't keep their productivity at maximum and loyalty as unquestionable.

( The above information is distilled from the Master's Thesis of Jan S. Haugland http://home.broadpark.no/~jhauglan/rutherford.htm )

7 Million Jehovah's Witnesses Wasting 10 Hours Every Month.

 By Terry Walstrom\JWN

What IF...
What IF Jehovah's Witnesses spent their 70 million hours on something BETTER than cartoon theology distribution?

Would this world be better served by:

1.Feeding the hungry?
2.Visiting the sick?
3.Providing for the elderly?
4.Attending to widows and orphans?
5.Building hospitals?
6.Creating women's shelters?
7.Volunteering as a "Big Brother" or "Big Sister"?
8.Comforting those afflicted by natural disasters?
9.Helping the addicted break their addictions?
10.Creating a food bank?

BUT NO--- 70 MILLION PRECIOUS HOURS THAT COULD MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE is squandered on trivia, posturing theological blather and end of the world ranting instead!

IF JW'S AREN'T PART OF THE SOLUTION........
...............................THEY MUST BE PART OF THE PROBLEM!

Trivia About The History Of The Beloved Governing Body.

 By Terry Walstrom\JWN

The very first legal Governing Body of (Jehovah's Witnesses) Bible Students were seven persons which included Pastor C.T.Russell, his wife Maria, and his controversial ward, Rose Ball.

Five men and two women. These seven persons were also the Directors of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. This group set policies and practices for the rest of the religious followers of Pastor Russell. Until the 1970's this group was always composed of the Board of Directors. Afterward, in 1971, the Governing Body enlarged to eleven men appointed by Society President Nathan Knorr.

The presiding chairman rotated annually in alphabetical order.
The purpose of this body expanded to include not only the "present understanding" of theology of Jehovah's Witnesses, but the establishment of a body of rules and policies of ever-increasing minutia in regards to behavior on the part of the membership world wide.

By 1976 the Governing Body grew to dominate oversight of six committees which carried the entire load of administration for the international religious practices of Kingdom Halls. Until that change, the President of the Society was the autonomous administrator.

In the year 2000 the Board of Directors no longer automatically constituted the Governing Body. At that time a complete changeover occurred in delegating administration away from the President and Board to outside corporate heads. The President of the Society was no longer even a member of the Governing Body. The membership began with seven and has fluctuated to nine, twelve and even eighteen persons over the years.

Today the corporate heads, who are Governing Body members, recommend policies, appointments and changes to suit their needs. Of the six overseeing committees, non-anointed secretaries and assistants may join in the meetings as helpers.

Originally, Pastor Russell and his wife, Maria, were the "twain" who constituted the "faithful and discreet slave". Russell broke away from his wife to become the sole "slave" through whom it was asserted Jehovah's Truth was revealed. The Watchtower magazine and the books penned by Pastor Russell served up "food" to the membership at the proper time for it to be read, understood and followed.
___________________________________________________
CONTROVERSY!
Russell left detailed instruction as to who he, wanted to follow him as Directors of the Watchtower Society.

These instructions were violated by the next president, Joseph (Judge) Rutherford. Rutherford maneuvered himself into the sole controlling power position and left the others as non-functioning figureheads.
Pastor Russell deliberately left local congregations autonomous and completely free of central control by the Society itself. Rutherford saw fit to reverse this policy.

Pastor Russell wanted no membership lists to obtain or tests of orthodoxy to be held over the congregations. Rutherford reversed this policy as well.
Judge Rutherford allowed Russell to be understood as the "faithful slave" until such a time as he entrenched his powers and controls over the membership. At such a time the understanding of the doctrine of "faithful slave" morphed into the exact opposite of what Pastor Russell and his wife originally described.
_____________________________________________________

The religion of Jehovah's Witnesses is a hierarchy. Senior elders in local Bethels control the religion and its policies and practices much the same as bishops and cardinals guide the practices of Catholicism.
In 1931 the legal name of the religion changed to Jehovah's Witnesses from that of International Bible Students Association.

As many as 75% of the membership split away from the religion as a result of Judge Rutherford's takeover and policy changes. The faithful members who would not accept Rutherford's claims of anointing and spiritual headship remain as a group today.
The offices, publications and official journal was completely controlled by Rutherford as a result of his legal moves to usurp Russell's legacy. The membership roles he obtained through his traveling agents and the strong arm enforcement strategies he brought to bear on outlying congregations forced a series of reckonings. Rutherford branded any who would not comply with his power and authority as Apostates.

These "Apostates" remained autonomous as Russell had wanted them. Today they are known variously as Associated Bibles Students and Steadfast Bible Students.
                       What legal maneuver did Rutherford use to wrest control from the board setup by Pastor Russell?

Rutherford contended that the membership of the Board had never been confirmed by vote at the annual corporation meeting. This left them vulnerable to dismissal by Rutherford's legal opinion; he being the legal spokesman for said Society.
This interpretation was never tested in court, but, the application to Rutherford himself would logically and necessarily apply as well! Rutherford was never confirmed by vote either!
Rutherford proceeded to use the Society's printing facilities to set forth his personal views and side of the controversy in direct violation of Pastor Russell's express wishes that nothing be launched in publication after his death. By this time, Judge Rutherford had compiled a mailing list of the membership and directed his campaign of persuasion in personal attacks on four members of the existing committee of Directors. Subsequently, Rutherford fired the four and appointed his own choices to fill the empty positions.

The four dismissed members published their own rebuttals using their own resources and money, but; without the mailing list to guide their arguments their claims largely fell silent. Rutherford had the assets and monies of the Watchtower corporation at hand to win lawsuits if such should arise. The injured parties had no such equivalent wealth or legal standing to continue their fight.

Under the Judge, membership of the Board of Directors was a name-only position for everyone involved but himself. He did as he pleased and the members were told afterward as a rubber stamp function.
For all practical purposes, it was Judge Rutherford's authoritarian coup which set the standard for the monolithic legalism which grew by leaps and bounds ever afterward.

Instead of a religious group of bible students joined in mutual equality and autonomy; the corporate takeover of the Society's assets blossomed into a world wide sounding board for one man's ever stranger opinionating and prejudices.

The bombastic, excoriating series of books and articles which began to emanate from Pastor Russell's bible society, under the leadership of Judge Rutherford, dramatically established a new era of controversy, acrimony and public defiance.

So, unhinged was Rutherford's rampant takeover that he landed the board of Directors in prison shortly afterward for counseling members of the armed forces to lay down their weapons and leave the battlefield.
This began an endless series of clashes with government, churches and society itself which can only be characterized as a rampage of egotism.

From those days forward, Rutherford's policies and dictum's took on a flavor of legalism that devolved into nitpicking behavior controls. Authoritarianism, threats, controls, legalism and outright bullying shaped the remaining 25% of Russell's original faithful few into a feisty culture of contrarian vigilantes willing to march into hell for the Judge's spoken commands.

Members began to be viewed as troublemakers instead of bible students. They insulted churches, pastors, Christianity, government, the military, holidays and even treasured customs in an effort to be noticed as holier-than-thou.

You had to be tough, feisty and cocksure to make it through those years. Those who did and lived to tell about it were the hardcore evangelists who went to extremes to bring in the next generation of misfits, upstarts and know-it-alls who would expand the membership from thousands into millions worldwide.
Today, the Watchtower Society is run with the same basic hierarchy structure as the Catholic Church. The chief difference being the tradition behind the theology has changed almost daily at the whim of the Governing leaders.

 

The TOPIC Which May Never Be Discussed!

 By Terry Walstrom\JWN

 

 

Question: How does the leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses instruct its members to prepare for the eventual Elder Care of its members?

Answer: IT PRETENDS it will never happen!

Is this responsible leadership or some kind of cognitive dissonant malfeasance?
It is deliberate social policy based on conscious FRAUD.

Beginning in 1920 the Watchtower religion has deliberately misinformed its membership that they will not only never grow old, but, they will actually never die!


This LIE has had consequences! 
The most glaring consequence is that every single person who died since that message has REFUTED the lie!

 Jehovah's faithful Witness member in good standing ages, grows feeble, has no social provision for elder care and becomes an impoverished burden on his or her family!
Illness and infirmity are real while the Watchtower promises are very false.

This is the "invisible" Elephant in the room.
It is a double tragedy.

Why?

Young members have been discouraged from Youth to avoid Higher Education. This makes them low wage earners.  They are told they will not need to worry about growing old. So, their likely saving for elder care, buying insurance and investing in their own future is vanishingly small.

The only Social Instrument for providing for actual human needs is ILLUSORY promises based on false hope.

Jehovah's Witnesses are certain of only one sure thing: they grow old, sick and totally dependent on help that IS NOT PROVIDED by their own religious organization!

So, the question must be asked simply out of humanity, consideration and fellow feeling: WHY ISN'T THERE ANY HELP?

ANSWER:  the Watchtower leaders DON'T GIVE A DAMN!

John 13:35, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
The "identifying mark of true Christianity" is a long long way from the doorway of any Kingdom Hall, indeed.

 

Shocking Jehovah's Witness convention talk telling parents to shun children

The Self-Made PARADOX Of "Witnessing" Without Television Or Radio.

By Terry Walstrom\JWN.

 

 What if I asserted the following as true?


The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has no interest in an effective evangelical program of conversion.

Would that sound silly? Aren't they all about knocking doors and placing magazines for bible study?


Yes.

However: those two are not one and the same.

An event, such as the collapse of the twin towers in New York on nine eleven, could be seen AS IT HAPPENED by anybody who was near a television screen. Instant communication has been with us for decades.

If Jehovah's Witnesses believe they have the most important and urgent message in all of history; why do they deliberately choose to use the least effective means of delivering that message?


Statistically, (using the Watchtower's own figures) it takes 1000's of hours of door to door preaching to create one convert!

 What is wrong with this picture?

1. 
   How many preaching hours does it take to convert a person to a Jehovah's Witness?

   
   
   
   

WHAT IS THE ACTUAL PURPOSE BEHIND THE JW MINISTRY?

In 1884 Charles Taze Russell applied for incorporation for his association "Zion's Watch Tower Society". He stressed the limitations of the corporation in the following manner:
"Zion's Watch Tower Society is not a 'religious society' in the ordinary meaning of the term; for it has no creed or confession of Faith. It is purely a business association, whose mission is to serve in a business manner the wishes of its beneficiaries, who are represented in its officers"



Russell's successor, Rutherford, published wild claims using the corporation's presses:


"The corporate body - the WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, which Pastor Russell formed to finish his work. This verse shows that, though Pastor Russell has passed beyond the veil, he is still managing every feature of the harvest work."

 Rutherford penned an article of extreme controversy titled The Birth of The Nation. The editorial committee would not approve it. Ruthford moved swiftly to remove them! The absent men's names, however, still appeared in the Watchtower magazine as though the were still functioning until 1931.


Now that Rutherford controlled absolutely the "faithful and discreet slave" throne of dictatorial supremacy with the corporation he could now plot the takeover of local congregations (called ecclesias) to wield his will there as well.


On the local level all deacons and elders were elected by voting. Since Russell did not believe in religious organization as such there existed no lists of membership at all. Slyly, Rutherford moved to change all that. From 1919 onward the local congregations were asked to register as service organizations with the Watchtower Society. Nothing drastic, right?


Next, Rutherford appointed a Service Director (not subject to yearly election) as an arm of the Brooklyn oversight to function at the local level. Rutherford's man on the scene could usurp local control in this way by "helpfully" organizing the preaching work, assigning territory and encouraging participation in the field work in the congregation.


NOTE CAREFULLY:

Thus, the actual purpose of the door to door work was a ruse to link up Judge Rutherford with complete autonomy over local congregations under the pretense of making the preaching work more organized.

This plan carried with it Rutherford's de-emphasis of local public discourses from scripture. These were replaced by studies of Rutherford's organ of propaganda in the form of Watchtower Studies. Instead of referencing the bible per se, it was the fantasy mindset of one man, Judge Rutherford, who would be indoctrinating the former Bible Students with his own peculiar brand of humbuggery. The purpose of all this, as we have seen, was consolidating personal power. But, to do what?


Interestingly, the system of local elective elders was completely eradicated and replaced by something now called a service committee. These men took their marching orders from the throne room in Brooklyn, NY.


The book CONSOLATION (penned by Rutherford) says this: (Consolation 1940 p.25)

"The Theocracy is at present administered by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, of which Judge Rutherford is the president and general manager."

 

History shows that Rutherford embarked upon a plan which included:

1.Replacing the theology of C.T. Russell (mainly concerned with Adventist demonstrations) with his own.


2.Turning the Watchtower into a personal blog filled with crackpot ideas, schemes, poison-pen fulminations, rants and speculations dressed up as prophecy.

3.Creating a method of churning publicity out of throwing people of conscience willy-nilly into dangerous situations. (Avoiding military service, refusing blood transfusions, ridiculing other religions, railing against political parties, refusals to salute the flag, decrying the cross, etc.)

4.Renaming his Frankenstein monster of a religion Jehovah's Witnesses revealing his penchant for awkward phraseology.

Rutherford used religion as a bludgeon. Rutherford used people within this religion as weapons and victims to demonstrate the extreme reach of his ID.

How many honest and innocent believers were injured, killed, imprisoned, mocked, persecuted or otherwise maltreated because of Rutherford's mania for spectacle? It is difficult to know. The aim of the Watchtower Society was the purpose of Rutherford: become a famous religion with him at the helm.

Today it is easy for any Hollywood celebrity to capture headlines by engaging in some outrageous act of indecency or personal tragedy. But, in Rutherford's day, he discovered this process and used it for his own personal celebrity by capturing the attention of astonished churchgoers around the globe. He insulted ordinary believers, ridiculed them and flung pretzel-logic scriptures in their faces. He held up his own army of faithful slaves, Jehovah's (i.e. Rutherford's) Witnesses as willing to march into the jaws of hell if he told them to. It was the ultimate high for a megalomaniac drunk on power (and often alcohol)!


With Rutherford's death a change occurred. Nathan Knorr took over the helm of this Society; this Organization called The Watchtower.


A new invention took place at this time. A new terminology was introduced as if by magic: THE GOVERNING BODY.

Seven men became a Board of Directors of a Corporation disguised as a religion. This corporation/religion visibly existed for the purpose of making an urgent messege available as effectively as possible: Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom as having arrived in 1914 and warning of the impending event Armageddon.


However..........


This Corporation was made legal in its already existing powers for another purpose entirely. Corporations acquire legitimacy by earning a profit. In the case of a religious corporation the "profit" must not appear as mere monetary gain. There has to be a public service aspect to generating millions of dollars that will escape taxation! Ordinary coporations must demonstrate to the Board of Directors that cash flow is equitable to investors and a justifiable return on investment has been made. The Watchtower Corporation had to generate a kind of marvelous "machine" you could pour money into and make it disappear in the form of the preaching work.

CONSTANT EXPANSION was the key!

What was the purpose? POWER INVESTMENT!

REAL ESTATE!

The Watchtower was a corporate Donald Trump. It could grow dollars and not have to pay taxes on them. It could point to a worldwide work as evidence of money well spent (which wasn't really "spent" at all.) It could account for the cash flow by pointing to new projects in development and new acquisitions ostensibly for more and more publishing effort.

Further, every once and awhile a GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE would have to be run. This would be in the form of date setting.

Date setting (determining when Armageddon was to arrive) was an Investment.

The publicity was golden. The threat level was heightened. The cash flow was extraordinary. The need for more investment property increased. The grip of absolute power was made real.

The downside was practically nil!!

Whatever number of members who balked and left in disgust; the upside was greater! How so?

1.Only the "weaker" members would leave and that is no loss at all.

 
2.The disfellowshipping would serve as a warning to other members and make threats appear very real.

3.An outside body of Apostates could be created as a target for villification that served to drain off anger as a target away from the Governing Body itself. This Apostate group would feel the brunt of frustrations and not the actual perpetrator's of date-setting fraud.

 
4.A mindset of cognitive dissonance would be reinforced because anybody who stayed would have to justify being made a fool of for believing in the Faithful and Discreet Slave nonsense in the first place.

5.Any slowdown in the worldwide conversions would be a bonus since it would "signal the end" of the preaching work was drawing near and that would mean Armageddon really was imminent!

 

But, there was a fly in the ointment.

As we have seen the purpose of the Governing Body is to generate investment capital through real estate ventures. A TV ministry would dry up that money machine quickly by generating a high-profile examination on the part of the newly well-informed public.
An actual full-frontal presentation of the weirdness behind JW thinking would kill the vague persona of citizen do-gooders who clean up after themselves at conventions. The scrutiny would become intensely focused on Brooklyn NY and the actual men who are power brokers on the throne of power.

TOO MUCH PUBLICITY in the age of the internet is a TWO-EDGED SWORD.

Publicity has served the corporate purpose when they can frame that publicity as Kingdom Work. Publicity of a different nature could destroy them!

The lawsuits and exposure by internet sites dredging up failed prophecy and policy waffling are a sore point. Governing Body power can only deal with rank and file unrest by clamping down with threats and a tightening grip. It cannot control non-members curiosity. It cannot ignore penetrating questions of authority by threats if the press starts bombarding them with high-profile questions hanging in the air unanswered.

That is why there is no TV ministry for Jehovah's Witnesses.
It is a kind of self-fashioned paradox that the Watchtower claims to be heralding an important and urgent message and yet demonstrates an absolute horror of making that message public effectively by using the best technology available.

 

The Totally BOGUS Idea Of CERTAINTY Inside The Watchtower Religion.

 By Terry Walstrom\JWN

I'm going to ask a question and it is a very simple question.
Think about it before you answer.  Ok? Are you ready?

Would Jehovah's Witnesses be a better religion if they were more honest and relaxed about how CERTAIN they are about their teachings?

Wouldn't some HUMILITY go a long, long way? (I mean, in view of the fact they have been so often dead wrong!)

Instead of being know-it-alls and having this (what amounts to being an) ERROR MACHINE called the Faithful and Discreet Slave with a hotline to heaven on their desk---they could simply be searching, diligent seekers-of-Truth.  But no. Instead they wanna be bigshots.

Isn't the real problem the POSE and PRETENSE of correctness and authority to tell everybody what to think and say and do??
Isn't pretending to KNOW what they are just GUESSING AT the fly in everybody's soup?
Of course it is!

Being right is what grants them their Authority.
And think about this, please......haven't they had a hundred years to prove or disprove whether they KNOW or are just GUESSING?

Say that out loud, please. Say it along with me now:
Hasn't the Governing Body had a hundred years to prove or disprove whether they KNOW or are just GUESSING?

Well, of course they have. It was only a thesis and has NEVER BEEN PROVED to be correct!
Let's clarify why this is so. Let's make no mistake about it.

This lot of very proud and convinced men in power are fooling themselves and fooling each other while they are fooling 7 million followers.
Plan and simple.  They claim to know what they have only been guessing incorrectly about.
This pretense has forced them to keep fine tuning and changing and worrying the wording of some rather peculiar teachings over the years.
It is their insistence on being CORRECT that is so galling and egotistical and proud. The statistic don't support their claims.
There is NO EVIDENCE to corroborate the idea they are being led by Almighty God toward a better understanding of End Times than anybody else.

If you go to the Wiki page on "Christian eschatology" you can review the hundreds of personal interpretations currently offered by the greatest minds
in Christianity.  They are competing for the mantle of TRUTH along with the Watchtower.  None is better or worse.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_of_Christian_eschatological_differences

What made Charles Taze Russell stand out among the men of his day was two distinct features.
1.He was rich, owned his own publishing business, was well-spoken and confident
2.He had a knack for pumping up the volume on End Times speculations as though they were certain.
Russell pretended he KNEW what he was only GUESSING about!

We can now say he was guessing because we are looking back on history.  The remains of Russells publishing empire (under Rutherford) made the same error no matter how many adjustments were tried again and again.
Rutherford changed, tweaked, adjusted, renamed and reshaped the Russell publishing business as a new religion of Jehovah's Witnesses.
But, Rutherford was JUST AS WRONG while insisting he was absolutely right.

The history of this Watchtower Religion is that it won't let go of its own SELF-IMPORTANT CLAIMS now proved totally bogus!
Next year it will be 2014.  ONE HUNDRED YEARS of false dates, doctrinal tampering and embarassing public humiliations to examine as proof.
They have no standing as oracles.
They have no credibility as "prophets".
They have no humility to change themselves and openly admit to being chronic bullies who bully in the name of Jehovah, either!

The three worst CRIMES of CERTAINTY committed by the leaders of the Watchtower religion are very condemning to them as pastors.
1.Their Authority damages the lives of humble believers in god because it short-circuits the conscience of committed Christians.
2.Their Hubris cuts friends, familty members and honest thinkers off from each other by shunning and ad hominem name-calling. This scatters the Flock of God and drives a wedge in the Body of Christ.
3.They recklessly endanger the weakest members of society: children, women and the elderly. They insist on repugnant polices on molestation, rape, education and medical treatments. By denying the effectiveness of vaccinations to refusing blood in medical emergencies their authority is rapacious.

In this 100th anniversary of the invisible return of Jesus why don't we examine all the fine work this invisible leadership has provided.
From the teaching that the Great Pyramid of Egypt is "God's witness in stone" to the "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" fiasco to the end of 6000 years of human existence in 1975 to the intense disfellowshipping crackdown in 1983 and the narrowing of the FDS in recent months to just those good old boys in the Governing Body---WE HAVE ALL THE PROOF WE NEED:

The BOGUS idea of CERTAINTY inside the Watchtower religion is proof positive they are a feckless, authoritarian power mad CULT of deception.

IT IS TIME WE SERVED NOTICE!!

 

A Handy CHRONOLOGY Of The Life And Times Of Charles And Maria Russell.
 By Terry Walstrom
 1852 Charles Taze Russell was born in(February 16) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was raised in a strict Presbyterian home.

1868 (Age 16) In an encounter with a non-believer he became disillusioned over the subject of whether God as a heavenly father would burn his children in hell Side note: 1869 (Joseph Franklin Rutherford was born and raised a Baptist) .

 1870 At the age of 18 the deeply troubled Russell attended a meeting where Adventism was preached by Millerite Jones Wendall. He heard for the first time the idea that there was no burning hell.


 Late 1870's: A now changed Russell starts his own Bible study group which elected him as "Pastor". In the course of these studies Russell discovered that Christ had returned invisibly in 1875. (Russel would have been 23 years old) Charles Russell decides it is incumbent upon him to publicize this arrival of Jesus by publishing Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence" in magazine form. He sent out 6,000 issues each month.

1880 (Age 28) Russell declares that his system of theology had been "revealed" to him directly from God. Russel had taken up with a highly intelligent original thinker whom he eventually married, (1879) Maria Francis Ackley who explained to Russell that he was the "faithful and wise servant" of Matthew 24:45. Maria Russell conceives of the two of them by the quaint old-fashioned term: "Twain" as this mouthpiece of God. The doctrine of FDS is born! 1881 Zion's Watchtower tract society is formed ( The Henry Ward Beecher mansion, at 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, came into the possession of the Society, and Pastor Russell continued to use the home of Brooklyn's world famed pulpit orator as his study and residence until his death.) 1882 Russell officially denies the doctrine of the Trinity 1884 Russell turns the Watchtower into a Corporation Side Note: 1893 Frederick Franz is born 1894 Rutherford becomes a missionary for the movement ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------During the early days of their marriage both Maria and Charles Russell influence each other's thinking. Russell sees that Maria wants full equality of credit for the development of the theology he is putting into print. When Studies in the Scriptures is finished Russell starts urging people not to read his earlier work (influenced by Maria.) By this time Russell is convinced Jehovah reveals his Truth to him alone. The Russell's arguments grow more and more heated and bitterness ensues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1896 (Russell is 44) Maria Russell repudiates her stance on her husband being the "Faithful" and wise servant. She now identifies him as the "Evil Slave" of Matthew24:45-47 1898 an orphan child is adopted."Miss Ball came to them in 1889, a child of ten...She was an orphan." J.F.Rutherford Marital relations become strained to the point of outright war. Scandal ensues. 1903 (Russell is age 51) Maria Russell filed for legal separation. (Maria claimed she was tortured by Russell who denied her sex. She accused Russell of kissing and fondling his "special friend" who afoster child and later, a stenographer.) Charles Russell had been moving his/their assets into the corporation for the previous 19 years to avoid alimony. His wealth was estimated at around 9 or 10 million dollars. 1906 Maria Russell writes her views on headship and marital obligations in THE TWAIN revealing an incisive mind with a clear grasp of women's issues. (see below) March 1,1917 One year after Charles Russell's death "The Watchtower unhesitatingly proclaims brother Russell as 'that Faithful and Wise Servant' Awake! May 8,1951 "who is preaching the teaching of Pastor Russell? Certainly not Jehovah's Witnesses! They can not be accused of following him, for they neither quote him as an authority nor publish or distribute his writing" Thus, Russell was both proclaimed and denied by his wife and the society which he founded. _________________________________________________________________________________ A critic examines the writings of Maria Russell Pittsburgh Lender Sunday Morning October 14th, 1906-Special Magazine Section MRS. RUSSELL’S SPICY BOOK IS CRITICIZED "The Twain One" Reviewed by a Local Minister, Who Finds Fault With the Premises and Conclusions ———- MRS. RUSSLL’S SPICY GEMS ———- "True happiness, in any human relationship, is incompatible with ignoble ideas both of tyranny and of servility." "Paternal and filial love must respond to each other." "Any subserviency to fellow man is a secondary consideration û We ought to obey God rather than man and this is manifestly right so we must oppose men when they are wrong." "The duty of submission to those in leading positions in the church we regard not in the light of unquestioning childish or servile obedience, but simply as a matter of respectful deference." "The servant is not in duty bound to please his master in all things except within the limit of his contract." "Obedience of children to parents is expected by God, but for any tyrannical use of this parental authority to gratify a pride of power in the dominant parties will be punished by God. The command of obedience does not apply to children after they come to maturity." "The Scriptures do not teach domestic slavery." "Adam found in woman a companion capable of sharing all his joys." "Nothing in the Scriptures indicates that woman was in the least inferior to man." "God created man and woman with equal rights." "Woman has become the weaker vessel through sinful man." "He (man) often, selfishly taking advantage of the situation rules over her (woman) instead of treating her as an heir." Quotations from Mrs. Russell’s book, "Twain One." ———- Marie Frances Russell, the wife of the celebrated Pastor Charles T. Russell, the North Side preacher, with congregations all over the world, has written a book which is of the "woman’s rights" order. Those who have analyzed the work are of the opinion that Mrs. Russell has undertaken to sustain her position in applying for a divorce from bed and board and demanding alimony from her husband. "The Twain One" is the title, and the green cloth cover binds all sorts of biblical quotations to sustain the contention of the author that a woman was created equal with man, with the same rights, and instead of being servile to man, woman was expected to be an heir of the land with him and share all his joys and returns from the soil. She launches into a tirade against sinful man and takes the stand that the decline of woman in influence and wealth is absolutely due to sinful and greedy man who, taking advantage of woman, has domineered over her to such an extent that woman is generations off her sphere. Too frequent maternity, due of course to greedy and sinful man, has also prevented woman from associating with others in the world so that she could progress mentally as rapidly as man. Instead, she has been compelled to stay in the house, raise children and, while man is recuperating in the fields and associating with his neighbors, "gathering strength the while," poor woman is debarred from what is divinely hers and sinful man is rubbing it in on her at a great rate. The time apparently, is ripe for a change of all this and woman should step into the church, business and even at home to demand what has been given her by God and "held out," to use the parlance of the day, by greedy, sinful, domineering man. A review of the book by a minister follows: "The title of this little volume would seem to imply a treatise respecting the oneness of union and mutual adaptability of the sexes to each other so as to produce the greatest amount of harmony or union. However, the writer does not, in our judgment, seem to approach the subject from this standpoint, but rather the reverse û ‘the twain two.’ The motif appears to be to disprove any special headship of the husband and hence to establish a double headship in every family. The thought of the writer seems to be the one that is now so common amongst so-called ‘new women.’ viz., that in the divine order men and women were by nature, and by grace intended to be on an absolute equality, mentally and physically, but that women, for centuries oppressed by men, have gradually grown weaker and weaker both in mind and in body until today that writer reluctantly admits men are stronger both mentally and physically. That we may do the writer no injustice on this point we quote: "‘They (Adam and Eve) stood on a par in God’s estimation of his handiwork. It is manifest that God created them with equal rights when he gave the dominion of earth to them both originally’ (p. 31.). ‘Dr. H. S. Drayton tells us that while woman’s brain is smaller than man’s it is larger in proportion to the total weight of the body, and is more finely organized, so that in his opinion honors are about even.’ (p. 37.) "As proof of an acknowledge feminine inferiority of strength, mentally and physically, the author says: ‘Woman’s natural office of motherhood and home duties connected with it, the training of children, etc., which, under perfect conditions, as originally designed, could have brought only happiness and joy, instead under the conditions induced by sin, brought sorrow and the gradual physical weakening or decline The too frequent maternity often imposed upon her, regardless of proper conditions, has undermined the health of women generation after generation, while man, whose natural occupation has been more in the fields and in subduing the elements of nature, has gathered from nature more of its invigorating force and thus woman has become, by far, the weaker vessel.’ (p. 36.) ‘Thus the natural tendency of sin has been, not only to render woman a weaker vessel, but also to bring her under the power of her husband.’ (p. 41.) "Whatever the author may otherwise be she is evidently not a logician, as shown by the above quotations: for while she argues that the sexes are equal and should stand on a par every way she, in the different quotations, claims that women have become by far the weaker vessel û hence logically no longer on a par with males. "But still more illogical is the proposition above quoted that women have become ‘by far the weaker vessel’ gradually for centuries as a result of the recognition of the headship of men. Would not even a novice in logic recognize the fact that such a claim is an absurdity; because every girl babe must receive of the strength, the virility of the father as every boy babe must partake of the weaknesses of his mother. If males begat males and females begat females we would could understand how the one sex could, in centuries, oppress and degrade the other; knowing that this is not the case, but that on the contrary nature equalizes and harmonizes the strength and weakness of both parents in the children, it follows that the author has failed to grasp her subject. She may not be aware, either, that in Europe for centuries women have labored in the fields and thus have employed the very conditions which she says has made the males superior in mental and physical strength. "Far be it from the writer to inveigh against women or to deny women their proper rights and opportunities We are even willing to concede, that in times past, under barbaric and semi-civilized conditions, women had not by any means the liberties and opportunities they should have had; but are not the same things true of the other sex? Have not the majority of men in the past been the merest serfs or slaves? Are we not to remember that only within the past century has Europe given to the males universal suffrage? Indeed, this boon of the family was not given to the English males until within a decade, and in Russia suffrage has only been granted to the males this very year under restrictions, somewhat similar to those which prevail in Germany, which give those not property owners a decidedly less voice in politics than others? Are we not to remember that free school education in Europe is only the matter of the past decade? What we should notice in this connection is that just in proportion as the males have gotten free from serfdom and ignorance in the very same proportion have the females of the same lands risen to civilization and education. These points appear to us to be too frequently overlooked by those studying or discussing so called women’s rights. "It is a fact that the twain are one by divine arrangement and by their creation. The sexes are so adapted the one to the other that injury to either signifies proportionate loss to both. Hence the safe and sane of both sexes are practically agreed that the Almighty did not design the sexes to be exactly equal either mentally or physically, but better far than this did design an adaptation between them, the one for the other, represented in the expression ‘a manly man’ and ‘a womanly woman.’ We feel sure that the observance of this law of nature brings more joy than any amount of disputation, or endeavor to prove that there is no difference between the sexes. Very few women would care to marry or expect to be happy with an effeminate man, and very few men would desire to marry or expect to be happy with a masculine wife." "The author lays great stress upon the fact that women do not receive proper recognition in the churches—evidently believing that no sex distinction should be recognized in the ministry. Although the consensus of opinion among Christian people for centuries has been that of the special ministrations of religion should be in the hands of males, this apparently has no influence whatever with our author. She carefully culls every reference to women in the Old and New Testaments and makes the most of these to support her contention, but either innocently or intentionally omits all notice of the fact that Jesus Christ appointed no female apostles—the twelve were male and the subsequent seventy sent out were men; nor was this because there were no women interested at that time, nor, as is seemingly hinted, the women of that day were so much more illiterate than the men. On the contrary, we have the apostolic statement to the effect that they were fishermen and tax-gatherers from the humbler walks of life and that, too it was distinctly stated by the public in general that they were ignorant and unlearned men. (#Ac 4:13) If ignorant and unlearned men could be qualified and used by the Christ as His representatives, could not the ignorant and unlearned women have been equally qualified for His service had He so designed. But on the contrary, have we not the intimation that some of the believing women of the time were of the higher class, styled, "honorable women" û women of station, "wealth and probably of education also? See #Lu 8:3, #Ac 7:4-12. The same is true of the course pursued by the apostles. We have no record that they ever ordained women as elders in any of the churches they organized. Nevertheless they, both Jesus, and the apostles, were prompt to recognize, appreciate and to utilize the womanly talents and qualities of the believers of that time, as we believe, all Christian ministers are disposed to do to this day. "The author of the "Twain One" certainly displays the craftiness of an expert attorney supporting an unjust case when she attempts to so interpret the words of the apostles respecting the deference or submission of the wife as the weaker vessel to the husband as the head of the family With a n attorney’s skill she arranges three difficult texts in order, placing first, one, the phraseology of which she could construe favorably, and then proceeds to apply the misfit interpretation to the others. For instance the following: "‘Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord." #Col 3:13 ‘Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church; and He is the savior (preserver, caretaker) of the body. Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.’ #Eph 5:22-24 "Again she quotes, ‘Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.’ #1Pe 3:1 "The veriest tyro in scriptural exegesis would surely be astonished at the cleverness of the misinterpretation of the first of these texts. The apostle says ‘as it is fit in the Lord,’ by this evidently meaning that women in the Christian church were to be submissive to their husbands as were the Jewish women, and not to consider that because they were not ‘in the Lord’ they were exempted from the proper responsibilities of wives. ‘As it is fit’ then evidently means, as it is proper, as it is right for those in the Lord to do But our authoress gives a twist to the entire matter in these words. ‘We must bear in mind this limitation of fitness.’ (P. 53). She proceeds to ring the changes of these words fit and fitness twelve times in her endeavor to nullify the force of the above quoted Scriptures by implying that the wives are to submit themselves to their own husbands not ‘as it is fit’ but rather as the wives may deem fit. "Surely no sound mind could understand the apostolic injunctions above quoted to signify that wives were to be so submissive to their husbands that they would murder or steal or do other unlawful things. Fortunately, the average men and women have little difficulty in comprehending the scriptural advice on this subject, vis: that love should cement the marriage tie, that in the union the twain will be one, that the head of the united pair is the husband, whose delight as well as responsibility would be to look well after the interests, mental and physical, of his wife ready, if need be, to lay down his life for her protection. Fortunately, too, the majority of women appreciate just such headship as the apostles here indicate and these are the happy couples who best represent the "Twain One," and happy are the children who have parents thus mated in harmony with natural law and scriptural injunction. "The advocates of ‘women’s rights’ seem assuredly to be persons in whom the milk of human kindness have soured sometimes through ambition and sometimes through fallacious reasoning! For instance they often tell us that the great colleges are for the men, that the women have no such opportunities for education. They tell us that the legislatures and courts are bound upon the grinding of woman into the dust, into the mire, and that it is necessary for women to step forth from the battles of motherhood and the home to battle for female suffrage and other rights. "Fortunately for the world, the majority of the sex reason more soundly than this. Through education or by observation they learn that their husbands and fathers in the legislatures have framed most equitable laws in their interest, for their protection and safeguard, and that the courts are always more lenient toward women than toward men, and that they fare far better at the hands of a male jury than they would if tried before a jury of their own sex, and that the public schools and high schools are as open to the females as to the males, and that a proportionately larger number of the females than of the males are afforded high school opportunities and normal school privileges. They learn, also, that there is abundant provision for their sex in the female seminaries and colleges and that these, almost without exception, have been established and endowed by the opposite sex. We conclude that the majority of the sensible thinkers agree respecting the solidarity of the race-and that in the family and home the husband and wife are not to be twain, but one, and that in the responsibility for the family’s care both human and divine law are right in holding the male to be the responsible head and caretaker. "That the author is not ashamed of her work is evidenced by the fact that her name appears in the same six times." ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Fascinating woman!

Is This A religion Of HATE? Check Out What They Have Printed! By Terry Walstrom Are Jehovah's Witnesses people who LOVE or people who are taught to HATE? Well, as it turns out, you have to be aware of the total core hypocrisy involved in saying one thing and contradicting it with another. Compare the following two sets of admonitions. Here are the first 2. 1. "But when you see the despair, the hopelessness, the agony of numberless victims of hate-inspired prejudice and violence, you may well ask in distress: ‘Why? Why is there so much hatred? Can it possibly be made to disappear? Will the world ever be completely free of hatred?’" (Awake!, 6/22 1984, p. 4) ----------------------------------------- 2. "Worldwide, the seeds of hatred are being planted and watered through injustice, prejudice, nationalism, and religion. The inevitable fruitage is anger, aggression, war, and destruction. The Bible statement at 1 John 3:15 helps us see the seriousness of this: "Everyone who hates his brother is a manslayer."" (The Watchtower, 6/15 1995, p. 4) Do they really mean it or do they give away their true attitude in this second set of published admonitions? 1. Being limited by the laws of the worldly nation in which we live and also by the laws of God through Jesus Christ, we can take action against apostates only to a certain extent, that is, consistent with both sets of laws. The law of the land and God’s law through Christ forbid us to kill apostates, even though they be members of our own flesh-and-blood family relationship." (The Watchtower, 11/15 1952, p. 703) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. "Haters of God and his people are to be hated, but this does not mean that we will take any opportunity of bringing physical hurt to them in a spirit of malice or spite, for both malice and spite belong to the Devil, whereas pure hatred does not. We must hate in the truest sense, which is to regard with extreme and active aversion, to consider as loathsome, odious, filthy, to detest. Surely any haters of God are not fit to live on his beautiful earth." (The Watchtower, 10/1 1952, p. 599) AFTER ALL THE ABOVE AD HOMINEM name calling the Watchtower leaders say this amazing thing: "Disfellowshiping is therefore really an act of love, love on the part of Jehovah God and Christ Jesus, on the part of the theocratic organization itself and on the part of the servants in the congregation who properly take the action directly." (The Watchtower, 11/1 1956, p. 667) What can we conclude? By disfellowshipping somebody this religion turns them into somebody to be hated and that is actually an ACT OF LOVE! ARE JEHOVAH'S GOVERNING BODY MEMBERS LEADERS WHO LOVE OR WHO HATE? Apparently they are even confused about their own selves! Does this sound like the Watchtower leaders are embracing the United Nations as peace makers? "Down to this year 1979, popes and prelates continue to woo favors from the U.N. But where do these clergymen belong? They are tied in with a religious "harlot," described in Revelation as "Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth." (Rev. 17:1, 3-6) As the world empire of false religion, this harlotrous "woman" plies her trade with the nations’ political leaders, as she declares her faith in the U.N. "beast," assuming even to ‘sit as a queen’ atop that "beast" in giving it direction. (Rev. 18:7) But just as she appears to be ‘sitting pretty’ with her political "lovers," the radical "ten horns" of that U.N. will come to ‘hate the harlot and make her devastated and naked,’ and desolate her completely." (The Watchtower, 10/15 1979, p. 15) Compare the above to this in the October 2001 article in the UK's Guardian: In an internal document, the WTBTS describes its policy as a "theocratic war strategy". It claims: "In time of spiritual warfare it is proper to misdirect the enemy by hiding the truth. It is done unselfishly; it does not harm anyone; on the contrary it does much good." Being a recognised NGO with the United Nations - as more than 1,500 organisations are - gives status though not grants. To qualify, organisations must show that they share the ideals of the charter, operate on a non-profit basis, "demonstrate interest in UN issues and proven ability to reach large or specialised audiences" and have the commitment and means to conduct effective information programmes about UN activities. Disaffected Witnesses believe that the association, which has not been publicised to followers, is intended to increase the cult's respectability to sceptical governments, such as France's, which have refused to recognise it. Paul Gillies, the Witnesses' spokesman in Britain, said: "We do not have hostile attitudes to governing bodies and if we are making representations on issues to the UN we will do so." "There are good and bad bodies just as there are good and bad politicians. We believe what the Book of Revelation tells us but we do not actively try to change the political system." A spokeswoman for the UN said: "I think we may not be aware of their attitude, which seems to be really strange." ________________________________________________ JEHOVAH'S WITNESS LEADERS preside over a HATING religion inconsistent in values and public statements. And yet: "God is Love" 1 John 4:8 We conclude with this rather revealing description printed in the year 1975--the very year predicted as THE END of human existence... "The bodies of the slain will not molder in honorable burial places. Unburied, their flesh will be picked away clean to the bone, beyond identifying the bare skeletons. Because of the multitude of the slain, it will be a huge feast for the scavengers.. . .So, instead of having their bones eaten clean of all decaying flesh by the maggots at the Valley of Hinnom (or, at Gehenna), the carcasses of the slain enemies at Har–Magedon will, as it were, be eaten clear to the bone by nature’s sanitation force, the carrion-eating birds and wild beasts. . . Quite evidently there will be many more bodies strewn over the earth as a result of the war at Har–Magedon than there will be scavenger birds enough to dispose of them all in a reasonable time for human health reasons. So it is reasonable to expect that God will dispose of excess bodies by other means.. . .What a well-deserved, contemptible end for all these opposers of Jehovah and his Messianic kingdom at Har–Magedon!" (Man’s Salvation Out of World Distress at Hand!, 1975, pp. 275-6)

Diary Of An Ex-Jehovah’s Witness

 

 

Part 4 Part 3 Part 2 Part 1

A Visit With 113 Year Old Sister Richardson At The Kingdom Hall.

 By  Terry Walstrom\JWN

A CAUTIONARY TALE

(It is evening at the Kingdom Hall and a mom and her daughter arrive before the meeting is about to start.)


Jenny, come over here and meet Sister Richardson. She is of the anointed.
Sister Richardson, this is my daughter, Jenny.
"Hello Jenny."

"Hello Sister Richardson."

Jenny, Sister Richardson is 113 years old. She was born in 1900 when Pastor Russell was still alive!
"How old are you, Jenny?"
"I'm fourteen."

Jenny, is there anything you'd like to ask Sister Richardson?

"Sure. My mom says not to worry about preparing for college because Armageddon is coming soon. But, the other girls at school make fun of me because they say I'll end up married to a janitor and poor if I stay a Jehovah's Witness.  What do I tell them?"

"Well, Jenny. I was fourteen years old in 1914 when Armageddon came and I was 25 when the ancient worthies returned from the dead and took up residence in Beth Sarim in San Diego. Exciting times!
 I was 75 when the 1000 year reign began.  If you just wait on Jehovah like I have you'll be just like me someday. I never went to college. I married a janitor and I've never been anywhere or done anything exciting. I've never worked outside the home because I was raising the kids. My husband died and I have no money to live on. My kids are disfellowshipped and they send me money, though. I don't even thank them because they are Apostates and I don't have anything to do with mentally diseased people!"

Um, uh--let's go now, Jenny and leave Sister Richardson alone--we know she's  been on medication and is probably tired and ready to go home.
"Bye Jenny. Stay faithful. Wait on Jehovah.  I know I sure have."

Watchtower Shell Game And The Apostate Rube Who Cries FOUL!

 By Terry Walstrom\JWN

 In the traditional traveling carnival there is a shell game at work. You've seen them; we all have. The pitchman entices a group of people to watch him place the pea under one of three walnut shells as he hides it and switches quickly first this and then the other shells. The object of the game is to bet something on where the pea might be. Guess correctly and you win! Lose and you try again.

The Watchtower hides Armageddon under its doctrinal shells which it switches in a blinding confusion of dates, explanations and cop-outs. The winner gets Paradise on Earth or a special prestigious trip to Jesus on the Rapture express. All you have to do to play is pay up front for the privilege of betting it all on where the pea will be!

And bet they do! You see, readers of the Watchtower have been on a wild ride over the decades. They went from being anxious about the second coming of Jesus in the clouds of heaven in 1874 to finding themselves knocking on doors spreading the word about an invisible Jesus commissioning magazine sales. In fact, they bet their lives, their honor and their fortunes on picking where the pea would turn up. (Hint: it never turns up! Surprise!)

The crazy shell game started with the readers of the Watchtower being Bible Students. Then, they were colporteurs on street corners peddling end times like newsboys shouting out a headline: "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Armageddon has already started! The end comes in 1914!" (1918, 1915, 1975!)

The faithful believers bet it all on where the pea would land and came up short every time! One date followed another as each was explained away. Like any circus crowd of onlookers interest waxed and waned over the years. The bet was always a big one. But, the stakes got heavier fast!

 The second Watchtower president, J.F.Rutherford upped the ante on the old shell game. Now Bible Students had to bet the whole wad: absolute compliance with rigorous policy changes. To play the game and find the pea (Armageddon) you had to ignore your country's flag, stop celebrating holidays, shun your family if they didn't tow the line and you might have to let your loved one's die avoiding a blood transfusion. But, hey! That's not all! If you act now you get to go to prison refusing alternative miltary service, avoid pasteurized milk, abstain from aluminum cookware, refuse antibiotics--and (drum roll) for the first time ever, Christians get to change their name to Jehovah's Witnessess! No more heralding the presence of the King Jesus Christ; no! Knock the doors, peddle the books and get the money for JEHOVAH!!

 The shadow of these events casts a long dark pall of tragedy over the history of the Watchtower Society. New dates for the End brought in more and more bets as the population of Jehovah's Witnesses mounted. Who wouldn't want to WIN BIG? (Guess where the pea lands and win it all!!)

 But, the fallout of the errors took a huge toll like the wake of a powerful storm that wipes out the assets and security of families and plunges communities into despair. The community of brothers and sisters who labored day and night spreading these phoney warnings about the end became hobbled by financial woes, poor educational opportunity for the children and endless demands for more of their time and less criticism of the disharmony between the policies ever-changing and the stark evidence how empty the promises all were.

And yet, when at last the eyes of a few were opened to the petty larceny of it all--they were quickly marginalized as troublemakers and ousted from the ranks of fellow believers and consigned to the purgatory of Apostacy! Like the kid who watches the Con Man hide the pea in his hand and shouts a warning to the crowd that they are being cheated, the disfellowshipped ex-Witness finds himself escorted away and dismissed as a liar and a ne'er-do-well. The now so-called APOSTATE is on the enemy list to be avoided, shunned and ignored hence forth.

 What should an ex member do, keep their mouth shut about the con that is being worked on others? Should a victim of fraud keep silent and lick their wounds in fear of losing their family to the crowd still betting away on where the pea will turn up? No! It is immoral to hide a crime perpetrated on innocent victims. Worse, it is unthinkable to allow one's own family to be defrauded in the name of God and his service.

 The so-called APOSTATE begins to spread the word that a contagious and insidious harm is being carried out by a protected religious outfit that makes special claims for its authority.Then, the critics come to the APOSTATE and chide them for their passion and ridicule their motives and scold them for their messege.

How is one to answer such charges of unfair criticism? Shouldn't the good of the Watchtower Society be praised equally? After all, they aren't axe-murderers!

 Here is one answer.

The Watchtower has over ONE HUNDRED YEARS head start on the whistle-blower. Their propaganda machine is a well-oiled multinational high octane monster. All Watchtower- bashing all the time couldn't catch up with the damage they've done.

 In short, they steal men's souls by sucking time out of people's life to do anything personally beneficial. The busy-busy slave work spreads the viral infection to others. They use as bait the dazzling promise of paradise and the ultimate escape vacation from cares and woes. What they leave behind is the dried out husks of used up people left disillusioned, spent and devoid of a shred of self-worth.

And the Watchtower needs defending?

 Watchtower critcs are a tiny, almost infinitesimal anti-biotic in a sea of monstrous bilge spewing forth from Brooklyn. We are awash in their hate-mongering as they label honest query and righteous demands for accountability as Apostasy. They hold families hostage and pit fathers against children and husbands against wives in their bid to own the very mind of each of their captives.

 I say this. Here on JWD, FREEMINDS and other sites, we are a hospital; a triage unit on a battlefield so vast and littered with so many wounded, it can never be said the succor can ever equal the devastation to damaged lives. (Read the personal stories and add up the misery!)

Stifled voices strain to cry out here after decades of cover up, repression and mind control. The tortured souls of the innocent victims seek asylum in our embrace. The moans of exasperation have reached high into the empty skies to overflow the gates of Jehovah's abandoned Palace of Justice.

 This, for the "apostate", is our only paradise, our purgatory and our hell all rolled into one. Let each man, woman, and child say what he will without restraint and some small measure of balance might be restored to toppled lives hungry for amnesty from the awful shredding evil of the Watchtower menace.

 Extol the imaginary virtues of the Watchtower Society as you will, their graveyard of damaged souls grows yet more vast each day. For they are but a mirage of pretended righteousness which hides a smoldering wasteland of scorched immorality; those vampires of feckless misery. I have tasted the fruits of the Watchtower ministry and the sour poison has sickened me. But, it has not numbed my tongue.

 I've not one word to say on their behalf and they have none to say on mine. That is balance enough.

DFing....Human Rights Violation And DEFAMATION Of Character?

 By Terry Walstrom

>>>>>>>>>No one can allow human rights to be violated--not even inside the insular confinement of Relgious Policy>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What are "rights" and where do the stem from?
Human equality.  One life is as valuable as another.  Life is sacred.

I'm alive and you are alive and the next person is alive. So, we ALL have rights.  Natural rights.

Human rights stem from a very practical source.  Humans have certain needs in order to continue living and to prosper.
Without being able to meet our needs we perish.  So, we have a RIGHT to act in defense of our personal needs to survive and prosper.

Basic premise: all rights stem from LIFE because without life you can't exercise any!

Because they ignore natural human rights.......Jehovah's Witnesses have a genuine moral problem.

Watchtower leaders don't value human life qua life...and consequently officially and through policy--deny certain automatic human rights.
Witness policy isn't about LIFE so much as it is about the LABELS they assign to various people.
By labeling somebody a goat they deny them basic human rights.
By labeling a skeptic an Apostate they deny them basic human rights.
 How?
Remember: JW's say DFing leads to DEATH at Armageddon.   So, depriving a person of LIFE by DFing them is the equivalent to EXECUTION.
If we keep that firmly in mind---we might wake up to what is REALLY AT STAKE in religious policy which denies the right to life.

A Judicial Committee meeting is LIFE or DEATH judgement wielded by arbitrary non-elected men of bias interpreting without law.
False accusations and plenary power can deprive you of your LIFE.  Are you compelled to recognize the power of arrogant men to EXECUTE YOU?


Do we human beings have the right to question authority or don't we?
Do we have a right to rational discourse or don't we?
Just because we join a religion doesn't mean we forego the USE of our brain forever---does it?

As wives, husbands, parents and citizens we are vigilant of encroachments eroding our security and well-being.

After all, we aren't living under Roman Empire rule--are we?

By railroading a person who has doubts and questions-- the elders are devaluing the basic human right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

FORCING THIS HUMAN RIGHTs ISSUE OUT IN THE OPEN might wake others up (with doubts, too)  to what is really going on.
Elder judges may sometimes be found to be exercsing power without morality.

By treating their immoral valuation of you (and their death sentence) as unworthy of compliance YOU CHALLENGE their morality in the "court" of public opinion.

Who really is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?  And who is the Evil Slave?
The Evil Slave abuses power over others.
Jesus LEFT THE 99 to go after the stray. Conclusion?  Jesus embraces the stray.
The Evil Slave drives out the one.  Conclusion: abusive Elders are embodying the Evil Slave.

CASE IN POINT:

If you call the police and report child molestation after the Elders tell you to keep quiet are you a reviler deserving their "death" sentence: DFing?
Yes--to the stonewalling Elders who won't protect the innocent victim.
If you report them---who gets arrested?    THEY DO.
(What is the alternative? Keeping your lip zipped?)
NO!  You are doing the MORALLY RIGHT thing.
Any Religious Policy which makes you complicit in cover-up is automatically IMMORAL.

Why? IT VIOLATES BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS.
So, you get DF'd.  What then?
Should you ACCEPT YOUR FATE?
NO!
THIS IS A HUMAN RIGHTS CROSSROADS.

>>>>>>>>>No one can allow human rights to be violated--not even inside the insular confinement of Relgious Policy>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Others inside the congregation are watching and deciding.  They are--in effect--having their own morals tested.
Your public treatment puts their integrity to the test.  But only if it is PUBLIC and witnessed.
Otherwise...it is all swept under the rug of secrecy and the festering injustice continues.
Business as usual.

When did public opinion change about the Catholic Church? When the evil policy of cover up became public.
When did public opinion change about Scientology?  When defectors went public about violent abuse.


For Evil to prosper good people only have to do nothing.

We have a basic human right to educate our children and to earn a substantive living and to enjoy our free time.
The Watchtower religion VIOLATES these basic human rights too with opressive and suppressive policies that
rob families of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 

So Tell Us What It Was, Then--Was It Just YOUR OPINION?

  By Terry Walstrom

Question for the "spokesmen" otherwise known as Jehovah's Witness' Governing Body.

How shall we identify the already published teaching which is now obsolete, adjusted, corrected and NOT TO BE USED for current teaching?

I know you prefer to slough it off as Old Light because there is still "Light" in that phrase.  But, a close examination would prove that incorrect too.

For example, when J.F.Rutherford gave a series of sermons followed by publication and dissemination of his MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE message it was thought important enough to spread around the entire world!

Millions Now Living Will Never Die went hand in hand with identifying 1925 as an all important date of prophetic significance: the resurrection of faithful men of old!
Today's current teachings have changed all that, nullified it, made it obsolete and unworthy of consideration by teachers or students of the bible.

So, tell us WHAT IT WAS, then---was it just OPINION?  Was it a human mistake wrongly presented as Jehovah's teaching?  Was it speculation, guesswork, conjecture?  Was it nonsense start to finish?
And while we are asking questions...

Do you have any words of wisdom explaining why Jehovah approved wrong teaching?
And if Jehovah did not approve....what business did Rutherford or the Watchtower Society have convincing so many sheeplike ones it was THE TRUTH?
Is there any personal liability for false teaching?

Even though Rutherford's teaching was emphatically proved an error---why did the Watchtower continue to break off a piece of it and use for decades AS THOUGH it were prophetic truth?  I'm talking about the now famous failed "generation" teaching that died a horrible, slow death!

WHAT DO WE CALL OLD WATCHTOWER TEACHINGS THAT WERE WRONG?
IF THEY WEREN'T CORRECT BUT WERE BELIEVED AND TAUGHT DOOR TO DOOR does that make the door to door ministry a WASTE of time?

Please, tell us--enlighten us--correct us and adjust our thinking LIKE YOURS.  Say something---anything, like Ghostbusters we're ready to believe you!

If it wasn't False Prophecy...
if it wasn't a Lie...
if it was eager enthusiasm gone off the rails misidentified.......
ARE YOU WILLING TO LABEL CURRENT TEACHING as to what per cent is the same guesswork vs Jehovah's directing His organization?
Is it 90/10
Is it 80/20
Is it 70/30
Is it 60/40
Is it 50/50
Or will it all end up 0/0 JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE YOU'VE EVER PRINTED?

Jehovah's Witnesses And Watchtower's Secret Child Abuse Letter.