Jehovah's Witness History
The Jehovah's Witnesses was begun by
Charles Taze Russell in 1872. He was born on February 16, 1852, the son of Joseph L. and
Anna Eliza Russell. He had great difficulty in dealing with the doctrine of eternal hell
fire and in his studies came to deny not only eternal punishment, but also the
Trinity,
and the deity of Christ and the Holy
Spirit. When Russell was 18, he organized a Bible class in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1879 he sought to popularize his aberrant
ideas on doctrine. He co-published The Herald of the Morning magazine with its founder, N.
H. Barbour and by 1884 Russell controlled the publication and renamed it The Watchtower
Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom, and founded Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society (now known as
the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society). The first edition of The Watchtower magazine was
only 6,000 copies each month. Today the Witnesses' publishing complex in Brooklyn, New
York, churns out 100,000 books and 800,000 copies of its two magazines--daily!
Russell claimed that the Bible could be only understood
according to his interpretations. A dangerous arrangement since he controlled what was
written in the Watchtower magazine. This kind of assertion is typical
among leaders of cult religions.
After the death of Russell on Oct. 31, 1916, a Missouri
lawyer named Joseph Franklin Rutherford took over the presidency of the Watch Tower
Society which was known then as the International Bible Students Association. In 1931 he changed
the name of the organization to "The Jehovah's Witnesses."
After Rutherford's death, Nathan Knorr took over. After
Knorr, Frederick William Franz became president.
The Society was led by Mr. Henschel who died
in 2003. The group has
over 4 million members world wide. The Watchtower Society statistics indicate that 740
house calls are required to recruit each of the nearly 200,000 new members who join every
year.
The Jehovah's Witnesses have several ‘book studies' each week. The
members are not required to attend, but there is a level of expectation that gently urges
converts to participate. It is during these ‘book studies' that the
Jehovah's Witness is
constantly exposed to counter Christian teachings. The average Jehovah's
Witness, with his constant
Watchtower indoctrination, could easily pummel the average Christian when it comes to
defending his beliefs.
The Jehovah's Witnesses vehemently portray the doctrine of the Trinity
as pagan in origin and that Christendom, as a whole, has bought the lie of the devil.
Along with denying the Trinity is an equally strong denial of the deity of Christ, the
deity of the Holy Spirit, the belief in hell, and eternal conscious punishment in hell.
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