According to the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, only JWs have access to the Truth. Only they know what Jehovah thinks at any given moment and only they carry out His will—uncompromisingly and to the letter. If this were so, we would have to accept the fact that Jehovah was a capricious, inconsistent, and indecisive God. But the truth is that JWs are far from the truth and have not the faintest notion of the true nature of God whom we can know through the Bible and the teachings of the Church.
The ”beast” inerrantly interpreted
Mind you, there are times when the radicalism of the Watchtower Society’s teachings hits upon a tantalizing thought. However, unlike the theologians from Brooklyn, Jesus was consistent from beginning to end and never changed His mind on any matter. What He said was a sin He always considered a sin, and what he said was a virtue He always considered a virtue.
Alas, the JWs cannot boast of consistency in their preception of the Truth. A notable example of this is their interpretation of the “the beast” in the Book of Revelations (17: 3-6). In 1942, the Watchtower Society promoted the view that in the image of the beast the inspired author “encrypted” the League of Nations, the predecessor of the Organization of United Nations. Proof of the identity of the beast was supposed to be the prophecy: “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to perdition” (Rev 17: 8). The prophecy was supposedly fulfilled in 1942 when “the League of Nations sank into the bottomless pit of inaction.” Then it “ascended” from that pit in the guise of the United Nations, which, according to the inerrant Watchtower, is a “blasphemous imitation of the messianic kingdom of God” (I cite from the Polish edition of Raymond Franz’s book, Crisis of Conscience, 1983, pp. 183-184).
The problem is that in 1991 the Watchtower Society applied to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI) for associate membership in the UN and was accepted as an non-governmental organization. As the official document signed by DPI Director, Paul Hoeffel, reads: “By accepting association with DPI, the organization agreed to meet criteria for association, including support and respect of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” Thus, in the light of the Watchtower Society’s earlier teaching, JWs became participants in the “harlotry” they abhorred by belonging to an institution supporting a demonic and blasphemous “world order” as represented by the apocalyptic beast.
What is still more interesting is that in 2001, almost ten years later, the Watchtower Society withdrew its membership in the UN. If I were a JW, I would seriously begin to wonder if it were worth trusting teachers who imposed upon me the “only correct” interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, failed to abide by it, and then changed their mind as if nothing had happened.
JW teaching on the cross
In so far as the instrument of Christ’s passion is concerned, the official JW teaching is self-contradictory and completely disqualifies this sect as a trustworthy organization. In an earlier article I adduced historical and archeological evidence proving that Jesus Christ had to suffer death on precisely a cross and not a stake. As a reminder, I refer again to the evidence of the ancient authors: namely, Justin the Martyr (approx. 135 AD), Minitius Felix (approx. 160 AD), and Tertullian (approx. 195 AD—and also to the archeological findings: namely, the skeletal remains of a man called Jochanan who was crucified in the time of Christ, the crosses carved on first and second century Christian graves found in the catacombs on the Mount of Olives, and the third century graffiti and drawings depicting Christ nailed to the cross. To those who, since 1969, has been reading the Watchtower’s assurance that “future archeological findings will doubtless confirm the rightness of [the JW] teaching” (Kingdom Interlinear Bible, p. 1157—Polish edition), all this should be a cause for taking stock. The archeological discoveries prove that it is precisely the JWs who are mistaken and are leading others into error.
But my aim here is to focus on something else, namely that an inerrant teaching, if it is truly inerrant, should also be consistent and coherent.
Charles T. Russell, the founder and first president of the Society, took as the symbol of Christ’s reign a cross surmounted by a crown. This symbol was found on the cover of the Watchtower until 1931. In 1919, over five and a half million copies of Russell’s book The Divine Plan of the Ages were published in the Polish language. Page 300 contains the following prophecy: “As in the time of the harvest of the Jewish Age (i.e. the first century of the Christian era), the cross of Christ was a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks, so too, it will be a stumbling block and a scandal in the time of the harvest of the Gospel Age.”
In 1928, J. F. Rutherford stated in his book Reconciliation that the fact that “the child was born in Bethlehem of the virgin Mary, grew to man’s estate, and then died on the cross in Jerusalem is attested not only in the Bible but also by world history” (p. 117) [Polish edition]. Yet, a few years later, in his book Riches, published in in Poland in 1936, the same author announced that “Jesus was not executed on a wooden cross as is shown in countless images and paintings made and displayed by men; rather he was executed in such a manner that his body was nailed to a stake” (p. 23).
Of course, one could say that the inerrant Watchtower Society simply made a mistake and learned the truth only in 1936. But the problem is not just that this “truth” remains unsupported by the facts which archeological and historical research have brought to light. The real problem is that the Watchtower Society knowingly counts itself among the “enemies of Christ’s cross,” for whom the Cross is a “stumbling block” as the the organization’s own founder taught! Thus, either the prophet Russell was in error, or Rutherford, or their successors, or they were all taken in, since they could not all be right at the same time. As recently as 1995, the Watchtower stated that “the instrument on which Jesus hung and died (…) should evoke aversion” (May 15, p. 20) [Polish edition].
Interestingly enough, the same page contains the following sentence: “But there is no such thing as partial fidelity. Either one is faithful or one is not.” It would be hard to dispute the truth of this statement, but what one cannot in any way agree with is inconsistency in teaching. Either one discovers the Truth and teaches it, or one errs. One cannot err partially, for whoever errs partially, errs. Period. Thus if someone reveres the cross and teaches that in the end times it will be a cause of scandal, and then goes on to teach, despite the known facts, that the cross of Christ did not exist, and finally asserts that the instrument of Christ’s passion the cross should evoke aversion—then how can one speak here of inerrancy and knowing the Truth?
Certainly one cannot ascribe this indecision to Jehovah. And yet it is upon Him that JWs inadvertently shrug off responsibility for their errors whenever they claim that their teaching is fully in accord with His will. If Jehovah were really guiding the JWs, He would have to be a very erratic and indecisive God indeed, uninformed in matters of the Bible, historical research, morality, and plain human logic.
Prophecy and arrogance
Let me return to R. Franz’s book Crisis of Conscience to draw attention to the degree to which unfulfilled prophecies affect the liveliest interests of millions of people.
On April 1, 1972, the English-language edition of Watchtower published an article entitled, “They shall know that a Prophet was among them.” The text reveals that Jehovah has a prophet in modern times who “predicts future events.” According to the authors, “the facts point to the existence of such a Prophet.” On May 1, 1997, Watchtower explained: “Jehovah allows us to recognize His true messengers. (…) He can also unmask false messengers. How does he do this? By nullifying their signs and predictions, thereby proving that their messages are based on false reasoning, stupidity, and a carnal way of thinking” (p. 8).
In JW teaching, the year 1914 is a pivotal date. Upon it rest in large measure the doctrinal and power structures of this organization. According to the teaching today, Jesus has been present, albeit invisibly, in the world since the year 1914; his judgment is already upon the world; Jesus has formally taken over the Kingdom and reigns actively over the whole world; with that year the “last days” began; three and a half years later (i.e. 1918) there began the resurrection of the “anointed”; and Jesus chose from among “Jehovah’s witnesses” a class of wise and faithful servants. That class is the only channel of information by which He enlightens His servants on earth. To remove that pivotal year from the doctrine would mean the end of the Watchtower Society’s doctrinal and organizational stucture.
But many JWs are unaware today that from 1879 to the late 1920s the predictions published in the Watchtower indicated entirely different dates for each of these landmark events. Until 1929, it was taught that Christ’s invisible presence on earth began in the year 1874. For a dozen or more years Watchtower claimed that Christ’s formal reign began in 1878. (Only in 1922 was this event “advanced” to 1914.) For half a century Watchtower taught that the “last days” began in 1799, and for over forty years it persuaded its readers that the resurrection of the annointed began in the year 1881. From the very start, Watchtower insisted that the year 1914 would see the destruction of all the human institutions of the world, which clearly did not happen.
Once again someone made an error in his calculations. The worst of it is that these calculations became the basis of impugning the honor and faith of anyone who dared to question them. These dates were given as something of enormous moment, and those who trivialized these prophecies had their orthodoxy questioned. These dates were called “God’s dates”—a “well-established truth” “definitively indicated in Holy Scripture.”
Summation
It is all too evident that the JWs have been shooting themselves in the foot all along. If Watchtower assures us that God nullifies false prophecies, thereby exposing the stupidity of self-styled prophets, we are forced to admit that Watchtower has itself supplied us with a great number of unfulfilled prophecies and false predictions.
A person makes a grave mistake when he accepts the prophetic statements of the Watchtower, conforms his life to its predictions, deforms his own view of the world and his life, only to have reality disabuse him of the fiction.
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