Russell and Rutherford.
The foundation of the Jehovah's Witness organization was laid by Charles Russell and Judge Rutherford.
There will be additions and subtractions and variations and expansions, even contractions, but there it is, the organization formed by man, 1800 plus years after Jesus began His church, claiming like the Mormons and the Muslins and all the rest, to be the very voice of God in the world.
The Presidents that follow will now try to maintain that voice. So far, they have done it.
Nathan Homer Knorr. 1942-1977
What Mr. Knorr lacked in new insights and teachings, he more than made up for in intensity of control. He was from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and joined the "Bible Students" at age 16. He left his Reformed Church and was baptized into the Society in 1923. He then worked his way up in the organization, and was eventually appointed President in 1942, at Rutherford's demise.
His tenure in office, which ended in 1977, saw the expansion of the Watch Tower from 25 to 97 branch offices. The headquarters was likewise enlarged. As was the printing production. People were coming, people were joining. In 1958, a quarter of a million people came to two huge events, during which 7,000 were baptized.
It was a great time for the Witnesses. Onward, upward.
Most of the doctrinal pieces of the Witness fabric were in place, but Knorr did introduce the opposition to blood transfusions that has made the organization stink a bit more in the eyes of many.
Knorr suggested some other changes, such as the cessation, for the most part, of setting dates for this and that.
One of Knorr's strongest claims to a legacy was in the area of organization. It was his idea to have a plurality of elders in the various branches. Also during his reign, the entire leadership function of the Society was vested in a "Governing Body". Knorr and future leaders would not have the sovereign power of a Russell or a Rutherford. Their tasks would become more and more administrative.
Knorr wanted the Witnesses to hold on to the truth they had, and began to restructure the local assembly in such a way that their truths would be guarded. Dis-fellowshipping became the new scourge of the Society. Feared perhaps as the Inquisition of Rome, it was based on a list of rules, some loosely based on Scripture, some not.
The rules created by the leadership, when broken, would bring the poor breaker of the ordinance before a judicial committee formed within the Kingdom Hall. After a trial of sorts, guilty and unrepentant list-breakers were totally banned from the assembly. Also totally banned was any friendship or fellowship being offered to them by any member of that branch. No hello, no goodbye. No welcome. Family members were included in this awful scene. Those who fellowshipped the dis-fellowshipped would be un-fellowshipped as well!
In his later years, Mr. Knorr eased up a bit on this regulation. But his successor reinstated the harshness.
Evidently it worked too well for it to be surrendered.
A new Bible
That for which Mr. Knorr may well be remembered with the most animosity of heart by the Christian is far worse than this fellowshipping policy. It was his actual re-making of the Word of God into the Society's image.
It was clear that the Bible available up until this time provided an easy refutation of all the Witnesses stood for. So a panel of "scholars" was chosen. They are anonymous to this day, though it is probable that the next President, Frederick Franz, was on that committee. Why? He knew some Greek, and some (even less) Hebrew.
Through some twisting and shoving and perverting, the Witnesses were able to take those "hard passages", the ones that disagreed with their stand, and make them fit Witness doctrine. Thus was born the New World Translation. Beware this book! I have a copy of it. It's nearly perfect in most of its translation. But where it is imperfect, it is blasphemously imperfect.
I've noticed it is turning up in hotel rooms and other places. But that's another story. We'll take a very close look at this "translation" as we study the Scriptures later. Most of what we will discuss will be from the New Testament, so let me give you just a sampling of an Old Testament perversion here:
Look at Zechariah 12:10. God is speaking. The Father, right? Let's just say "God." Surely Jesus the Son cannot be talking in the book of Zechariah, can He? The words are "They will look on Me Whom they have pierced." Check every translation you can find. These are the words God spoke. God the Son! In the Old Testament!
Can't have this!
So one translation, after 1900 years of all of us walking in darkness, gets it right, right? (guess which one?) And that one says, "They will look to the One pierced."
Get the idea? Gotta change those embarrassing passages! Thank you Mr. Knorr and your anonymous friends, but no thank you.
1975. The world ends. Again
1960-1966 saw a slow-down of the growth rate of Jehovah's Witnesses. It looks like they needed some attention. They got it in the form of a new date being set. Now I said earlier that generally this practice was abandoned. But someone was "studying" and found that 1975 was to be the beginning of the seventh period of human history. Biblically, one could have said that meant "Millennium" and therefore those same people would be thinking "Armageddon." Sure enough, many Witnesses sold their homes to get ready for 1975, the sure-enough end of the world. Again.
Well, Mr. Knorr, what actually happened in 1975? Let's see. The Vietnam War ended. An Apollo and a Soyuz (Russian) spacecraft linked up in space. Margaret Thatcher became the first woman elected to lead Britain's Conservative Party. Egypt re-opened the Suez Canal after eight years... Hmmm. No Armageddon there. Looks like a pretty peaceful time, actually.
Zounds! Missed it again?
Many Witnesses had witnessed enough of this falseness. They opened their eyes, and left.
In 1977, Mr. Knorr breathed his last, and his position was taken by Frederick William Franz. Let's take a quick look at him.
Frederick William Franz. 1977-1992
The next Watch Tower President, Frederick Franz, the lone "scholar" of the New World Translation (though officially anonymous), hailed from Covington, Kentucky. Born in 1893, he was 84 years old when he took the reins of this powerful cultic machine. But recall, his job was mostly administrative and titular at this point. The "Governing Body" was in charge. He ruled for 15 years and died at age 99.
Much earlier in life, Franz had been a Lutheran, then a Presbyterian. In fact he wanted to be a Presbyterian minister at one time. How far afield his life strayed from its roots, is pretty obvious. Baptized in 1914, he too "worked his way" up into the big machine that Watch Tower had become. Certainly his place on the Bible committee had something to do with his esteem in the group.
Nothing earth-shattering to report here... let's move on.
Milton George Henschel. 1992-2000
Milton Henschel was born in 1920, and died in 2003 at age 82. He was from New Jersey. His baptism into the Society was in 1934, as a young teen. In 1947 he made the claim that he had been "anointed", one of the criteria for being appointed to leadership.
Perhaps one of the ways he wanted to prove his authority from heaven was to come up with a new Witness teaching. It took the form of more opposition to the medical world. This time the gripe was against the transplanting of organs. He made it the law of Witness-land, but by 1980, the Witnesses had abandoned this fight.
Henschel held the Presidency from 1992-2000, when the ruling "Governing Body" separated from the Society's Board of Directors. More political posturing and the Presidency took yet another hit. Mr. Henschel resigned and Mr. Adams soon took his place.
Don Alden Adams. 2000 to present
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1925, Don Adams is the current President of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Adams comes from the Episcopal faith. He has been the true "insider" of the organization and was the obvious choice to replace Mr. Henschel. It is said he has had little impact beyond the administrative, for reasons cited above. To be on the "Governing Body" is to wield the true power of the Society today.
Word is that that power, though still very real, has lessened its "antagonistic denouncements of the less popular Jehovah's Witnesses distinctives," such as the policies on birthdays and higher education etc.
But the ongoing deceptions of the Watch Tower continue to enslave millions.
The foundation of the Jehovah's Witness organization was laid by Charles Russell and Judge Rutherford.
There will be additions and subtractions and variations and expansions, even contractions, but there it is, the organization formed by man, 1800 plus years after Jesus began His church, claiming like the Mormons and the Muslins and all the rest, to be the very voice of God in the world.
The Presidents that follow will now try to maintain that voice. So far, they have done it.
Nathan Homer Knorr. 1942-1977
What Mr. Knorr lacked in new insights and teachings, he more than made up for in intensity of control. He was from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and joined the "Bible Students" at age 16. He left his Reformed Church and was baptized into the Society in 1923. He then worked his way up in the organization, and was eventually appointed President in 1942, at Rutherford's demise.
His tenure in office, which ended in 1977, saw the expansion of the Watch Tower from 25 to 97 branch offices. The headquarters was likewise enlarged. As was the printing production. People were coming, people were joining. In 1958, a quarter of a million people came to two huge events, during which 7,000 were baptized.
It was a great time for the Witnesses. Onward, upward.
Most of the doctrinal pieces of the Witness fabric were in place, but Knorr did introduce the opposition to blood transfusions that has made the organization stink a bit more in the eyes of many.
Knorr suggested some other changes, such as the cessation, for the most part, of setting dates for this and that.
One of Knorr's strongest claims to a legacy was in the area of organization. It was his idea to have a plurality of elders in the various branches. Also during his reign, the entire leadership function of the Society was vested in a "Governing Body". Knorr and future leaders would not have the sovereign power of a Russell or a Rutherford. Their tasks would become more and more administrative.
Knorr wanted the Witnesses to hold on to the truth they had, and began to restructure the local assembly in such a way that their truths would be guarded. Dis-fellowshipping became the new scourge of the Society. Feared perhaps as the Inquisition of Rome, it was based on a list of rules, some loosely based on Scripture, some not.
The rules created by the leadership, when broken, would bring the poor breaker of the ordinance before a judicial committee formed within the Kingdom Hall. After a trial of sorts, guilty and unrepentant list-breakers were totally banned from the assembly. Also totally banned was any friendship or fellowship being offered to them by any member of that branch. No hello, no goodbye. No welcome. Family members were included in this awful scene. Those who fellowshipped the dis-fellowshipped would be un-fellowshipped as well!
In his later years, Mr. Knorr eased up a bit on this regulation. But his successor reinstated the harshness.
Evidently it worked too well for it to be surrendered.
A new Bible
That for which Mr. Knorr may well be remembered with the most animosity of heart by the Christian is far worse than this fellowshipping policy. It was his actual re-making of the Word of God into the Society's image.
It was clear that the Bible available up until this time provided an easy refutation of all the Witnesses stood for. So a panel of "scholars" was chosen. They are anonymous to this day, though it is probable that the next President, Frederick Franz, was on that committee. Why? He knew some Greek, and some (even less) Hebrew.
Through some twisting and shoving and perverting, the Witnesses were able to take those "hard passages", the ones that disagreed with their stand, and make them fit Witness doctrine. Thus was born the New World Translation. Beware this book! I have a copy of it. It's nearly perfect in most of its translation. But where it is imperfect, it is blasphemously imperfect.
I've noticed it is turning up in hotel rooms and other places. But that's another story. We'll take a very close look at this "translation" as we study the Scriptures later. Most of what we will discuss will be from the New Testament, so let me give you just a sampling of an Old Testament perversion here:
Look at Zechariah 12:10. God is speaking. The Father, right? Let's just say "God." Surely Jesus the Son cannot be talking in the book of Zechariah, can He? The words are "They will look on Me Whom they have pierced." Check every translation you can find. These are the words God spoke. God the Son! In the Old Testament!
Can't have this!
So one translation, after 1900 years of all of us walking in darkness, gets it right, right? (guess which one?) And that one says, "They will look to the One pierced."
Get the idea? Gotta change those embarrassing passages! Thank you Mr. Knorr and your anonymous friends, but no thank you.
1975. The world ends. Again
1960-1966 saw a slow-down of the growth rate of Jehovah's Witnesses. It looks like they needed some attention. They got it in the form of a new date being set. Now I said earlier that generally this practice was abandoned. But someone was "studying" and found that 1975 was to be the beginning of the seventh period of human history. Biblically, one could have said that meant "Millennium" and therefore those same people would be thinking "Armageddon." Sure enough, many Witnesses sold their homes to get ready for 1975, the sure-enough end of the world. Again.
Well, Mr. Knorr, what actually happened in 1975? Let's see. The Vietnam War ended. An Apollo and a Soyuz (Russian) spacecraft linked up in space. Margaret Thatcher became the first woman elected to lead Britain's Conservative Party. Egypt re-opened the Suez Canal after eight years... Hmmm. No Armageddon there. Looks like a pretty peaceful time, actually.
Zounds! Missed it again?
Many Witnesses had witnessed enough of this falseness. They opened their eyes, and left.
In 1977, Mr. Knorr breathed his last, and his position was taken by Frederick William Franz. Let's take a quick look at him.
Frederick William Franz. 1977-1992
The next Watch Tower President, Frederick Franz, the lone "scholar" of the New World Translation (though officially anonymous), hailed from Covington, Kentucky. Born in 1893, he was 84 years old when he took the reins of this powerful cultic machine. But recall, his job was mostly administrative and titular at this point. The "Governing Body" was in charge. He ruled for 15 years and died at age 99.
Much earlier in life, Franz had been a Lutheran, then a Presbyterian. In fact he wanted to be a Presbyterian minister at one time. How far afield his life strayed from its roots, is pretty obvious. Baptized in 1914, he too "worked his way" up into the big machine that Watch Tower had become. Certainly his place on the Bible committee had something to do with his esteem in the group.
Nothing earth-shattering to report here... let's move on.
Milton George Henschel. 1992-2000
Milton Henschel was born in 1920, and died in 2003 at age 82. He was from New Jersey. His baptism into the Society was in 1934, as a young teen. In 1947 he made the claim that he had been "anointed", one of the criteria for being appointed to leadership.
Perhaps one of the ways he wanted to prove his authority from heaven was to come up with a new Witness teaching. It took the form of more opposition to the medical world. This time the gripe was against the transplanting of organs. He made it the law of Witness-land, but by 1980, the Witnesses had abandoned this fight.
Henschel held the Presidency from 1992-2000, when the ruling "Governing Body" separated from the Society's Board of Directors. More political posturing and the Presidency took yet another hit. Mr. Henschel resigned and Mr. Adams soon took his place.
Don Alden Adams. 2000 to present
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1925, Don Adams is the current President of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Adams comes from the Episcopal faith. He has been the true "insider" of the organization and was the obvious choice to replace Mr. Henschel. It is said he has had little impact beyond the administrative, for reasons cited above. To be on the "Governing Body" is to wield the true power of the Society today.
Word is that that power, though still very real, has lessened its "antagonistic denouncements of the less popular Jehovah's Witnesses distinctives," such as the policies on birthdays and higher education etc.
But the ongoing deceptions of the Watch Tower continue to enslave millions.
Look for Bob Faulkner's creations on http://sermonaudio.com including a through-the-Bible course, works about the Christ, the antichrist, the rapture, the church, prophecy and the persecution in North Korea. Look also for series on Muhammad and Islam, written for Christian believers. All of these works are now in book form available at Amazon. Go to http://www.amazon.com/author/bfaulkner to look at all these books.
As for me, I'm a man found of God over 55 years ago, called to the ministry, now retired from school teaching, and serving the Lord as a nursing home minister, and podcaster.
By Bob Faulkner
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