Are Jehovah’s Witnesses, True Witnesses? Part 3 of 7

Cults, Occult And World Religions

The cult called Jehovah’s Witnesses, also known as “Russelites” or “Rutherfordites” was begun by Charles Taze Russell in 1872. He was born on February 16, 1852 and raised a Presbyterian. At 16 he was a member of the Congregational Church. He was greatly influenced by a Second Adventist preacher named Jonas Wendell. When Russell was 18, he organized a Bible class in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1879 he sought to popularize his false ideas on doctrine. As a result he co-published The Herald of the Morning magazine with its founder, N. H. Barbour (another Adventist) 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, the primary Bible study aid for Jehovah’s Witnesses, was only 6,000 copies each month. Today the Witnesses' publishing complex in Brooklyn, New York, prints 24 million copies, giving it the largest circulation of any religious magazine in the world. It is published in 144 languages. Their Awake! Magazine is published in 87 languages and has and average printing of 21 million copies.

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. In 1931 he changed the name of the organization to "The Jehovah's Witnesses" citing Isaiah 43:10 which states, “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and I am God” (ASV).

Today Jehovah’s Witnesses have a total of 6,117,666 “practicing members” in 235 countries. In 2001 they baptized 263,431 people in their 93,154 congregations worldwide.

Almost everyone knows of their aggressive door-to-door outreach efforts. Fifty people were doing this work full time in 1888 - now the average number worldwide is about 700,000. They spend over 1 billion hours every year doing this. Jehovah’s Witnesses are also known for prohibiting their members from participating in such common activities as taking blood transfusions, celebrating birthdays or holidays, voting, flag saluting, singing a national anthem and military service.

These peculiar beliefs simply scratch the surface of a cult that has twisted the Scriptures to fit their own doctrines and practices. In this study we will look at three major doctrines from the Bible that Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to believe.