PART 2 JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

Their History

The Jehovah's Witnesses, formally known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, claim to have over 4.1 million adherents in more than 200 nations worldwide.  Jehovah's Witnesses'  history begins over one hundred years ago with a man named Charles Taze Russell who is credited with the founding of this organization.  Russell was born on February 16, 1852 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania to Joseph and Anna Russell.

Both his parents were Presbyterians, however, at the age of fifteen, Russell united with a Congregational Church.  During this time, he came to the conclusion that organized religion "merely wrecked my confidence in human creeds and systems of Bible interpretations."2  Jehovah's Witnesses are probably best known for their door-to-door approach in witnessing.  Who hasn't been visited by them at their home?  It has been estimated that they knock on at least 750 doors in order to reach one person for their cause.  Through this method, they knock on almost 148 million doors each year.  Their growth through the years has been phenomenal.

Their Publications

Starting with a small congregation in 1870, at the age of 18, Charles Russell preached his version of the Gospel as co-editor with a man named N.H. Barbour in a magazine entitled The Herald of the Morning.  During this time both men collaborated together to produce a 194 page book titled, Three Worlds or Plan of Redemption.  By the early 1800s there were thirty Watchtower congregations which organized into the Watchtower Tract Society in 1884.  Later this nonprofit religious organization published a series of seven books called Studies in the Scriptures.  Jehovah's Witnesses are famous for their publications like the Watchtower and Awake magazines.  The Watchtower has an estimated circulation of 9,800,000 in 80 different languages, and the Awake  magazine has a circulation of 8,900,000 in 33 different languages.  More than one billion Bibles, books, booklets and leaflets have been distributed by them since 1920 in more than 176 different languages.  According to the Watchtower, Jehovah's Witnesses identify themselves "as God's sole collective channel for the flow of Biblical truth to men on earth in these last days."