Criticism of Jehovah’s Witnesses:

Doctrinal criticisms

Failed predictions[edit source]

The beliefs unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses involve their interpretations of the second coming of Christ, the millennium and the kingdom of God. Watch Tower Society publications have made, and continue to make, predictions about world events they believe were prophesied in the Bible.^[1] Some of those early predictions were described as “established truth”,^[2] and ‘beyond a doubt’.^[3]Witnesses are told to ‘be complete in accepting the visible organization’s direction in every aspect’ and that there is no need to question what God tells them through his Word and organization since love “believes all things.”^[4]^[5]^[6] If a member advocates views different to what appears in print, they face expulsion.^[7]^[8]^[9]

Failed predictions that were either explicitly stated or strongly implied, particularly linked to dates in 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925 and 1975, have led to the alteration or abandonment of some teachings. The Society’s publications have at times suggested that members had previously “read into the Watch Towerstatements that were never intended”^[10] or that the beliefs of members were “based on wrong premises.”^[11] According to Professor Edmond Gruss, other failed predictions were ignored, and replaced with new predictions; for example, in the book, The Finished Mystery (1917), events were applied to the years 1918 to 1925 that earlier had been held to occur prior to 1914. When the new interpretations also did not transpire, the 1926 edition of the book changed the statements and removed the dates.^[12]

Raymond Franz, a former member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, has cited publications that claimed God has used Jehovah’s Witnesses as a collective prophet.^[13] Professor James A. Beverley, along with others, has accused the movement of false prophecy for making those predictions, particularly because of assertions in some cases that the predictions were beyond doubt or had been approved by God, but describes its record of telling the future as “pathetic”.^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17] Beverley says the Watch Tower Society has passed judgment on others who have falsely predicted the end of the world (he cites a 1968 Awake! article that says other groups were “guilty of false prophesying” after having “predicted an ‘end to the world’, even announcing a specific date”).^[18]^[19]

The Watch Tower Society rejects accusations that it is a false prophet.^[20]^[21] It admits its explanations of Bible prophecy are not infallible^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25] and that its predictions are not claimed explicitly as “the words of Jehovah.”^[20] It states that some of its expectations have needed adjustment because of eagerness for God’s kingdom, but that those adjustments are no reason to “call into question the whole body of truth.”^[26] Raymond Franz claims that the Watch Tower Society tries to evade its responsibility when citing human fallibility as a defense, adding that the Society represents itself as God’s appointed spokesman, and that throughout its history has made many emphatic predictions. Franz adds that the organization’s eagerness for the Millennium does not give it license to impugn the motives of those who fail to accept its predictions.^[6]

George D. Chryssides has suggested widespread claims that Witnesses “keep changing the dates” are a distortion and misunderstanding of Watch Tower Society chronology. He argues that, although there have been failures in prophetic speculation, the changing views and dates of the Jehovah’s Witnesses are more largely attributable to changed understandings of biblical chronology than to failed predictions. Chryssides states, “For the Jehovah’s Witnesses prophecy serves more as a way of discerning a divine plan in human history than a means to predicting the future.”^[27]

Predictions (by date of publication) include:

1877: Christ’s kingdom would hold full sway over the earth in 1914; the Jews, as a people, would be restored to God’s favor; the “saints” would be carried to heaven.^[28]
1891: 1914 would be “the farthest limit of the rule of imperfect men.”^[29]
1904: “World-wide anarchy” would follow the end of the Gentile Times in 1914.^[30]
1916: World War I would terminate in Armageddon and the rapture of the “saints”.^[31]
1917: In 1918, Christendom would go down as a system to oblivion and be succeeded by revolutionary governments. God would “destroy the churches wholesale and the church members by the millions.” Church members would “perish by the sword of war, revolution and anarchy.” The dead would lie unburied. In 1920 all earthly governments would disappear, with worldwide anarchy prevailing.^[32]
1920: Messiah’s kingdom would be established in 1925 and bring worldwide peace. God would begin restoring the earth. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and other faithful patriarchs would be resurrected to perfect human life and be made princes and rulers, the visible representatives of the New Order on earth. Those who showed themselves obedient to God would never die.^[33]
1922: The anti-typical “jubilee” that would mark God’s intervention in earthly affairs would take place “probably the fall” of 1925.^[34]
1925: God’s restoration of Earth would begin “shortly after” October 1, 1925. Jerusalem would be made the world’s capital. Resurrected “princes” such as Abel, Noah, Moses and John the Baptist would give instructions to their subjects around the world by radio, and airplanes would transport people to and from Jerusalem from all parts of the globe in just “a few hours”.^[35]
1938: Armageddon was too close for marriage or child bearing.^[36]
1941: There were only “months” remaining until Armageddon.^[37]
1942: Armageddon was “immediately before us.”^[38]
1961: Awake! magazine stated that Armageddon “will come in the twentieth century. … This generation will see its fulfillment.”^[39]
1966: It would be 6000 years since man’s creation in the fall of 1975 and it would be “appropriate” for Christ’s thousand-year reign to begin at that time.^[40] Time was “running out, no question about that.”^[41] The “immediate future” was “certain to be filled with climactic events … within a few years at most”, the final parts of Bible prophecy relating to the “last days” would undergo fulfillment as Christ’s reign began.
1967: The end-time period (beginning in 1914) was claimed to be so far advanced that the time remaining could “be compared, not just to the last day of a week, but rather, to the last part of that day”.^[42]
1968: No one could say “with certainty” that the battle of Armageddon would begin in 1975, but time was “running out rapidly” with “earthshaking events” soon to take place.^[43] In March 1968 there was a “short period of time left”, with “only about ninety months left before 6000 years of man’s existence on earth is completed”.^[44]
1969: The existing world order would not last long enough for young people to grow old; the world system would end “in a few years.” Young Witnesses were told not to bother pursuing tertiary education for this reason.^[45]
1971: The “battle in the day of Jehovah” was described as beginning “[s]hortly, within our twentieth century”.^[46]
1974: There was just a “short time remaining before the wicked world’s end” and Witnesses were commended for selling their homes and property to “finish out the rest of their days in this old system in the pioneer service.”^[47]
1984: There were “many indications” that “the end” was closer than the end of the 20th century.^[48]
1989: The Watchtower asserted that Christian missionary work begun in the first century would “be completed in our 20th century”.^[49] When the magazine was republished in bound volumes, the phrase “in our 20th century” was replaced with the less specific “in our day”.

Changes of Doctrine

	Last Days begin	Start of Christ’s Presence	Christ made King	Resurrection of 144,000	Judgment of Religion	Separating Sheep & Goats	Great Tribulation
History of Eschatological Doctrine
1879–1920	1799	1874	1878			during Millennium	1914, 1915, 1918, 1920
1920–1923			1914	1878	1878	during Millennium	1925
1923–1925						during Christ’s presence	1925
1925–1927							within generation of 1914
1927–1929				1918
1929–1930	1914
1930–1966	1914				1919
1966–1975							1975?
1975–1995							within generation of 1914
1995–present						during Great Tribulation	imminent

Although Watch Tower Society literature claims the Society’s founder, Charles Taze Russell, was directed by God’s Holy Spirit, through which he received “flashes of light”,^[50] it has substantially altered doctrines since its inception and abandoned many of Russell’s teachings.^[51] Many of the changes have involved biblical chronology that had earlier been claimed as beyond question.^[52]^[53]^[54]^[55]^[56] The Watch Towerasserted in 1922: “We affirm that Scripturally, scientifically, and historically, present-truth chronology is correct beyond a doubt.” (italics in original).^[57] Watch Tower Society publications state that doctrinal changes result from a process of “progressive revelation”, in which God gradually reveals his will.^[58]^[59]

Date of beginning of Christ’s kingdom rule. Russell taught that Jesus had become king in April 1878.^[60]^[61] In 1920, the Watch Tower Society altered the date to 1914.^[62]
Date of resurrection of anointed Christians. After the failure of predictions that Christ’s chosen “saints” would be carried away to heaven in 1878,^[63] Russell developed the teaching that those “dying in the Lord” from 1878 forward would have an immediate heavenly resurrection.^[64] The Watch Towerconfirmed the doctrine in 1925,^[65] but two years later asserted this date was wrong^[66] and that the beginning of the instant resurrection to heaven for faithful Christians was from 1918.^[67]
Identity of “faithful and wise servant”. Russell initially believed the “faithful and wise servant” of Matthew 24:45 was “every member of this body of Christ … the whole body individually and collectively.”^[68] By 1886 he had altered his view and began explaining it was a person, not the Christian church.^[69]Russell accepted claims by Bible Students that he was that “servant”^[70]^[71]^[72]and in 1909 described as his “opponents” those who would apply the term “faithful and wise servant” to “all the members of the church of Christ” rather than to an individual.^[73] By 1927 the Watch Tower Society was teaching that it was “a collective servant.”^[74]
Great Pyramid as a “stone witness” of God. Russell wrote in 1910 that God had the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt built as a testimony to the truth of the Bible and proof of its chronology identifying the “last days”.^[75]^[76] In 1928 The Watch Tower rejected the doctrine and claimed the Pyramid had been built under the direction of Satan.^[77]
Beginning of the “last days”. From the earliest issues of the Watch Tower, Russell promoted the belief that the “last days” had begun in 1799 and would end in 1914.^[78] As late as 1927 and 1928 Watch Tower publications were still claiming the last days had begun in 1799.^[79]^[80] Then in 1929, the beginningof the last days was changed to 1914.^[81]
Date of Christ’s invisible presence. From 1879 until 1929, the Watch Tower Society taught that Jesus ‘presence’ had begun in 1874,^[82]^[83] stating in 1922 that the selection of 1874 was “indisputable”.^[56]^[84] In 1930 the Society moved the event to 1914.^[85]^[86]
Jews’ role in God’s Kingdom. Russell followed the view of Nelson H. Barbour, who believed that in 1914 Christ’s kingdom would take power over all the earth and the Jews, as a people, would be restored to God’s favor.^[87] In 1889 Russell wrote that with the completion of the “Gentile Times” in 1914, Israel’s “blindness” would subside and they would convert to Christianity.^[88] The book Life (1929) noted that the return of Jews to Palestine signaled that the end was very close, because Jews would “have the favors first and thereafter all others who obey the Lord” under God’s restoration of his kingdom.^[89] In 1932 that belief was abandoned and from that date the Watch Tower Society taught that Witnesses alone were the Israel of God.^[90]
Identity of the “superior authorities”. Russell taught that the “superior authorities” of Romans 13:1, to whom Christians had to show subjection and obedience, were governmental authorities. In 1929 The Watch Towerdiscarded this view, stating that the term referred only to God and Christ, and saying the change of doctrine was evidence of “advancing light” of truth shining forth to God’s chosen people.^[91] In 1952, The Watchtower stated that the words of Romans 13 “could never have applied to the political powers of Caesar’s world as wrongly claimed by the clergy of Christendom,”^[92] and in 1960 The Watchtower described the earlier view as a factor that had caused the Bible Student movement to be “unclean” in God’s eyes during the 1914–1918 period. Two years later, in 1962, The Watchtower reverted to Russell’s initial doctrine.^[91]
Identity and function of the Governing Body. Frequent mentions of the term “Governing Body” began in Watch Tower Society literature in the 1970s.^[93]The Governing Body was initially identified as the Watch Tower Society’s seven-member board of directors.^[94] However, at the time, the board played no role in establishing Watchtower doctrines, and all such decisions since the Society’s origins had been made by the Society’s president.^[95]^[96] A 1923 Watch Tower noted that Russell alone directed the policy and course of the Society “without regard to any other person on earth”^[97] and both his successors, Rutherford and Knorr, also acted alone in establishing Watch Tower doctrines. An organizational change on January 1, 1976, for the first time gave the Governing Body the power to rule on doctrines^[98] and become the ruling council of Jehovah’s Witnesses.^[99] Despite this, The Watchtower in 1971 claimed that a Governing Body of anointed Christians had existed since the 19th century to govern the affairs of God’s anointed people.^[100]
Treatment of disfellowshipped persons. In the 1950s when disfellowshipping became common, Witnesses were to have nothing to do with expelled members, not conversing with or acknowledging them.^[101] Family members of expelled individuals were permitted occasional “contacts absolutely necessary in matters pertaining to family interests,” but could not discuss spiritual matters with them.^[102] In 1974 The Watchtower, acknowledging some unbalanced Witnesses had displayed unkind, inhumane and possibly cruel attitudes to those expelled,^[103] relaxed restrictions on family contact, allowing families to choose for themselves the extent of association,^[104]including whether or not to discuss some spiritual matters.^[105] In 1981, a reversal of policy occurred, with Witnesses instructed to avoid all spiritual interaction with disfellowshipped ones, including with close relatives.^[106]Witnesses were instructed not to greet disfellowshipped persons.^[106]^[107]^[108]Parents were permitted to care for the physical needs of a disfellowshipped minor child; ill parents or physically or emotionally ill child could be accepted back into the home “for a time”. Witnesses were instructed not to eat with disfellowshipped relatives and were warned that emotional influence could soften their resolve.^[109] In 1980 the Witnesses’ Brooklyn headquarters advised traveling overseers that a person need not be promoting “apostate views” to warrant disfellowshipping; it advised that “appropriate judicial action” be taken against a person who “continues to believe the apostate ideas and rejects what he has been provided” through The Watchtower.^[110]The rules on shunning were extended in 1981 to include those who had resigned from the group voluntarily.^[111]^[112]
Fall of “Babylon the Great”. Russell taught that the fall of the “world empire of false religion” had taken place in 1878 and predicted “Babylon’s” complete destruction in 1914.^[113] The Society claimed in 1917 that religion’s final destruction would take place in 1918, explaining that God would destroy churches “wholesale” and that “Christendom shall go down as a system to oblivion.”^[114] In 1988 the Watch Tower Society claimed that release from prison in 1919 of senior Watchtower figures marked the fall of Babylon “as far as having any captive hold on God’s people was concerned”,^[115] with her “final destruction” “into oblivion, never to recover”, expected “in the near future.”^[116]

United Nations Association[edit source]

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the United Nations is one of the ‘superior authorities’ that exist by God’s permission, and that it serves a purpose in maintaining order, but do not support it politically and do not consider it to be the means to achieve peace and security. Jehovah’s Witnesses also believe that the United Nations is the “image of the wild beast” of Revelation 13:1–18, and the second fulfilment of the “abominable thing that causes desolation” from Matthew 24:15; that it will be the means for the devastation of organized false religion worldwide;^[117]^[118] and that, like all other political powers, it will be destroyed and replaced by God’s heavenly kingdom.^[119] Jehovah’s Witnesses have denounced other religious organizations for having offered political support to the UN.^[120]

On October 8, 2001, an article was published in the British Guardian newspaper questioning the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society’s registration as a non-governmental organization (NGO) with the United Nations Department of Public Information and accusing the Watch Tower Society of hypocrisy.^[121] Within days of the article’s publication, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society submitted a formal request for disassociation, removing all association with the United Nations Department of Public Information,^[122] and released a letter stating that the reason for becoming associated with the United Nations Department of Information (DPI) was to access their facilities, and that they had not been aware of the change in language contained in the criteria for NGO association.^[123] However, when the Watch Tower Society sought NGO association, “the organization agreed to meet criteria for association, including support and respect of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations”, acknowledging that the purpose of membership is to “promote knowledge of the principles and activities of the United Nations.”^[124]

Fall of Jerusalem[edit source]

Jehovah’s Witnesses assert that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 607 BC and completely uninhabited for exactly seventy years. This date is critical to their selection of October 1914 for the arrival of Christ in kingly power—2520 years after October 607 BC.^[125]^[126] Non-Witness sources do not support 607 BC for the event, placing the destruction of Jerusalem within a year of 587 BC, twenty years later.^[126]^[127] Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that periods of seventy years mentioned in the books of Jeremiah and Daniel refer to the Babylonian exile of Jews. They also believe that the gathering of Jews in Jerusalem, shortly after their return from Babylon, officially ended the exile in Jewish month of Tishrei (Ezra 3:1). According to the Watch Tower Society, October 607 BC is derived by counting back seventy years from Tishrei of 537 BC, based on their belief that Cyrus’ decree to release the Jews during his first regnal year “may have been made in late 538 B.C. or before March 4–5, 537 B.C.”^[128]^[129] Secular sources assign the return to either 538 BC or 537 BC.^[130]^[131]^[132]^[133]^[134]

In The Gentile Times Reconsidered: Chronology & Christ’s Return, Carl O. Jonsson, a former Witness, presents eighteen lines of evidence to support the traditional view of neo-Babylonian chronology. He accuses the Watch Tower Society of deliberately misquoting sources in an effort to bolster their position.^[135] The Watch Tower Society claims that biblical chronology is not always compatible with secular sources, and that the Bible is superior. It claims that secular historians make conclusions about 587 BC based on incorrect or inconsistent historical records, but accepts those sources that identify Cyrus’ capture of Babylon in 539 BC, claiming it has no evidence of being inconsistent and hence can be used as a pivotal date.^[128]^[136]^[137]

Rolf Furuli, a Jehovah’s Witness and a lecturer in Semitic languages, presents a study of 607 BC in support of the Witnesses’ conclusions in Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible, Volume 1: Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews.^[138] Lester L. Grabbe, professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the University of Hull, said of Furuli’s study: “Once again we have an amateur who wants to rewrite scholarship. … F. shows little evidence of having put his theories to the test with specialists in Mesopotamian astronomy and Persian history.”^[139]

The relative positions of the moon, stars and planets indicated in the Babylonian astronomical diary VAT 4956 are used by secular historians to establish 568 BC as the thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar‘s reign.^[140] The Watch Tower Society claims that unnamed researchers have confirmed that the positions of the moon and stars on the tablet are instead consistent with astronomical calculations for 588 BC; the Society claims that the planetsmentioned in the tablet cannot be clearly identified.^[141] The Watch Tower Society’s article cites David Brown as stating, “some of the signs for the names of the planets and their positions are unclear,”^[141] however Brown indicates that the Babylonians also had unique names for the known planets;^[142] Jonsson confirms that the unique names are those used in VAT 4956.^[143]

Evolution

The Watch Tower Society teaches a combination of gap creationism and day-age creationism.^[144] It dismisses Young Earth creationism as “unscriptural and unbelievable”,^[145] and states that Jehovah’s Witnesses “are not creationists” on the basis that they do not believe the earth was created in six literal days.^[146]^[147]

Watch Tower Society publications attempt to refute the theory of evolution, in favor of divine creation.^[148]^[149] The Watch Tower Society’s views of evolution have met with criticism typical of objections to evolution. Gary Bottingdescribed his own difficulty as a Jehovah’s Witness to reconcile creation with simple observations of species diversification, especially after discussions with J.B.S. Haldane in India.^[150]

The Society’s 1985 publication, Life—How Did it Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? is criticized for its dependency on the book The Neck of the Giraffeauthored by Francis Hitching, which is quoted 5 times. The book presents Hitching—a TV writer and paranormalist with no scientific credentials—as an evolutionist.^[151] Richard Dawkins also criticizes the book for implying that “chance” is the only alternative to deliberate design, stating, “[T]he candidate solutions to the riddle of improbability are not, as falsely implied, design and chance. They are design and natural selection.”^[152]

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