CUL:Cracks in the Watchtower  By John Williamson

   Over its century-long history, the Jehovah's Witness cult has grown
from a small Pittsburgh Bible study, let by Charles Taze Russel, into a
worldwide, international (and now computerized) organization with a
well-known system of door- to-door "evangelism" and a record-setting
publishing effort.

   Although the cult's members are commonly known as Jehovah's
Witnesses, the organization itself is officially called the Watchtower
Bible and Tract Society.

   The Society has suffered several serious upheavals recently that
have been raising questions about the group's self-proclaimed subtitle
of "Jehovah's organization on earth." Of course, orthodox Christians
have been asking these questions for years. Surprisingly, such
questions are now being vocalized from members within the confines of
the Watchtower.

   For the first time in the organization's existence, some of the rank
and file are questioning the directives of the leadership, re-examining
the Biblical bases of the official pronouncements and openly being
skeptical of several facets of Watchtower life. some of this unrest
among the Witnesses is of such an ominous nature and proportion that it
has the hierarchy concerned.

   What are the factors causing so much commotion within the cult?

   First, the organization is suffering from a terminal eschatology.
The Society has long claimed the year 1914 was the end of the reign of
the Gentiles and the year when Christ supposedly returned. They insist
this date was the result of meticulous Biblical calculations,
exhaustive scholarship and rigorous comparison of various Scriptures.

   The return happened, according to the Witnesses, but it was an
invisible and non-cataclysmic event. Thus no one actually saw Christ
literally returning upon the earth that year, but they believe He did
come.

   However, the Witnesses still maintain that the generation living at
the time of the "Lord's return" (1914) will still be alive to witness
the end of the present world order and the ushering in of the Kingdom
which will be a monumental, apocalyptic and highly visible event.

   FATAL DOCTRINE

   This doctrine, still taught dogmatically by the Watchtower, carries
with it not only the reputation of Jehovah's Witness scholarship but
the prestige of an organization claiming sole favor of God upon the
earth.

   Obviously any repudiation of this teaching could have dire
repercussions for the cult.

   But without an outright repudiation, or at least a major alteration,
this doctrine will prove fatal as the designated generation dies out
without seeing the much-touted spectacular events envisioned by the
Witnesses.

   This eschatological scheme was responsible for the group purchasing
a mansion on the West Coast that was to be used as the home of the
resurrected Old Testament saints. Their stated purpose in buying the
property was the nearness of the end of the age and the imminent
resurrection of these famous Bible characters.

   After using the structure for accommodating only ordinary Society
dignitaries, they eventually sold it. The generation born before 1914
is approaching the end of the normal human life span; and as it
continues to die out, so does the demonstrated accuracy of the cult's
date setters.

   Bible-believers need to wonder what effect this will have on the
minds, attitudes and spiritual concerns of millions of faithful
Watchtower adherents as their prophetic clock continues ticking farther
and farther away from 1914, and nothing happens.

   More recently, the year 1975 was highly publicized in Witness
literature as the beginning of the end. The cult's membership growth
accelerated rapidly and excitement among the Russellites reached a
fever pitch as the fateful year approached. Not surprisingly, the
membership number slightly decreased for the first time in the
organization's history, when 1975 uneventfully passed from the scene.

   In its history the group has established several such predictions,
naming specific dates when certain spiritually significant events were
to transpire. However, the 1914 date has been and still is, declared
the fateful year when the generation of that year will survive the
dramatic destruction of the present order.

   It would seem reasonable to expect that soon an explanation will be
issued that the attempts to both save the integrity of Watchtower
doctrine and at the same time stop this terminal eschatological system
from strangling the life out of the cult.

   In the previous part, the point was made that the Jehovah Witnesses
were losing members because several predictions of the return of Christ
were missed. One of those was an "invisible" return in 1914. Time is
running out because the Watchtower Society has said that the visible
return of Jesus will happen during the generation of those who were
alive in 1914.

   In this part, another crack is discussed related to the Witnesses'
claim to perfect unity.

   Soulwinners should take particular note of these changes. They can
be very useful in helping a JW understand the true Gospel in contrast
to the system of deception of the Witnesses.

   The cult is troubled by a deteriorating unity that has been not only
debilitating but embarrassing. They have long held that organic unity
is one of the identifying marks of "true" Christianity. Russellites
believe and teach that a single earthly organization is the subject of
the Lord's high priestly prayer in John 17. "That they may be one" is a
plea for Christian wholeness manifested in the last hundred years by
the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

   Under four succeeding presidents. the Watchtower has had monolithic
unity enforced with stringent, almost military, discipline. This facade
of party unity has grown more and more transparent as some publicized
challenges to the cult's centralized authority have erupted.

   These rebellions have been in some cases the direct result of the
unraveling of their exchatology.

   In 1980 a major reshuffle of personnel at the top of the Society's
hierarchy resulted in several notable figures being excommunicated from
the organization. Some of the expulsions were immediate; others were
completed several years later.

   Among the high-ranking officials, disfelloshipped was Raymond Franz,
nephew of the Society's current president and former voting member of
the Governing Body, the highest authority within the corporation's
structure.

   Loaded with a career of service to the cult, and having worked for
many years on the secretive decision-making echelons, Franz published a
book in 1983 entitled Crisis Of Conscience in which he exposed many of
the unchristian actions of the organization and brought several of the
most embarrassing Watchtower skeletons out of the closet.

   His vast knowledge of the cult's bureaucracy and technical
experience in the organization's operations has given his book a
forceful edge in explaining the Watchtower's inner workings, and that
has resulted, understandably, in official discouragement from reading
the book.

   In October of 1984 Newsweek published a story abut some of the
problems the cult had been experiencing. Accompanying the article was a
picture of Jehovah's Witnesses picketing their own headquarters plant
in Brooklyn and displaying signs protesting some of the theological
decrees of the Society's leadership.

   These were not orthodox religionists complaining about the group's
doctrines; these were rank-and-file Witnesses dissatisfied with their
own group's leadership. The once highly trumpeted Watchtower unity has
begun to appear more mirage than reality.

   If this disintegration continues, what effect might it have on the
spiritual and Biblical understanding of the individual cult member,
especially taking into consideration the Society's own teaching that
organic unity is to be equated with divine favor and blessing?

   Reprinted from the Discerner quarterly, published by the Religion
Analysis Service, 2708 E. Lake St., suite 231, Minneapolis, MN 55406.