Jehovah's Witnesses' History

The Jehovah's Witnesses was begun by Charles Taze Russell in 1872. He was born on February 16, 1852, the son of Joseph L.

and Anna Eliza Russell. He had great difficulty in dealing with the doctrine of eternal hellfire, and in his studies he came to deny not only eternal punishment but also the

Trinity and the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. When Russell was 18, he organized a

Bible class in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1879, he sought to popularize his aberrant ideas on doctrine.

He co -published the Herald of the Morning magazine with its founder, N. H. Berber. And by 1884,

Russell controlled the publication and renamed it the Washtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom, and he founded the

Zion's Washtower Tract Society, now known as the Washtower Bible and Tract Society. The first edition of the

Washtower magazine was only 6 ,000 copies each month. Today, The Witnesses, a publishing complex in Brooklyn, New York, churns out over 100 ,000 books and 800 ,000 copies of its two magazines daily.

Russell claimed that the Bible could only be understood according to his interpretations, a dangerous arrangement since he controlled what was written in the

Washtower magazine. This kind of assertion is typical among leaders of cult religious systems. After the death of Russell on October 31, 1916, a

Missouri lawyer named Joseph Franklin Rutherford took over the presidency of the Washtower Society, which was known then as the

International Bible Students Association. In 1931, he changed the name of the organization to the

Jehovah's Witnesses. After Rutherford's death, Nathan Knorr took over. After Knorr, Frederick William Franz became president.

The Society was led by Mr. Henschel, who died in 2003. The group has over 4 million members worldwide.

The Washtower Society statistics indicate that 740 house calls are required to recruit each of the nearly 200 ,000 new members who join every year.

The Jehovah's Witnesses have several book studies each week. The members are not required to attend, but there is a level of expectation that gently urges converts to participate.

It is during these book studies that the Jehovah's Witnesses are constantly exposed to counter -Christian teachings.

The average Jehovah's Witness, with his constant Washtower indoctrination, could easily pummel the average

Christian when it comes to defending his beliefs. The Jehovah's Witnesses vehemently portray the doctrine of the

Trinity as pagan in origin and that Christendom as a whole has bought the lie of the devil. Along with denying the

Trinity is an equally strong denial of the deity of Christ, the deity of the Holy Spirit, the belief in hell, and eternal conscious punishment in hell.