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THE WATCHTOWER'S NEW IMAGE

JWs as mainstream Christians!

by David A Reed

FROM SWORD & TROWEL 2000 No 1

IT IS NOW becoming clear that the Watchtower organisation has dramatically shifted direction. Its focus is no longer on prophecy, nor on doctrine, nor on membership growth. Rather, the organisation seems determined to create a new image for itself.

It has embarked on a campaign to make Jehovah’s Witnesses appear to be a mainstream Christian church - a church without cultic doctrines or practices.

For some time now, everything coming out of Brooklyn headquarters has been tailored to fit this new image, as Jesus is given greater prominence in Watchtower books and magazines. Christian-sounding terminology is now being used as if it applied to all Jehovah’s Witnesses, not merely to the elite remnant of 144,000 anointed ones. Controversial policies are either being abandoned or swept under the rug. Compromise is taking the place of opposition to worldly governments.

The Jehovah’s Witness organisation’s new image campaign has been in the making for some time, but it has taken a while for the policy shift to become clear. However, an unmistakable pattern has now emerged.

The question is - how much of this represents real change, and how much is merely cosmetic? Is the sect really fixing its flawed doctrines and practices, or is it merely papering over the cracks? The answer can be found by examining each of the areas of change.

Jesus became the focus of a JW book for the first time in 1991, when the Watchtower Society published The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived. This marked a sudden reversal of the trend the organisation had been following for the previous hundred years, a trend that had been characterised by less and less emphasis on Jesus Christ.

The Society admitted this trend away from naming Christ when commenting on its own songbooks in the 1988 book, Revelation - Its Grand Climax at Hand! They wrote -

‘In the songbook produced by Jehovah’s people in 1905, there were twice as many songs praising Jesus as there were songs praising Jehovah God. In their 1928 songbook, the number of songs extolling Jesus was about the same as the number extolling Jehovah. But in the latest songbook of 1984, Jehovah is honoured by four times as many songs as is Jesus.’

Although the Revelation Climax book went on to justify this trend and to declare it good and appropriate, the JW organisation has recently been reversing that trend by giving more emphasis to Jesus.

Both in printed discussions and in colourful illustrations, Christ has become more prominent in Watchtower publications. The result is that new visitors to JW Kingdom Halls are less likely to notice the tremendous distance of the cult from mainstream Christian practice. This is probably the reason for the change - to make Jehovah’s Witnesses appear more mainstream.

However, the change is only skin deep, since there has been no published change in Watchtower theology. Christ is still, in the official JW view, merely the first angel God created. The Society’s increased public emphasis on Jesus resembles Mormons’ outwardly Christian appearance which masks their official view of Jesus as one of many gods and goddesses.

Christian-sounding terminology is another feature of the campaign to make Jehovah’s Witnesses appear to be a mainstream Christian church. Since Judge Rutherford’s day the sect has openly taught that only the elite remnant of the 144,000 anointed ones are born again and declared righteous in Christ. The great crowd of other sheep are privileged to associate with these members of the Bride, the body of Christ, but are not actually part of His Church. The expression ‘in Christ’ (or ‘in union with Christ’ as it is rendered in the JW New World Translation) was reserved exclusively for the ‘heavenly class’.[1]

The millions of rank-and-file JWs were taught to respond to such New Testament promises by saying,

‘That does not apply to me, for I am one of the "other sheep" and not begotten of God’s spirit.’ (Life Everlasting - in Freedom of the Sons of God, 1966, page 153.)

The Watchtower for 1st June 1998 addresses its JW readership with a major article entitled ‘Go On Walking In Union With Christ’. It applies this expression to even the newest members. Although the official teaching is still that the intimate relationship of being ‘in Christ’ (or ‘in union with Christ’) does not apply to rank-and-file JWs, the language is used loosely to give the impression that JWs are a mainstream church.

Similarly, the organisation has expanded its use of the expression ‘declared righteous’ (‘justified’ in Christian theology). Since 1935 the Watchtower Society has taught new converts to view themselves as a ‘great crowd’ without this promise.

‘The "great crowd" . . . will not be justified or declared righteous either now or then as the 144,000 heavenly joint heirs have been justified while still in the flesh.’ (Life Everlasting - in Freedom of the Sons of God, 1966, page 391.) Yet in 1985, the Society began to speak of the ‘great crowd’ as being justified in a limited sense.

Ten years later The Watchtower of 15th February 1995 described the ‘great crowd’ as ‘declared righteous as God’s friends with a view to surviving the great tribulation’ (page 11). A few months later, this was qualified:

‘The great crowd . . . are not declared righteous for the purpose of being God’s adopted, spiritual sons (Romans 8.1, 15). Nevertheless, by exercising faith in Jesus’ ransom, they have a clean standing before Jehovah. They are declared righteous with the purpose of being His friends.’ (The Watchtower, July 1st, 1996, page 20, emphasis added.)

So, the underlying Watchtower doctrine has not changed. The official teaching of a tiny elite, an ‘anointed remnant’, ruling over a ‘great crowd’ of second-class Christians remains in place. But language is now being employed more loosely to hide this cultic stand from the public.

Compromise with worldly governments that was previously unthinkable is now the rule for the sake of corporate financial advantage. The organisation’s ban on members voting, for example, has been cited by various governments when denying the Watchtower Society special tax advantages given to other religious organisations.

A 1997 US State Department report said the JW organisation in Germany had been denied the special status of a ‘public body’ (and the accompanying tax benefits) due, in part, to the sect’s stand on ‘public elections’. Hints of compromise showed when German JWs found that they were now allowed to vote in non-political school or labour union elections.

Then French JWs told us the organisation was encouraging them to register and vote even in political elections, but to cast blank ballots.

Now, a ‘Questions from Readers’ article in the November 1st, 1999 issue of The Watchtower asks, ‘How do Jehovah’s Witnesses view voting?’ It says voting in a political election is a ‘personal decision’ that each JW must make ‘based on his Bible-trained conscience and an understanding of his responsibility to God and to the state’.

Outsiders may take these words as granting JWs freedom of choice, but Witnesses themselves know the implication of this statement. The article goes on to discuss the situation of JWs who might be required to vote, such as women whose husbands insist on it, or citizens in countries where non-voters are penalised or discriminated against. The Watchtower allows them to go through the motions but hints that they should not actually cast a valid ballot in the privacy of the voting booth.

If a Jehovah’s Witness not under pressure from an unbelieving husband or hostile government were to cast a ballot at all, he or she would certainly lose ‘privileges’ at their Kingdom Hall and might face judicial action by the elders. Certainly any

Military service, even in a non-combatant role as an ambulance driver, is still totally taboo for JWs. A change announced in 1996 merely lifted the penalties for a JW who accepted alternative civilian service at the order of a draft board. Previously, young men had to refuse the draft board’s order and face possible imprisonment. Any who willingly performed civilian national service were put on trial before a ‘judicial committee’ in the JW congregation and were thereafter shunned.

The new arrangement allowed JWs to take advantage of the provision most governments make for conscientious objectors to military service, but the essential rule has not changed.

JWs still refuse blood, under penalty of ‘judicial action’ against any who accept transfusion. The organisation’s lawyers filed deceptive papers with the European Commission of Human Rights in a March 1998 settlement with the government of Bulgaria. They promised ‘that members should have free choice in the matter for themselves and their children, without any control or sanction on the part of the association.’ But internal documents and Watchtower press releases make it clear that there has been no change. Violators of the ban on blood are still disfellowshipped.

Outsiders are often confused by tricky wording about ‘personal decisions’ and ‘free choice’ used in Watchtower publications for public consumption. But the Witnesses know the wrong ‘choice’ will lead to the punishment of disfellowshipping.

So, the recent ‘adjustments’ in Watchtower policies are misleading. Jesus is given more prominent mention in JW publications, but He has not been elevated in their theology. The change is merely cosmetic.

Similarly, the use of Christian-sounding terminology when describing the ‘great crowd’ of ‘other sheep’ merely sugar-coats their second-class status. The millions of rank-and-file Witnesses are still taught to be subservient to the elite ‘anointed remnant’ represented by the governing body.

Watchtower leaders are sending French JWs to the polls to cast blank ballots merely as a ploy in their battle for tax exemption. The organisation’s ‘new’ instructions to JWs in general on voting still allow only a token show when under some form of compulsion or duress.

Military service is still prohibited. The compromise on conscientious objector status is largely a technicality. The blood issue remains. Dropping the transfusion ban would win favour with the public and with many JWs, but it would also raise the question of why the deadly doctrine was taught for so many decades.

Are Jehovah’s Witnesses truly less cultic today than in the past? Judge Rutherford’s bitter, strident attacks against other churches and against governments, and against ‘big business’ are no longer reflected in modern JW rhetoric. The Watchtower organisation has become a ‘big business’ with billions of dollars in assets, and the new generation of leaders appears determined to preserve these assets. So the once boasted elevation of ‘Jehovah’ and demotion of ‘Jesus’ is now reversed to make the sect appear more like a mainstream church.

Will these moves eventually result in a real change toward biblical Christianity? So far, the new policy has been one of clever deception - like the action of a slum landlord who wallpapers over the cracks in a crumbling wall and plasters over a shaky foundation.

Is it conceivable that the JWs could be experiencing the kind of reformation seen in the Worldwide Church of God? Since the death of its founder and long-time leader Herbert Armstrong, the Worldwide Church of God has undergone dramatic changes, moving from the cultic fringe into mainstream evangelical Christianity. Their publications contain clear and open admissions of major error, with public apologies and repudiations of past beliefs and practices. There is nothing even remotely like this with the JWs.

The JW changes are more like those of the Mormon ‘Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’, which has mounted public-relations campaigns aimed at concealing non-Christian doctrine and corrupt practices. The JWs and the Mormons are both up to the same deception.

Footnote [1]