Here is a sight which is becoming more familiar in cities of any real size across the world as Jehovah's Witnesses seek to expand their recruitment efforts into areas where they are more likely to make contact with people. They still knock on doors and one is still likely to open their door to a knock on a weekend day to find a pair at their door, however, they are exploring new way to find peope and disseminate their literature. They claim that they are Bible Students and I know fellow Bible Student's who've had Witnesses get in their faces at fair booths and claim that we are frauds and, that they are the real Bible Students. So what's the truth of the matter and where did Jehovah's Witnesses come from? We intend to answer that question here and leave the matter of doctrinal differences to our companion website, Coastal Bible Students.
By way of disclosure we once walked with the Jehovah's Witnesses and did so for decades until my eyes were opened and we left them. Even then we were interested in their history and collected old Watchtower publications and books on them. So we do have an extensive collection of works on them and the Bible Students both in physical form and digital. Books have been written on on Jehovah's Witnesses came to be and you can get one published in 1929, just two years before the final act giving birth to them occurred here. However, we will try to give a concise account of what happened in this article.
So where did they come from? There is a kernel of truth in their claim that they started out within the Bible Student Movement. However, they did not remain within the movement and formally separated from it, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Their real origins go back to the Bible Students and the man in the picture above, Joseph Rutherford, also known as "the Judge" because he spent a little time serving as an alternate judge where he originally lived and practiced law. Rutherford came into contact with the Bible Students in the 1890s and entered the movement. In time he was invited to the headquarters in Brooklyn, New York where he did legal work for the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. However, not long before Russell's death Rutherford was asked to leave and sent all the way to the West Coast, where he remained until Russell died in 1916.
Russell died on a speaking tour on Halloween, 1916. Russell left the the Watch Tower in the hands of A. H. Macmillan, unbeknownst to him a mole for Rutherford because he was in full sympathy with Rutherford's opinions on matters of policy, as he himself admits in his autobiography Faith On the March. So Macmillan was in to act on Rutherford's behalf. We know that upon receipt of the message of Russell's death Macmillan sent out a message to Rutherford informing him of the death and telling him to drop whatever he was doing and get back to Brooklyn as fast as he could. He also sat on the notice and delayed informing the corporation's board of directors to give Rutherford time to get back.
Russell's body was delayed by being embalmed on the way back to Brooklyn which gave Rutherford time to get back before the body did. According to Sister Cora Sumdbom, in a recorded interview which can be downloaded and listened to in its entirety by clicking on the appropriate link on that page, when the board of directors gathered to meet on the matter of what to do with the death of the President of the Watch Tower Society the Vice President, who should've taken the President's seat, was prevented from doing so by another member who held it until, to their surprise Rutherford entered the room late and took the seat. He then proceeded to take control of the meeting and bully his way into being elected to the board and being given the Presidency of the corporation.
What followed would be a struggle for control in which Rutherford declared Russell's Will "null and void," refused to let the majority holders of stock in the Watch Tower to vote their shares in the Shareholder's Meeting, kick other members of the board who opposed his efforts to impose his will on the Watch Tower both off of the board and out of the headquarters altogether, and otherwise muscle his way into control. By the time he was released from the Atlanta Penitentiary after being imprisoned for spreading Communist Propaganda in the Watch Tower (He permitted the inclusion of anti-WWI tracts written by Jack London of the book Call Of the Wild fame in the Watch Tower) Rutherford was in full control of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.
Now that he controlled the Watchtower Rutherford began instituting massive changes in the company and the "Ecclesias" which looked to it for their literature needs. Starting with the book The Finished Mystery which claimed to be the posthumous work of Charles Taze Russell the message went from being one of God's love to a message of a vengeful God eager to take his revenge on mankind and would do so in 1925. the Watchtower now took steps to get around the authority of the local bodies of elders through the appointment of a "company servant" who would represent the Watchtower and serve as its authority locally. Selling books and magazines from Door to door were mandated for all with quotas in both time and sales set for individuals. Although many of the Bible Students and their Ecclesias, or congregations, ceased any association with the Watchtower when they realized what was going on, the aggressive recruiting campaign more than made up for the losses as they wound their way to 1925.
At the headquarters Rutherford started requiring loyalty oaths of the volunteers and kicked out and excommunicated those who refused to comply. Sr. Coras' entire family found themselves among those. Those who were left were browbeaten, intimidated, and otherwise abused to cow them into complete submission to Rutherford. In a letter of resignation dated July 21, 1939, a lawyer named Olin Moyles, would document some of the abuse and other things he witnessed during his brief time there in the late 1930s. In that way did Rutherford establish and firm up his control and extend it as time went on.
1925 came and went without Armageddon. Within the year 75% of the Bible Students associated with the Watchtower, both older members who had not left up to that time and new members gained through recruiting left the Watchtower. This is the source for the figure of 75% of Bible Students leaving the Watchtower. Given the increase from the recruiting campaign most of those were likely newer members. We also know from several sources, one of those being Mr. Schnell, who later wrote the Book Thirty Years A Watchtower Slave, that during the 1920s Rutherford sought to drive out all of the Bible Students from Russell's time that he could.
By the time the 1930s rolled around Rutherford had done pretty much everything he set out to do. He's taken control of the Watchtower and used its page to lead those who read it out of the light and into darkness. He further altered the relationship of the Watchtower to the Bible Students from one of a servant producing literature for their use to that of a master with the congregations and their members were now a sales force for the Society. As time went on the culture of corruption and power he set in place would really do nothing but increase. However, he still had a problem on his hands. Those who ceased using the Watchtower as their provider of truth and the later ones who left formed various groups calling themselves "Bible Students." He couldn't stop them from doing that, but there was something else he could do.
In 1931 at the General Convention the Watchtower held the watchtower Bible Students were n for a big surprise. Everywhere they saw the two letters, "JW" prominently displayed. But it wasn't until they were read a resolution that they found out what it was all about. The story and resolution is found in the 1932 Yearbook for the International Bible Students Association, Which is pictured above and can be downloaded for free from Watchtower Documents, a site maintained by an old acquaintance named Barbara Anderson. Part of the way through the Resolution they heard Rutherford's problem defined:
"WHEREAS from and after that date, for a period of more than forty years, Charles T. Russell, a faithful follower of Christ Jesus and a servant of Jehovah God, led a company of his brethren in Christ in the preaching and teaching of the divine Word, and particularly with reference to the second coming of Christ, the setting up of his kingdom, and the restoration of man to perfection on the earth; and to carry on said work orderly said company of Christians organized the corporations known as the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, the International Bible Students Association, and the Peoples Pulpit Association, and they used and now use these corporations for the publication of books, magazines and other Bible literature; and in the course of time said company of Christians became known by such names as, to wit, 'Russellites,' 'Millennial Dawn People,' 'International Bible Students Association,' and other like names; and "WHEREAS shortly following the death of Charles T. Russell a division arose between those associated with him in such work, resulting in a number of such withdrawing from the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, and who have since refused to cooperate with said Society and its work and who decline to concur in the truth as published by the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, in The Watchtower and the other recent publications of the above-named corporations, and have opposed and do now oppose the work of said Society in declaring the present message of God's
kingdom and the day of the vengeance of our God against all parts of Satan's organization; and said opposing ones have formed themselves into divers and numerous companies and have taken and now bear such names as, to wit, 'Bible Students,' 'Associated Bible Students,' 'Russellites teaching the truth as expounded by Pastor Russell,' 'Stand-Fasters,' and like names, all of which tends to cause confusion and misunderstanding:
So the Bible Students under their various monikers were a big thorn in his side and "cause confusion." So something had to be done about that, so:
"Now, THEREFORE, in order that our true position may be made known, and believing that this is in harmony with the will of God, as expressed in his Word, BE IT RESOLVED, as follows, to wit: "THAT we have great love for Brother Charles T. Russell, for his work's sake, and that we gladly acknowledge that the Lord used him and greatly blessed his work; yet we cannot consistently with the Word of God consent to be called by the name 'Russellites'; that the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society and the International Bible Students Association and the Peoples PUlpit Association are merely names of corporations, which corporations we as a company of Christian people hold, control and use to carry on our work in obedience to God's commandments, yet none of these names properly attach to or apply to us as a body of Christians who follow in the footsteps of our Lord and Master, Christ Jesus; that we are students of the Bible, but, as a body of Christians forming an Association, we decline to assume or to be called by the name 'Bible Students' or similar names as a means of identification of OUr proper position before the Lord; we refuse to bear or to be called by the name of any man; "THAT, having been bought with the precious blood
of Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer, justified and begotten by Jehovah God and called to his kingdom, we unhesitatingly declare our entire allegiance and devotion to Jehovah God and his kingdom; that we are servants of Jehovah God commissioned to do a work in his name, and, in obedience to his commandment, to deliver the testimony of Jesus Christ, and to make known to the people that Jehovah is the true and almighty God; therefore we joyfully embrace and take the name which the mouth of the Lord God has named, and we desire to be known as and called by the name, to wit, 'Jehovah's witnesses.'-Isa. 43:10-12; 62:2; Rev. 12:17.
Get the point? The solution was to sever the connection with the Bible Student Movement altogether and take up a new name as an "organization." Thus was the organization Jehovah's Witnesses born. Although its flock still accepts some of Russell's basic teachings on fundamental doctrine, the Witnesses abandoned most of the Eschatology and other things of the \Bible Students in favor of what amounts to apostasy. Whereas the Bible Students not only did, but still do enjoy freedom of thought beyond the fundamental doctrine, the Witnesses embraced a Christian form of Phariseism which governs literally every belief and part of one's life. But the point is they left the Bible Students and renounced all claims to the name, among other things.
So that, dear reader and truth seeker, is how the Witnesses were created by Joseph F. Rutherford for all they themselves and their critics prefer to place that responsibility on Charles Taze Russell, who was already in his grave for fifteen years when the sect Jehovah's Witnesses was. born in 1931.
For more rhere is a booklet which can be downloaded for free at:
