Critical Information On Jehovah's Witnesses - Doctrinal Criticisms - Changes of Doctrine

Changes of Doctrine

History of Eschatological Doctrine
	Last Days Begin	Christ's Return	Christ as King	Resurrection of 144,000	Judgment of Religion	Great Tribulation
1879–1920	1799	1874	1878			1914, 1915, 1918, 1920
1920–1925						1925
1925–1927			1914	1878	1878	within generation of 1914
1927–1930				1918
1930–1933					1919
1933–1966	1914
1966–1975						1975?
1975–1995						within generation of 1914
1995-present						imminent

See also: Development of Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine

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", it has substantially altered doctrines since its inception and abandoned many of Russell's teachings. Many of the changes have involved biblical chronology that had earlier been claimed as beyond question. Watch Tower Society publications state that doctrinal changes result from a process of "progressive revelation", in which God gradually reveals his will.

• Date of beginning of Christ's kingdom rule. Russell taught that Jesus had become king in April 1878. In 1922, Joseph Rutherford altered the date to 1914.
• Date of resurrection of anointed Christians. After the failure of predictions that Christ's chosen "saints" would be carried away to heaven in 1878, Russell developed the teaching that those "dying in the Lord" from 1878 forward would have an immediate heavenly resurrection. The Watch Tower confirmed the doctrine in 1925, but two years later asserted this date was wrong and that the beginning of the instant resurrection to heaven for faithful Christians was from 1918.
• 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". In 1928 Rutherford rejected the doctrine and claimed the Pyramid had been built under the direction of Satan.
• 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." By 1886 he had altered his view and began explaining it was a person, not the Christian church. Russell accepted claims by Bible Students that he was that "servant" 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. By 1927 the Watch Tower Society was teaching that it was "a collective servant."
• 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. As late as 1921 Watch Tower publications were still claiming the last days had begun in 1799. In 1930 that date was abandoned and 1914 was fixed as the beginning of the last days.
• 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. 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. 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. In 1932 that belief was abandoned and from that date the Watch Tower Society taught that Witnesses alone were the Israel of God.
• Date of Christ's invisible presence. The Watch Tower Society taught for more than 60 years that this began in 1874, insisting in 1922 that the date was "indisputable". In 1943 the society moved the event to 1914.
• 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 Watchtower discarded 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. 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," 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.
• Identity and function of the Governing Body. Frequent mentions of the term "Governing Body" began in Watch Tower Society literature in the 1970s. The Governing Body was initially identified as the Watch Tower Society's seven-member board of directors. 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. A 1923 Watch Tower noted that Russell alone directed the policy and course of the Society "without regard to any other person on earth" 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 and become the ruling council of Jehovah's Witnesses. 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.
• 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. 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. In 1974 The Watchtower, acknowledging some unbalanced Witnesses had displayed unkind, inhumane and possibly cruel attitudes to those expelled, relaxed restrictions on family contact, allowing families to choose for themselves the extent of association, including whether or not to discuss some spiritual matters. In 1981, a reversal of policy occurred, with Witnesses instructed to avoid all spiritual interaction with disfellowshipped ones, including with close relatives. Witnesses were instructed not to greet disfellowshipped persons. 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. 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. The rules on shunning were extended in 1981 to include those who had resigned from the religion voluntarily.
• 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. Rutherford 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." 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", with her "final destruction" "into oblivion, never to recover", expected "in the near future."