According to the watchtower of May 1st 1989, the watchtower society made
"significant changes" to its practices in 1917:
Watchtower 1989 1st May - Babylon the Great Takes a Fall
It has its parallel in the fall of symbolic Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion. In the early part of our 20th century prior to 1919, the Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known, had to be released from a form of spiritual captivity to the ideas and practices of false religion. Although having rejected such false teachings as the Trinity and the immortal soul, they were still tainted by Babylonish practices. Many had developed a self-righteous attitude in character development. Some were exalting creatures, indulging in a personality cult that focused on Charles T. Russell, the first president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Without any Biblical basis, they were observing birthdays and Christmas. The cross was still prominent in their thinking. Some even wore a cross-and-crown lapel emblem, while others sought the respectability accorded Christendom. Then, in 1917, shortly after the death of Russell, a significant change began to take place. In that year the Watch Tower Society published a commentary on Revelation under the title The Finished Mystery.
[...]
in relation to Jehovah’s Witnesses, Babylon the Great had fallen in 1919. They were free from Babylonish restraint!
They didn't change allthat quickly though:
What about the practices of Christendom that were being followed, was there a significant change in their practice.
- Christmas was celebrated for a further 10 years
- Birthdays were celebrated for a further 10 years
- Pyramidology was taught for another 11 years
- The Cross was taught for another 20 years
- Christ’ second coming in 1874 was taught for another 13 years
- The last days (starting from 1799) were still being taught for another 13 years
The answer is that their was absolutely no change, let alone “significant change”, after 1917 and the Watchtower continued teaching Christendom’s practices for at least a further 10 years and even 20 years with regard the Cross which is allegedly Christendom’s biggest symbol.
Obviously, all these practices were eventually discontinued, but the watchtower
article seems to me to imply that they were stopped almost immediately, while
the truth is some went on for years afterward, although they admit in the article
that there was no scriptural basis for any of them. Since, according to the org,
1917 was supposedly the year Babylon the Great fell and the watchtower was
released from spiritual captivity and no longer saw the need to join Christendom
in its false religious practices, they have to tweak their history to fit in with that
event.
They were certainly still celebrating Christmas in 1926, as this link to the bethel
Christmas party photograph shows:
http://www.quotes-watchtower.co.uk/christmas.html
Notice how, whenever the watchtower refers to "old light", they revert to using
the third person plural, 1e "they" or "some", never "we". Perhaps because
these events are written about many years after they actually happened (though
not as many years as the org would have us believe), they hope that no one will
notice the discrepancy.
dedpoet