C.T.Russell began with a personal "purpose" which was to find a way to believe in/worship God while doing away with the beliefs he found to be personally uncomfortable such as hellfire. He shopped around and cherry picked 2nd Adventist views as a foundation. To this he added pyramidology. He commissioned a dispensation Chart of the Ages. He shifted his purpose to becoming a tool of Second Coming radicals.
Russell's purpose coalesced his business acumen with his oddbal religious predilections. He began a publishing organ to promote peculiar prophetic views such as the coming of Invisible Jesus in 1874 and Armageddon in 1914.
Russell's purpose became entwined with a cult of personality which grew up around him aided and abetted by his wife "in name only", Maria. Maria convinced her husband the two of them ("The Twain") were special End Times prophets by inventing a new doctrine: Faithful and Discreet Slave (Faithful and Wise Servant).
Russell's theology twisted from its initial path into something more personal and messianic. Studies in the Scriptures became a substitute for the bible itself and 1914 became the new "starting point" for Jesus Kingdom leadership (still invisible).
Had Russell lived, he would have had to revamp his theology to exclude all prophetic statements which were proved wrong.
Judge Rutherford took over by coup and thwarted Russell's intentions for the Watchtower as an organ of policy for Russell's personal peculiar views.
Rutherford's purpose was to gain and hold power by riding on Russell's charismatic coat-tails. Rutherford sucked in contrarians like a vacuum cleaner. The purpose of the Watchtower became strictly a radical tool of propaganda spewing nay-saying, ad hominem and anarchy. It attracted the disenfranchised in society the way communism attracted the poor and naive in Russia.
The Watchtower's singularity of purpose revolved around US vs THEM. Who was right and who was marked for destruction? We know THE TRUTH and everybody else is a liar in the pocket of Satan.
Rutherford, had he been a political leader instead of a religious despot, would have given Hitler a run for his money. There were parallels. Hitler was able to shift blame for German's plight onto sell-outs and Jews and build up the ego of Germany by declaring "true" Germans to be a "master race". Rutherford shifted the blame for the world's woes onto feckless Christendom and corrupt political leadership. Bible students (eventually Jehovah's Witnesses) became a religious "master race" fighting Satan's dominion with bold argumentation and expose's.
Once Russell's Bible Students transformed into a master race under Der Furher Rutherford, the theology galvanized into a visceral solar plexus punch as troops (JW's) invaded neighborhoods and struck with lightning speed at doctrines and beliefs which supported local churches.
With the death of Rutherford a kinder and gentler veneer overlaid the Watchtower purpose. It was a Divine Purpose of warning and an education work. Nathan Knorr focused on organization and education for the membership. Instead of radical shock troops, JW's were transformed into Constitutional Warriors for God expressing Free Speech and building an Ark of Salvation on Earth. JW's were no longer hate-mongers so much as they were voices crying out in a wilderness of "bad association" (which spoils useful habits!).
JW's used newspaper fluff pieces (and still do) to portray themselves as busy bees and worker ants who are clean people with neat habits and singularity of dedication. Baptism was seen as the ultimate "dedication" and an obsession with staying "clean" spiritually pervaded thinking at the local Kingdom Halls.
The Viet Nam war turned young male JW's into public spokesmen for "neutrality" and reasonable protest in contrast to draft-dodging and flag burning. Sisters were meek, mild and classic helpmates working for family and god alongside their righteous husband and children.
Then, Fred Franz had his way. Franz (a holdover from the End Times era) pushed hard for an obsessive-compulsive promotion of BIBLE CHRONOLOGY which pointed to a hard and fast date for ARMAGEDDON.
From 1968 to mid 1975 JW's threw it into high gear promoting hysteria and self-promotion in escaping the inevitable Armageddon event. Books stretched the truth, quoted out of context secular scientists and social critics' words to assure every reader history was closing in fast!
When the non-event passed with only an embarassing silence the purpose of the Watchtower faltered, sputtered and almost died. But, only momentarily.
Like a veteran boxer knocked to the floor for a 9 count; things in the local Kingdom Halls shifted into "downtime" and policies relaxed until the men at the top of the JW foodchain could find their legs again.
Ridicule, humiliation and a demand for explanations became an avalanche. This was THE moment of truth for "The Truth". It was now or never. Would this religion look itself in the mirror and see wrong-headedness and self-delusion? Or, would it become desperate like Hitler in his bunker with only reports of defeat pouring in from the homefront??
History reveals the answer!
The Watchtower turned around and began eating its own! A vicious program of strictness, blame-the-accuser, stone-walling and enforced-obedience reared its ugly head like a foaming hydra.
OBEY US or be gone!
From the top to the bottom it became a nightmare of crackdown. The doors were slamming and locks were being bolted as SEIGE MENTALITY set in!
A split shattered the ark of righteousness and water poured in drowning half the animals on board!
The noose tightened around the necks of the members whose mind's could still think rationally. If you speak your doubts you hear your own neck snap.
Disambiguation could not be tolerated. Doctrines tightened their icy fingers on the jugular of rank and file servants. Tests of Loyalty and Obedience were administered and butts were kicked.
Meltdown in the crucible of Watchtower purpose produced a molten ore poured into a forge of cold denial, denial, denial!
No longer would "honest questions" be entertained and rebutted by flipping through the inerrant word of Jehovah. No. Questions triggered knee-jerk responses of warning, marking and disciplinary action!
A balance was no longer allowed between honest discussion and mild-tempered counsel. Conform or be banished!
That transformation and shrinking of "purpose" has produced the Jehovah's Witness robot of today. This robotic worker/slave is programmed what to perform without variation. Personality and identity are forever expunged!
Old doctrines overgrown with weeds are now plucked and cast into the vault and the key thrown away! Any vulnerable theological point of contention is isolated like a virus in a laboratory. Members are never to turn around and look back at their destruction (by the Internet or ex-JW's) or they will turn into pillars of salt.
Jehovah's Witnesses world-wide have dissolved into lifeless "thing" like a poison pellet. The membership is distilled into a serum. The Governing Body injects this serum into neighborhoods and infects the vulnerable with a fever of false prophecies and phoney love-bombing by the feckless brotherhood.
The history of this religious group went from radical and self-serving to crackpot and shrill to moderate and peculiar to hysterical and bizarre to insular and dangerous. What journey through the wilderness!!
When you pick up that copy of WATCHTOWER magazine today you are peering into the distorted view of a sick and twisted ideology with its humanity drained away by intellectual dishonesty and denial.
The history of Jehovah's Witnesses is a landscape littered with disproof of divine support! Proof is on every page the leadership consists of liars, twisters of fact, double-dealers and wafflers who flim-flam and play the blame game.
Jesus Christ? Jehovah? Mere scrabble tiles aligned on a gameboard accruing bonus points by despotic old windbags out of touch with the very planet they inhabit!!
The Watchtower is a madhouse!
The inmates are running the asylum!!