TIME comments on Judge Rutherford's "Face The Facts" (1938)

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TIME. Religion: Face the Facts
Monday, Sep. 19, 1938

Jehovah's Witnesses, or the International Bible Students Association, is a sect which believes it is helping to establish God's kingdom on earth, distrusts formalized religion (particularly Roman Catholicism), engages in periodic spats with the law because its members like to peddle anticlerical pamphlets, dislike to have their children salute the flag in school. The longtime pontiff of Jehovah's Witnesses is rawboned Judge Joseph Frederick Rutherford. The Judge is the big money-maker for the sect, which claims that 275,000,000 copies of his writings have been circulated in 80 languages.

No paupers, Jehovah's Witnesses could well afford last week to hire wire and wireless telephone facilities from American Telephone & Telegraph Co. for a hook-up between Royal Albert Hall in London and auditoriums in 23 U. S., ten Canadian, ten Australian, four New Zealand cities. In those auditoriums, according to Witnesses' calculations, were gathered 100,000 listeners while, in Albert Hall, Judge Rutherford faced most of England's 5,000 Witnesses and 5,000 outsiders who had come to hear what it was all about.

Judge Rutherford's rambling, worldwide speech was entitled "Face the Facts." Its gist: "A hideous monstrosity is rapidly moving to rule the world by dictators and to regiment the people. God, by His holy prophets, thousands of years ago, as recorded in the Bible, foretold this great menace, its cause, and what will be the result."

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TIME. Letters, Oct. 10, 1938
Monday, Oct. 10, 1938

Jehovah's Witness

Sirs:

On p. 52 of the Sept. 19 issue of TIME appears an article captioned "Face the Facts" which contains many false and misleading statements concerning the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Jehovah's Witnesses are not a sect or cult. They are true followers of Christ Jesus, and " are engaged in preaching the gospel of God's Kingdom under Christ (Matthew 24:14). They do not "engage in periodic spats with the law because its members like to peddle anticlerical pamphlets." . . . Jehovah's Witnesses are putting forth their best endeavors to aid the people to gain a knowledge of what is contained in the Bible. This is done in part by the publication and distribution of books which ... do not contain the words of a self-constituted "Prophet," as you termed Judge Rutherford, but . . . present a clear consideration of the Bible and well-known facts which show its fulfillment. . . .

GERALDINE L. CHURCH Washington, D. C.

> TIME did not call Judge Rutherford a prophet but a pontiff. Last March the U. S. Supreme Court upheld the right of Jehovah's Witnesses, and other citizens, to distribute pamphlets. Far be it from TIME to judge, from among the clouds of Christian witnesses, which are the true followers of Jesus Christ. Jehovah's Witnesses, however, are demonstrably cultists, holding as they do such unorthodox beliefs as that the world has already ended.—ED.

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Jehovah's Witnesses have NEVER liked being called a sect or cult.

Indeed they ARE a cult, they just don't like being called one.

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Listen to Judge Ruthford giving the talk "Face the Facts"

"Face the Facts," lecture given by "Judge" J.F. Rutherford on September 11, 1938 from the Royal Albert Hall in London, England, with other cities tied in by wire. Total attendance was over 150,000. Rutherford was the second president of the Watchtower Society and had named the movement Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931. PDF of booklet containing lecture is also available.

http://www.archive.org/details/FaceTheFactsByJudgeRutherford