Has WT Tried to Control its Past?

by leavingwt 34 Replies latest jw friends

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  leavingwt

  On another thread, an active JW wrote the following:

  But the past of Jehovah's Witnesses is all out there exposed for everyone that wishes to see and recount it in detail. Like Charles Darwin, Charles Russell lived during the 19th century, too, and, like Darwin, Russell he had some zany views (like that pyramid of Russell's, for example). But Jehovah's Witnesses today do not embrace those extant viewpoints of the late 1800s and early 1900s and we have never attempted to control our past.

  My own reading of various books does not coincide with this observation. Moreover, I've heard elders caution publishers about reading older publications. The WT library does not contain the WT and Awake magazines prior to certain dates. One of the books with numerous examples of how they've been less than truthful about their past was, "Thus Saith Jehovah's Witnesses" by Randy Watters. It contains scans/photocopies of the examples.

  In your opinion, has WT tried to control its past? If so, please provide examples.
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  james_woods

  Absolutely! How else can they explain expunging the millions now living will never die slogan from the magazines?
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  St George of England

  Why does the Proclaimers book fail to mention Olin Moyle or Douglas Walsh; two of the most important court cases in WTS history.

  George
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Digging up specific examples is really detrimental to my mental health.
  They try to say that they had it right in the past, that Russell warned exactly as foretold about 1914 despite his warning being completely different from what they later said about it. They reinvented "Millions now living will never die" to misrepresent what Rutherford said in the 20's.

  They claim a past that never had any doomsdays in it. They deny specifics.
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  blondie

  Either control or just out and out lying.

  *** w93 1/15 p. 5 ‘Caught Away to Meet the Lord’—How? ***The Watchtower has consistently presented evidence to honesthearted students of Bible prophecy that Jesus’ presence in heavenly Kingdom power began in 1914.

  *** 1,000 Reign book ka chap. 11 p. 187 par. 6 “Here Is the Bridegroom!” ***This harvest was understood to be under the invisible direction of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose presence or parousia began in the year 1874

  *** w67 2/15 p. 110 par. 21 Jehovah Makes Full Might Abound ***. From its first year of publication, in 1879, Zion’s Watch Tower, official journal of the “faithful and discreet slave,” consistently proclaimed the year 1914 as the date for the end of “the Gentile times” and the establishment of God’s kingdom by Christ

  Prophecy (1929) p.65

  The Scriptural proof is that the second presence of the Lord Jesus Christ began in 1874 A.D. This proof is specifically set out in the booklet entitled Our Lord's Return.

  http://www.strictlygenteel.co.uk/prophecy/prophecy4.html

  *** jv chap. 28 p. 632 Testing and Sifting From Within ***Based on the premise that events of the first century might find parallels in related events later, they also concluded that if Jesus’ baptism and anointing in the autumn of 29 C.E. paralleled the beginning of an invisible presence in 1874, then his riding into Jerusalem as King in the spring of 33 C.E. would point to the spring of 1878 as the time when he would assume his power as heavenly King.
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  brotherdan

  I think a lack of transparency regarding what they said and believed is the attempt to control their past. If they will not allow their members to read any history of the organization if it has not been published by the WTS, then they are controlling the information.

  They do not admit to the blatent racism of the early bible students. They don't refer to "old light" when they release new light. They control the information available to the rank and file and in this way they control the past.

  The new DVD is an exreme example of them controlling their past. If you didn't know any better, you would think that Russell and Rutherford were righteous, godly, and extremely faithful men. You wouldn't know about their ties to the occult. You wouldn't know about the ruined lives that they left in their wake. You wouldn't see how GREATLY they distorted Christianity.
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  brotherdan

  It's funny, too, that people like djeggnog say things about how "zany" Russells views were. They write them off like they were of no consequence. But the Watchtower consistantly holds him to the highest honor. They worship those guys, to all intents and purposes. Funny how they worship C.T Russell and Rutherford...but they will NOT worship Jesus.
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  miseryloveselders

  Try looking up those infamous Awake articles prior to 1970 on the CD Rom, that specifically stated you would not grow old in this system of things and ask whether they're trying to control information.. They weren't speculating back then, they were speaking with conviction when they printed that nonsense. You can't locate the articles. Plus the articles in various WT and Awake magazines that were altered when compilated into the bound volumes.
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  laverite

  Well compare WT and Awake hard copy mags with the CD-Rom versions -- they sanitize and scrub all the embarrassing stuff out. They rewrite their history and sanitize it so that it is less of a problem for them among their members. Sad really.
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  sir82

  For decades it was virtually holy writ that the 8 WTBTS dudes who were imprisoned in 1919 were "exonerated" of the charges against them.

  Time and again, in dozens of pieces of literature, the word "exonerated" was used.

  Finally, in 2005, in the list of corrections to the Revelation Climax book that was published in anticipation of the 80th or so time it was to be studied in the book studies, a change was quietly made to indicate that the charges were "dropped".

  There's a chasm of difference between being "exonerated" of charges, vs. "charges were dropped".

  While the latest printed information is (finally) corrrect, the fact remains that for well over 80 years the WTS whitewashed its history.

  That's just one example of dozens where the WTS has done similar things.