Faith In Action Pt 1 DVD

the truth is mine

The service meeting for this week was almost entirely made up of questions based on the DVD Faith In Action PT1. I had never watched it previous to this part but I decided to suffer through the 63 min of BS just to compare what I know about the WBTS true history and the history that they present in the DVD. I was amazed at how easily they distorted Russell’s expectations for 1914, how he arrived at that date and what he thought it truly meant. They also distorted the events that followed Russell’s death and Rutherford’s takeover of the organization.

Have any of you suffered through this DVD? If so any specific parts that were totally distorted and how?

Thanks for your thoughts.

cedars

Hi the truth is mine

Sorry you had to go through the ordeal of watching the Society's "Re-writing our history" DVD.

The following thread nicely addresses one of the things that really wound me up about the portrayal of the Cedar Point Ohio convention....

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/214208/1/Watchtower-falsification-of-its-history

Hope you find it interesting!

Cedars

the truth is mine

thanks for the link. I figured there was some stuff already on here but i couln't find it tonight. I am sometimes amazed at how much they realign history or better yet re write their history and so few seem to catch on to what they are doing.

cedars

They have become masters at re-writing their history. On her website www.watchtowerdocuments.com Barbara Anderson tells of how she worked as a researcher during the development of the book Jehovah's Witnesses - Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, and was shocked at the unsavoury details that came to light and how these were glossed over by the editors.

In his book Crisis of Conscience, Ray Franz tells of how certain events described in the Proclaimers book differ substantially from how he remembered them to have occurred.

It's therefore no surprise that, against this backdrop of manipulating historic events to fit the story they want to tell, the Faith In Action DVD has turned out the way it has - with blatant lies being told about the expectations for 1914 and a refusal to accept the nationalistic element of the early bible students.

Interestingly, one of the experiences on jwfacts.com is from a brother who purportedly worked on "educational videos that chronicled the early history of Jehovah's Witnesses". A link to the experience is below...

http://jwfacts.com/watchtower/experiences/former.php

The brother could see the dishonesty in the way the video was produced for himself, and this was a major factor in him leaving bethel. I would be fascinated to hear more details from him, but there's no obvious means of getting in touch with him.

Cedars

pirata

To me, there was one major omission, 1874. The rest of the DVD then changed things around a bit to accomodate the missing (and important date).

No 1874, No mention of the William Milller, an influence on Barbour and Russell.
Taking out the words "Since 1874" in Rutherford's advertise speech when referring to Jesus presence.
No explanation why the Watchtower is subtitled "Herald of Christ's Presence" from the first issue (which makes sense since Christ was thought to be present since 1874).
Does not point out the distinction between Jesus coming to rule as king and his presence (which were seen as two seperate events back then). Implies that they thought he began his presence in 1914 (when in fact it was decades later that the "presence" was moved to 1914).

Other things:

All the pictures of the pyramids and no explanation. They even show him travelling to visit the pyramids.
Perpetuates the meme that the "Finished Mystery" was based on Notes left by Russell (when in fact it was co-authored by two bible student's), and Russell is quoted as saying "someone else will have to write it" before he died.
Implying that it was Russell who came up with the 1914 date and 2520 years through his deep bible study. The 2520 calculation had been around for years, and the "Herald of the Morning" pinpointed the 1914 date months before Russell read his first issue of that magazine.
Found it interesting that David Splane said that it was obvious God chose the organization in 1916, when Rutherford had interpreted that Jesus did not choose the Watchtower Society until 1918 (and as far as I know is still the 'correct' belief).
Also had a good laugh when Anthony Morris (?), stated that the Church Pastors were mad with the Bible Student's handing out pamphlets outside the Church because it was "all about the money" (lost parishioners = lost income).
No mention of Maria Russell, who played a part in helping to shape early doctrine.

Other than those things, I was glad they didn't fully gloss over 1914. They did mention the expectation of anarchy and going to heaven. I found this DVD to be quite accurate in comparison to some articles and talks as of late. At least they didn't try to pretend that a "Governing Body" existed since the beginning of the organization. I like Part 1 better than Part 2 because part 2 is even more of a gloss job, skips 1925/1975, and Fast-forwards through most of the history after 1976.

whathehadas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmwHcHA0lLE&list=UU04rhhqwikPgL8lD8r4YB0Q&index=35&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZGtrJQe8RQ&list=UU04rhhqwikPgL8lD8r4YB0Q&index=32&feature=plcp

BroMac

I watched it with my wife with some reluctance. along with the KM. she said she finds it all interesting " all the history". I had already looked at the KM in advance and spotted Q9 "Years in advance what did the bible students expect to occur in 1914?" I asked my wife before we started watching the DVD if she knew what they were expecting in 1914? "course i do- Jesus would be king in heaven" ok, what about the Gentile Times ending? "oh yeah, they would end then too wouldn't they?" well yes, that is what they said would happen, but what they actually meant by that was Armageddon would be in 1914 because they believed Jesus had already returned invisibly in 1874, press play! so when they admitted that that is what they were actually expecting to occur she raised an eye brow. I paused it on the "Herald of Christs Presence" and said Prescence - Now- Already here!

the best part was when it got to The Finished Mystery and I explained how crazy it all was. "What do you mean?" well Job 41 mentions the Leviathan, The finished Mystery breaks down this chapter of the bible and rewrites it, by saying that Leviathan is actually the steam locomotive and the various parts on the train are mentioned throughout Job 41. This was the Bible Teach book of its day.

Same thing follows though. "but that's what they thought then, we had many changes since?"

what do you say next without coming over like a big nasty apostate?

cedars

what do you say next with coming over like a big nasty apostate?

Nothing, just let her connect the dots herself. That said, the significance of the wrong teachings in 1918-1919 is that it was supposedly on the basis of these wrong teachings (i.e. such as the "leviathan" madness that you mentioned) that Christ selected the bible students as his faithful and discreet slave. That's an important point to grasp.

In any case, it sounds like you are doing a great job in giving your wife plenty of food for thought.

Cedars

Alfred

Pirata...

Agree with everything you've said... except that they did gloss over 1914....

Even though Geoffrey Jackson admits that they expected a heavenly reward, the anonymous narrator LIED on TWO occasions by twice stating that the Bible Students expected Jesus to return in 1914. This is COMPLETELY FALSE... as we all know, Russell taught them what the Adventists taught him, that Jesus had already returned invisibly in 1874 and that Armageddon would start in October 1914...

BroMac

Alfred, I was shouting liars in my head as we watched it last night at that very point of the shocumentary

Faith In Action Pt 1 DVD

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