Data-Dog, good point.
Also, I really appreciate that Barbara shared news of this book with us. I need to order this.
Danish book now in English: Judgment Day Must Wait: JWs-A Sect Between Idealism and Deceit, Poul Bregninge
by AndersonsInfo 19 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
-
-
Dagney
Thanks for posting this Barbara.
-
AndersonsInfo
Press Release
Background Story
The author, Poul Bregninge, was born in Copenhagen in 1936. In 1938 his parents went over to the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW). In 1964, Poul was ostracized by a judicial committee because he wrote articles on JWs for the press. However, he recorded everything on his hidden tape recorder . Poul published subsequently his first book in Danish, Jehovas Vidner under anklage ( Jehovah’s Witnesses Accused) . First in 1990 he got the idea to reissue the old book. But it became a brand new one, that is, Judgment Day Must Wait , which first was published in Danish in 2006 by Gyldendal in Copenhagen, Denmark. Afterwards, from 2007 to 2011, Poul translated JDMW into English. Simultaneously, he explored his subject further, which resulted in that, through one of his contacts, he came into possession of a forgotten pamphlet that headquarters in New York had belittled since 1903, when it was first published . This pamphlet can now be read in its entirety in JDMW ’s Appendix . I n 2011 he presented the manuscript for YBK Publishers, N.Y., but it was rejected because of linguistic imperfections. In short: It needed an Americanization. This was carried out by Dawn Johnson, Word Edge, Stillman Valley, Illinois. A little year later, YBK Publishers was again presented to the manuscript, and the publisher , Otto Barz , accepted it immediately.
About the book
JDMW is a comprehensive account of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ history that has to be seen in the light of the Adventists’ “Great Disappointment” in 1844. Out of the reorganized revival movement ’s smoldering embers stepped a young man , Charles Taze Russell, who was the founder of Russellism. Russell’s ideas attracted many people who saw him as the “wise servant” in Matthew. 24:45; that this role was difficult to fill is deepened by means of a virtually unknown pamphlet, which the founder’s wife, released in 1903.
After Russell’s death in 1916, Judge J. F. Rutherford, a lawyer, immediatelyseized the power of the founder’s various companies and secured his new presidential position for life. Critics called Rutherford ’s reorganization, “ Rutherfordism .” Result: About 1931, 70 percent of the original Bible Students had left the organization. Russell’s original idealistic movement developed under the successor to dictatorship and regimentation, a development that has continued up to the present time.
Following the 1914 debacle, new years for the world’s destruction were identified: 1925, 1954 and 1975, and now 2034 lurks on the horizon. What the movement’s leaders would do without this “doomsday machine,” is a good question. The alternative is decreasing growth curves. The theme of the world’s end therefore still appears to be the inevitable pattern that is necessary to keep the movement going.
Dawn Johnson , the editor who has successfully Americanized JDMW, says in an introduction to JDMW: “As I Americanized Poul’s self-translated manuscript I was reintroduced to a religion that I—like most Americans—often find at my front door and hastily dismiss. Poul’s treatment of sect history, members’ experiences and disquieting statistics was, without doubt, enlightening; it also braced my long-held suspicions about Christian denominations’ use and misuse of biblical text for their own ends. JDMW is a sometimes-academic, often-documentary and endlessly human examination of a wholly manmade theocracy and its apocalyptic crimes of ideological and religious folly. Reading this book will make you wiser.”
Professor Mogens Müller , the University of Copenhagen, says about JDMW: “Poul Bregninge’s background as a former member makes him an especially sensible analyst of a mentally isolated and paranoid universe only sustained by its own logic. His patient reading in the literature is extensive and his attempt to confront the interpretations of the Witnesses with a historical-critical reading of the Bible is innovative and shows how the whole construction of their universe is possible only because they have replaced a historical understanding of the Bible with an arbitrary fundamentalism.”
Jan Stilson , author of Biographical Encyclopedia: History of the Church of God Abrahamic Faith,says : “Poul Bregninge has written a brilliant work outlining the rise of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Bregninge exposes hidden secrets of the movement in good taste and with professional analysis. Bregninge paints a human picture of faith and endurance in the face of hardship.” Jan read the first proof of JDMW.
Crucial to the book’s credibility : Many Americans too numerous to mention have contributed to this book. Also, many helpful people in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Italy have contributed, which has been crucial to the book’s credibility and completion.
-
AndersonsInfo
I just ordered Poul's book through Amazon.com and am looking forward to reading it. I understand that next year there will be more books on the "exciting" history of the WT coming out. The more the merrier, I say!
-
Doug Mason
Publicity, including contents listing, is at:
http://www.jwstudies.com/Publicity_-_Judgment_day_must_wait.pdf
Doug
-
RayPublisher
Great book to add to my growing collection
-
AndersonsInfo
BTTT
-
Watchtower-Free
Poul can be reached on his e-mail address: [email protected]
Please see Amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/kbsdhcb, where the book is now available. Poul’s website: http://judgmentdaymustwait.com/
Facebook address: https://www.facebook.com/poul.bregninge -