PART ONE
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES

Chapter I
The History of the Movement

Charles Taze Russell

             Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the movement, was born on February 16, 1852 to Joseph and Anna Russell, who were Scotch-Irish and Presbyterian.  At an early age  he  rebelled against his Congregationalist upbringing, rejected the doctrine of eternal punishment, and was converted to Seventh-day Adventism.  Russell collaborated with N. H. Barbour, a  Seventh-day Adventist, publishing a book detailing the chronology of the Lord’s return. Disagreement over the atonement however, cause them to part company in 1878. Russell then launched his Zion’s Watchtower and Herald of Christ’s Presence, in 1879. In 1884  Russell incorporated “Zion's Watch Tower  Tract Society”  which  later  became, The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

 Joseph Franklin Rutherford

             A year after Russell’s death, in 1917 the organization split, the larger group followed J. F.Rutherford and under his leadership became known as Jehovah’s Witnesses on October 9, 1931, at the annual convention held in Columbus, Ohio.  Rutherford, a lawyer and a special judge in the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court of Boonville, Missouri, had moved to New York in 1909 and eight years later was unanimously chosen on January 6, 1917 to succeed Charles Taze Russell  as President of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. 

According to Van Baalen, the following features are noteworthy concerning Rutherford.

(1) The Judge outdid even the Pastor in the volume of his literary output.  He wrote a book a year, plus numerous articles for the Watchtower and The Golden Age (later named Consolation, and since 1946, Awake!), and successive editions of the Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

(2) The Judge, together with some of his staff, spent nine months in jail because of alleged un-American activities at the beginning of America’s entrance into the first world war.  This was about as unwarranted as had been the murder of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, Martyrs.  It only resulted in the exoneration of these Bible students, and in an increased hatred on their part of  “the devil’s organization.”

(3) Rutherford ...equaled the founder not only as a writer but also as an organizer and administrator.

(4) ...Rutherford and his younger aid, ...Hayden Covington, rendered the cause of religious freedom a major service by winning 46 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, 150 in State Supreme Courts, plus several in Canada and 22 other countries....1

Nathan Homer Knorr

             The next man to pilot the Watchtower organization was Nathan Homer Knorr, elected president immediately  after Rutherford's  death in 1942.    Concerning Knorr, Dr. Walter  Martin writes:

...Mr. Knorr was responsible for the Gilead Missionary Training School in South Lansing New York.  Mr. Knorr followed diligently in the footsteps of Russell  and  Rutherford,  and  under  his  tutelage Christianity saw much opposition.2

 According to Van Baalen, it was:

during Knorr’s administration the endless books and booklets have appeared under the copyright of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, without bearing the name of individual authors.  A committee is now responsible for the mass of printed matter that leaves the “Central Printing Plant” at Brooklyn New York.3

Frederick W. Franz

 Nathan Knorr died on June 8,1978 and the reigns went to Frederick W. Franz already in his eighties, a longtime leader and then vice-president of the Society. 

Van Baalen  was  right  when  he said that the copyright was no longer under individual authors, however the authority of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society   rested  in its president  and to  challenge  him was to challenge the Lord Jesus Christ.    Raymond Franz, nephew of  Fred Franz, states  regarding his uncle’s  philosophy  on this  issue when he quotes him  from his  vice  presidential  address  at the September 7, 1975, Graduation Program for the missionary School of Gilead:

So you see , dear friends, that the Boards of Directors of the New York corporation and of the Pennsylvania, as constituted back there, they had respect for the office of the president and they did not treat the president of these organizations as a poker-faced, immobilized figurehead presiding over a society, a do-nothing society.4

 Raymond Franz says of his uncle:

For the vice president was at the vary same time saying that to challenge the authority of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and the authority of its president was to challenge the Lord Jesus Christ.  He did not believe the thinking or action of the Governing Body-appointed “Committee of Five” could in any way be representative of the direction of the Head of the church...5

 The reason for his uncle’s mind-set he explains this way:

In late 1941, when Judge Rutherford lay on his deathbed at Beth Sarim, he had called three men to his side: Nathan Knorr, Fred Franz and Hayden Covington.  He told them that he wanted them to carry on after his death and that they should “stick together” as a team.  That action was reminiscent of Pastor Russell’s “Will,” though here given orally rather than in writing.  Twenty years later in 1961, in writing the book “Let Your Name Be Sanctified,” Fred Franz alluded to that occasion when discussing the account of the passing on of Elijah’s prophetic mantle (“official  garment” in the New World  Translation)to his successor Elisha 2 Kings 2:8, 11-14...

When the Governing Body discussed the proposed reorganization, the vice president made direct reference to this assignment from the dying Judge Rutherford.  I have no doubt that Fred Franz felt that a certain “mantle-lizing” had occurred at that time

Another incident occurred, in 1978 just after Fred Franz became president,.during a session of the writing committee of the Governing Body. Present at the meeting were Lyman Swingle, Ewart Chitty, Lloyd  Barry,  Fred  Franz and Raymond  Franz.  Ed  Dunlap was writing a commentary on the epistle of James. Franz asked for an elimination of most of Dunlap’s discussion on James 3:1 which says: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we shall receive heavier  judgement.” The commentary stated that this was a warning against unqualified individuals seeking  to serve as teachers because of a desire for prominence.  Raymond Franz comments on the meeting:

Since I had been assigned to oversee the project of the commentary’s development, at the Committee hearing I asked Fred Franz to clarify his objection and tell us just what he thought was meant by this text.  He stated that he believed it meant that it was God’s will that there be just a few men in the entire Christian congregation who could rightly be called “teachers.”  I inquired who such would be in our time.  Speaking very calmly his reply was:

“Well I believe that I am.  I have been here at headquarters for over fifty years and have been involved in the field of writing and research during most of that time, so I believe that I am.  And—there are some other brothers throughout the earth who are.”

...By his remark we had had identified for us only one teacher on earth by name: Fred Franz.  Who the others were, we were left to speculate.  As  I told Lyman Swingle on more than one occasion there after, I regretted not having pursued the matter further by asking for names of the other “teachers”of our time.  But the response left me momentarily speechless.7

It is  now  time  for  the  author  to  share  his  encounter  with  Fred Franz,  the only named “teacher” on the earth for our time.

            The  author  would  never  have  dreamed of meeting the president of  Watchtower Bible and Tract  Society,  and  he never  would have  thought  of  having a thirty five minute witness and interview  with   him,  in  the  presence  of   three  hundred  Jehovah’s  Witnesses.  but  that  is exactly what  happened   in 1983.  It  was  through  Millie  Holmes  a  Jehovah’s  Witness with whom he  had  been   witnessing   for eight years.  She  had   been   struggling  with, and was no longer able to defend  her  position  against  the  doctrine of  the deity of Jesus Christ in the light of Sharp’s rule of Greek  grammar  (which will be discussed  in  the  chapter  on theology). She said that Fred Franz was  going  to  be  speaking  at  the  dedication  of  their new kingdom hall and  that  if  the  author would  come,  to  the  dedication,  she  would  introduce him to Pastor Franz.  She  explained  that  he  knew  Greek  and Hebrew and he would be able to answer any questions that the author might have.   The author only agreed to meet with him if Millie would agree to meet  with the author, afterward   and  discuss  and  analyze everything that Fred Franz said .

When he entered the hall that evening, he was greeted by more than three hundred Jehovah’s Witnesses,  all of whom,  knew in advance that the Baptist preacher was coming.  Franz began speaking  at 6:45 P.M., and for the next two hours covered the entire history and theology of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  At the end, as promised, the author was introduced to the president of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.     

Two questions were asked that may be repeated to Fred  Franz by Jesus himself, at the White Throne:  (1)  Why did the Watchtower  change what Russell wrote after his death, to lead the Jehovah’s Witnesses into believing that Russell   had  written something he had not?  (2)  Will the Jehovah’s Witnesses that  were  taught  to worship  Jesus Christ by Pastor Russell have an opportunity to earn eternal life in the millennial reign   

To show that Russell taught that the Kingdom of God would be established by 1914, a quote from his book, Thy Kingdom Come, (1907 edition):

... until the overthrow of the professedly Christian kingdom, really “kingdoms of this world,” and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God in the earth at A.D. 1914,...8

            Russell, died in 1916 and the Watchtower revised his 1907 edition, in 1925, to read as follows:

... until the overthrow of the professedly Christian kingdom, really “kingdoms of this world,” and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God in the earth after A.D. 1914,...9    

Fred Franz spent several minutes explaining that Watchtower was not claiming to be infallible, however  according to Edmond C. Gruss a former Jehovah’s Witness, “the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the governing body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, identifies itself as God’s “sole collective channel for the flow of Biblical truth to men on earth  in these last days.”

 To show also, that Russell taught the worship of  Jesus Christ, one only need look to the Charter of the Watch Tower  Society of Pennsylvania Article III:

The purposes of this Society are: ... public Christian worship of Almighty God and Jesus Christ; to arrange for and hold local and world-wide assemblies for such worship ... 10

 Russell stated on the worship of Christ:

“Was he really worshiped or is the translation faulty?  Answer. Yes, we believe our Lord while here on earth was really worshiped, and properly so.... It was proper for our Lord to receive worship....”(Watchtower Reprints, III, July 15, 1898 p. 2337).11

     He also wrote:

“He was the object of  unreproved worship even when a babe. by the wise men who came to see the new born king .... He never reproved any for acts of worship offered to himself .... Had Christ not been more than a man the same reason would have prevented  Him from receiving worship....” Watch Tower Reprints, I, Oct., 1880. p. 144.... 12

            Fred  Franz  stated  that  the  type  of worship of Jesus Christ that “Pastor Russell” was speaking of was relative worship.  Even if Franz was correct and Russell’s interpretation was relative  worship, Jehovah’s Witnesses were still being taught to commit blasphemy, because Franz’s  own  book  ( Make Sure  of  All  Things, 1957  edition,  p. 178, 1965 edition p. 249 ) stated  it  was  forbidden.  When  the  author  conveyed,  to  the only named “teacher” of our time,that bowing down before men or angels was forbidden, he made the statement that he did not know his book made that statement.

Because  of  his embarrassment  over the interview, Millie Holmes was threatened with disfellowship,  if  she ever spoke to her Baptist preacher friend again.  When he called her to set an appointment to discuss the interview, she refused him even cursing him.

Frederick W. Franz, born September 12,1893, who had referred to himself as “God’s teacher” on earth for our time, died on December 22, 1992 at the age of 99.

 Milton Henschel

             After the death of Fred Franz, Milton Henschel became the president of Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and the philosophy which has permeated from the beginning, remains the same.  Henschel speaks from the Governing Body Home Page: