Unfulfilled Watch Tower Society predictions

[2] Since its formation in the 1870s, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society has claimed that God has chosen the organization from among the churches to fill a special role in the consummation of prophetic history.

Charles Taze Russell, a prolific writer and founder of the Bible Student movement, viewed himself as a "mouthpiece" of God and later as the embodiment of the "faithful and wise servant" of the parable of Matthew 24:45-47.

[4] The group's early ideology centered on the "Divine Plan of Salvation", a biblically derived outline of humanity's history and destiny, which was believed to be open to fuller understanding in the "last days".

For several decades the group believed the worldwide disintegration of the social order would take the form of a bloody struggle between the wealthy and laboring classes, resulting in terror and anarchy.

[5] In 1876, Russell adopted the belief promulgated by some Adventist preachers that Jesus' parousia, or presence, had begun in 1874 and that the gathering of the little flock preliminary to the grand climax was already in progress.

The timing of their translation to heaven seemed nearer, he wrote: "We know not the day or hour, but expect it during 1881, possibly near the autumn where the parallels show the favor to Zion complete and due to end, the door to the marriage to shut, and the high calling to be the bride of Christ, to cease.

[5] Russell's Studies in the Scriptures series had explicitly identified October 1914 as the "full end of the times of the Gentiles" and consequently the "farthest limit" of human rulership.

[5] Early that year some Bible Students, convinced the end of the world had arrived, began distributing their material belongings, abandoning their jobs and eagerly anticipating the future.

[20] In May 1914—five months from the expected end—Russell warned followers against succumbing to doubt: There is absolutely no ground for Bible students to question that the consummation of this Gospel age is now even at the door, and that it will end as the Scriptures foretell in a great time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation.

[23] The statement implied that the legitimacy of earthly governments had been downgraded in the eyes of God, which sociologist Joseph Zygmunt suggested may have contributed to the subsequent adoption of bolder tactics in condemning the global political system.

[25]In posthumous editions of his Studies in the Scriptures, entire sections were rewritten to accommodate the failure of the anticipated events, with 1914 now identified as "the beginning of the end of Gentile times".

"[28] The Finished Mystery, written soon after Russell's death by two prominent Bible Students and published in 1917, made a series of bold statements about the expected demise of "false" Christianity.

[29] At that time there is every reason to believe the fallen angels will invade the minds of many of the Nominal Church people, driving them to exceedingly unwise conduct and leading to their destruction at the hands of the enraged masses, who will later be dragged to the same fate [...] In one short year, 1917–1918, the vast and complicated system of sectarianism reaches its zenith of power, only to be suddenly dashed into oblivion [...] One large part of the adherents of ecclesiasticism will die from pestilence and famine.

The further delay in the arrival of the millennium was interpreted in 1919 as a sign that the loyalty and powers of endurance of the "Kingdom class" were being tested and that God was finding fault with some supposedly sanctified people.

He explained: This is the Golden Age of which the prophets prophesied and of which the Psalmist sang; and it is the privilege of the student of the divine Word today, by the eye of faith, to see that we are standing at the very portals of that blessed time!

In 1929 the Watch Tower Society bought a piece of land in San Diego, California, where a Spanish mansion was built and named Beth Sarim ("house of the Princes").

[36] As late as 1932 Rutherford was still delivering talks about the nearness of the kingdom: he declared that the preaching work of the Witnesses was "coming to a conclusion", that Armageddon was "only a short time away" and that the end was "much less than the length of a generation".

[37] In 1966 the Watch Tower Society issued the first of what became a sequence of statements on the importance of a new date—1975—that raised the possibility of that year heralding the beginning of Christ's millennial reign and, along with it, doom for unbelievers.

Though articles continued to remind readers that the "end of 6000 years of human history" was imminent, they increasingly highlighted non-Society sources that forecast a gloomy future with worldwide famine, ecological collapse, and oxygen deficiency.

"[48] Some Witnesses sold their possessions, postponed surgery, or cashed in their insurance policies to prepare for Armageddon,[16] and in May 1974, the Watch Tower Society told members: "Reports are heard of brothers selling their homes and property and planning to finish out the rest of their days in this old system in the pioneer service.

Speakers at some conventions highlighted the phrase "Stay alive till '75" and urged the audience to maintain their meeting attendance or risk losing their lives at Armageddon.

[50] The Dutch branch overseer urged the audience at a "Divine Purpose" district convention in 1974 to "pioneer" (take part in full-time preaching) as the end approached: Many of us have suffered misery, sickness and death.

In its summary of the convention talks, the magazine reiterated the teaching that Bible chronology showed 6000 years of human existence would be completed in the mid-1970s, then pointed out: "These publications have never said that the world's end would come then.

"[53] In a 1970 paper, Joseph F. Zygmunt commented on the likely outcome for Jehovah's Witnesses if this prediction, too, failed: "While return to this old strategy would seem to expose the sect once again to prophetic failure, the risks are balanced by the potent ideological reinforcement accruing from this forthright renewal of faith, which thirty-five years of diffuse watchful waiting seem to have made necessary."

"[5] Beckford, too, expected no significant organizational disturbance resulting from the absence of observable effects that year, suggesting in 1975 that Witnesses were being "skilfully prepared for prophetic disconfirmation" to reduce the dangers of disappointment.

Instead of maintaining the prophetic significance of that year, however, the group's leaders embarked on a lengthy period of denial and purge, blaming rank-and-file membership for misreading the organization's interpretations.

[16] Singelenberg's analysis of Jehovah's Witness preaching activity in the Netherlands in the wake of the 1975 prophetic failure showed a drop in the group's membership from mid-1976, a trend that did not reverse until 1980.

"[38] Researcher Mathew N. Schmalz suggested the leadership drew attention from the disconfirmation by requiring even greater loyalty from members, a demand enforced with the expulsion of almost 30,000 Witnesses in 1978 alone.

"[38] The Watch Tower Society has acknowledged that some of its time calculations and expectations resulted in "serious disappointments", with consequent defections, expulsions and opposition, which it claimed was a process of "sifting" true believers.

He also concurred with researcher Bryan Wilson's judgment that: For people whose lives have become dominated by one powerful expectation, and whose activities are dictated by what that belief requires, abandonment of faith because of disappointment about a date would usually be too traumatic an experience to contemplate.