What Jehovah’s Witnesses term “new light” is not a concept unique to their religion.
In “Christendom’s” theology it is called “revelation” (not speaking of the last book of the Bible, mind you), meaning how God reveals himself progressively through the ages. They have the same view that one’s understanding of God changes as the Lord reveals more and more about himself as history unfolds.
While the concepts, when compared, are practically identical, how they work themselves out isn’t. The amount of changes to fundamental doctrine occur frequent among Jehovah’s Witnesses when compared to the changes in Christendom.
To illustrate, in a little over 100 years we have had the “time of the end” declared to occur and be finished in 1874, but then the date for those things was changed to 1914.
We* then had 1914 changed from the year the end would come to the year that “marked the beginning of the time of the end.”
We then set dates for Armageddon like 1918, 1919, 1920, 1923 and/or 1924,etc.
We later moved the year for the end to come as 1975—though we no longer printed it because of the way opposers to the work liked to bring those things to our attention, we did proclaim from the platform in public talks, many recordings from assemblies and conventions, etc. which still exist, that 1975 was the date for the end.
During that time we stated that Jehovah chose Jehovah’s Witnesses as the one true religion because they were the only one’s preaching the truth about 1914.
On the basis of that we also claimed that 1935 was the year the heavenly calling ended.
Also on the basis of the 1914 date we taught that millions alive during the 1930s would never die at all (but changed that later to mean those who saw the events of 1914) before Armageddon would come.
We called ourselves the modern-day Ezekiel prophet class, and made claims that it was “Jehovah’s promise” that a “paradise earth” would replace the present world before this 1914 generation passed away…in fact, we printed it on the inside cover of every Awake! magazine for decades!
We preached that mankind would never see the light of the 21st century, that Armageddon could definitely not be delayed too far pass 1975—after that came and went.
We then blamed the failure on 1975 on “unfaithful ones who were thinking independently of the Faithful and Discreet slave,” even though it was that slave class that first began telling us about 1975 in the “Freedom of the Sons of God Book” and then kept the fervor heating up through the talk outlines they provided—never instructing to disfellowship anyone who preached 1975 as the end (and up to this point they never have…curious).
And then, before the year 2000 it all got erased.
No more setting actual dates or years.
No more generation being literal.
No more connection to 1914 except it being the time Jesus returned “invisibly.”
But a lot of “we never said we were profits or this was Jehovah’s promise” even though we had published a book on Ezekiel claiming to be the modern-day Ezekiel prophet class as well had gone to great lengths to remove the ‘Jehovah promises paradise before those who saw the events of 1914 pass away’ from the Awake! and current memory of the average JW.
The biggest changes to Christendom? Nothing universal on claiming to know the year the world will end, but some of their outstanding events (I am sure there are others just as important) of change have been:
The canonization of New Testament writings in Athanasius’ Easter letter of 367.
The universal acceptance of the New Testament canon beginning with the Synod of Hippos in 393 and ending with Pope Innocent’s declaration in 405 thus ‘ratifying the mind of church’ on the matter.
The Orthodox/Catholic split (the East-West Schism) in 1054.
The beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517.
That ratification of the use of the Deuterocanonical books by the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Tent in 1545-63.
The printing of the Gutenberg Bible in 1454/55.
The First Vatican Council 1869-70.
Puritans religion comes to an end with the exposure of the Salem Witch trials in the 1870s.
The Great Awakening religious revival in American between 1725 and 1910.
Vatican II, 1962-1965.
Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue, specifically the joint statement on the doctrine of Justification by Faith in 1983 and the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) on October 31, 1999.
And except for the Lutheran-Roman Catholic joint declaration in 1983 and 1999, there have been no real reversals on any of the fundamental beliefs of Christendom like the “we’re God’s people because we’re the only one’s teaching the truth about 1914” and then erasing that proof from its history and saying that it was all incorrect.
And if the Jehovah’s Witnesses weren’t preaching what was correct about 1914, then God could have never chosen them as the “one true religion” in 1919 (another year that has seemed to fall to disuse).
You don’t see this as problematic whatsoever?
JW: The point is that we never stopped looking for the end to come.
And Christendom, that daily prays “thy Kingdom come” has? They yearn and search for it daily—they just don’t set dates like you guys and a few others who follow that same path of mistakes.
*--I use “we” because I used to be one of JWs, and am speaking from experience.