This is what I found to be particularly offensive....the slighting of second, third, and fourth century Christians who gave their lives for their faith as mere "professed Christians," just because these Christians did not believe what JWs today believe. Very few of the "anointed" among JWs in the past century have had their faith put to the test like this, and of course the "anointed" of the 1890s, 1910s, 1920s, etc. did not believe very much of what JWs today believe. Neither did the many thousands of Christians executed by the Romans die over doctrinal issues the Society attributes to the "great apostasy" but simply over faith in Christ itself.
Usually, the Society uses the expression "professed Christian" in a way that implies "false Christian", "Christian in name only", or "member of Babylon the Great":
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w00 6/1 p. 3 Is the Word "Christian" Losing Its Meaning? ***Today, among professed Christians—even among those sharing the same pews—one can find a wide range of views on such subjects as the divine inspiration of the Bible, the theory of evolution, church involvement in politics, and the sharing of one’s faith with others. Moral issues, on topics such as abortion, homosexuality, and couples living together without being married, often become a hotbed of controversy. The unmistakable trend is liberalization.
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ie pp. 23-24 What Happens to the Soul at Death? ***Many professed Christians believe that there will be a future resurrection at which time bodies will be joined with immortal souls. Then, the resurrected ones will be consigned to their fate—either a reward for those who led a good life or retribution for the wicked.
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w96 12/15 p. 7 The Truth About Jesus ***However, many professed Christians are deeply involved in the political affairs of this world, even being involved in bloody wars. Rather than conform to Bible standards, many people would wish the Bible to conform to their own standards...T he writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures were not responsible for this corruption of truth. On the contrary, they fought the first traces of false teachings in the middle of the first century, when Paul wrote that an apostasy among professed Christians was "already at work." (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 7)
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w95 9/15 p. 10 Jealous for the Pure Worship of Jehovah ***Jehovah did not spare his own people who incited him to jealousy through their idolatry. Neither will he spare professed Christians who worship with the aid of material objects.
One of these passages interestingly puts the word "apostate" in the mouth of historian Paul Johnson:
*** w01 4/15 pp. 17-19 The Church Fathers—Advocates of Bible Truth? ***
In the middle of the second century C.E., professed Christians were defending their faith against Roman persecutors and heretics alike. However, this was an era of too many theological voices. Religious debates regarding the "divinity" of Jesus and the nature and workings of the holy spirit caused more than just intellectual rifts. Bitter disagreements and irreparable divisions over "Christian" doctrine spilled over into the political and cultural spheres, at times causing riots, rebellion, civil strife, even war. Writes historian Paul Johnson: "[Apostate] Christianity began in confusion, controversy and schism and so it continued. . . . The central and eastern Mediterranean in the first and second centuries AD swarmed with an infinite multitude of religious ideas, struggling to propagate themselves. . . . From the start, then, there were numerous varieties of Christianity which had little in common."
This is quoted out of context and Johnson never used the word "apostate"!
Here is the full passage from the book (http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?isbn=0684815036&sid=617&agid=2):
The teaching of Jesus is therefore more a series of glimpses, or matrices, a collection of insights, rather than a code of doctrine. It invites comment, interpretation, elaboration and constructive argument, and is the starting point for rival, though compatible, lines of inquiry. It is not a summa theologica, or indeed ethica, but the basis from which an endless series of summae can be assembled. It inaugurates a religion of dialogue, exploration and experiment. Its radical elements are balanced by conservative qualifications, there is a constant mixture of legalism and antinomianism, and the emphasis repeatedly switches from rigour and militancy to acquiescence and the acceptance of suffering. Some of this variety reflects the genuine bewilderment of the disciples, and the confusion of the evangelical editors [i.e. gospel writers] to whom their memories descended. But a great deal is essentially part of Jesus's universalist posture: the wonder is that the personality behind the mission is in no way fragmented but is always integrated and true to character. Jesus contrives to be all things to all men while remaining faithful to himself.... Thus the centre of Christian gravity shifted to Rome; and the theological vacuum left by the extinction of the Jerusalem Church was filled by the Pauline system. A number of readjustments followed. Paul's Christ had not been anchored to the historical Jesus of the Jerusalem Church. This was remedied by Mark, who wrote the first biography of Jesus, presenting him as a deity. Luke, in his gospel and his Acts, completed the plastic surgery by giving the decapitated trunk of the Jerusalem Jesus a Pauline head. The change of balance and direction in the Church was eventually accepted by most Christian-Jewish communities in Africa and Asia. It is reflected in a number of documents, such as the gospel of Matthew, who neatly contrives to be both very Jewish and very Christian, and the gospel of John, which marks the triumph of Pauline theology. But other Christian-Jewish fragments declined to change and so became heretical. Such were the Ebionites, or poor ones, chiefly in Egypt. They saw themselves as the true, primitive Church; they had allowed themselves to be by-passed by events, lost their title to orthodoxy, and so came to be treated as false innovators -- a familiar paradox in the history of religion. It is interesting that their writings and those of other Jewish-Christians in the fifties who had first introduced the idea of heresy in the portray Paul as antichrist and the first heretic. It was in fact the Jewish Christians in the fifties, who had first introduced the idea of heresy in the campaign against Paul and Hellenization; thus the arrow flew swiftly back to the archer. In Judaism itself, heresy was already a mature and powerful concept. Hence, following the collapse of Jewish Christianity, the orthodox Judaic authorities did not wait long to anathematize Christianity as such. Around 85, the judgment was incorporated in the synagogue liturgy: 'May the Nazarenes and the heretics be suddenly destroyed and removed from the book of life.' Heresy was another Judaic gift to the Christian Church, where it soon began to flourish mightily. Yet what was Christian heresy? And, for that matter, what was the Church? Most of our knowledge of early Christian history comes from the writings of Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth century. Eusebius was in many ways a conscientious historian, and he had access to multitudes of sources which have since disappeared. But he believed, and was therefore concerned to demonstrate by his presentation of the evidence, that a Christian Church, vested with the plenitude of Christ's teaching, and with divine authority to uphold it, had been ordained by Jesus right at the beginning, and had then been solidly established by the first generation of apostles. Moreover, it had triumphantly survived the attempts of various heretics to tamper with the truth it passed on intact from generation to generation. This view is a reconstruction for ideological purposes. Eusebius represented the wing of the Church which had captured the main centres of power, had established a firm tradition of monarchical bishops, and had recently allied itself with the Roman state. He wanted to show that the Church he represented had always constituted the mainstream of Christianity, both in organization and faith. The truth is very different. We have already seen that the original legatee of Jesus's mission, the Jerusalem Church, did not hold steadfast to his teaching and was slipping back into Judaism before it was, in effect, extinguished, its remnants being eventually branded as heretics. The Christology of Paul, which later became the substance of the Christian universal faith, came from the diaspora, and was preached by an outsider whom many in the Jerusalem Church did not recognize as an apostle at all. Christianity began in confusion, controversy and schism and so it continued. A dominant orthodox Church, with a recognizable ecclesiastical structure, emerged only very gradually and represented a process of natural selection -- a spiritual survival of the fittest. And, as with such struggles, it was not particularly edifying.
It is clear that Johnson is referring to Christianity as a whole, apostolic Christianity, from the very beginning...and his reconstruction of the beginnings of Christianity is diametrically opposed to the view of the Society concerning a "great apostasy" from an original unified apostolic Christianity. Putting the word "apostate" in his mouth not only limits what he said (i.e. preventing the "confusion" as applying to Christianity in its very beginnings) but also implies that he shares a view that he does not in fact have (i.e. that there is such a thing as an "apostate Christianity").
Watchtower brackets and selective quoting at its finest!
