Over and over again the argument is made that Jehovah's Witnesses and/or the Watchtower Society are a false prophet. Arguments for the 'false prophet' label come as follows:
The Watchtower has predicted the end of the world on certain dates and such things have never transpired. The Watchtower also has on at least one occasion called themselves a prophet, and in a good bit of their literature they come pretty close to saying so. Because their predictions and proclamations have not come true they must be labeled a false prophet.
Such is a very generic outline of how the argument is usually framed. The Watchtower predicts over and over specific events that will come at certain times, only to be proven totally wrong later.
But should this be the crux of the argument?
I have seen a number of people on the net who hold no belief in the Bible call the Watchtower a 'false prophet'. I'm sorry, but this argument is bogus for you. If you don't believe in the idea or concept of a 'prophet', why can you call the WTS a false one? A 'false prophet' is a deeply religious label, not a secular one. It is not like calling a person a liar. If you don't believe in God, how can you say that a person falsely represents God?
To add to what I wrote about I would like to say that I do personally confess a Christian faith, but am not drawn to arguing over the label of false prophet. I don't disagree that such a definition can be used by interpreting Bible verses and such, it's just that as time has passed such an argument has become less important to me.
I'm not trying to pick on anybody. It just appears to me that there is a deeper level to the conversation that is usually missed
The more I reflect on the subject the less I tend to focus on actual dates put forward by the Society, and instead tend to focus on a method of thinking and interpretation
I like to look at it in terms of their 'Bible interpretation methods'.
For the sake of simplicity, let us say that there are 100 Bible verses that describe the 'end times'. It is how the Watchtower treats those 100 scriptures that I think is a much bigger deal than just the dates they come up with from interpretation.
No matter what the year is, the Watchtower will argue that 97-99 of the 100 verses have been fulfilled and that we are only waiting for one or two more events to occur. In 1890 there was only 'a few more scriptures' left to be fulfilled until Armageddon came. In 2008 they still hold there are only a few left. At no point have they ever (nor will they ever) come out and say "we we're wrong, there are actually 76 verses left!" That would destroy the atmosphere they are looking for. They don't want to be accurate in their predictions, they just want people to think the end is close. So no matter how they interpret the Bible, you can be guaranteed of one thing, "there are only a few things left to happen until the end".
Look at it from the perspective of a modern day Jehovah's Witness. Half of the book of revelation is seen as being fulfilled in the 1910's-1930's. So while on one hand most people who lived in the organization at that time thought there was only 'a few scriptures left' to be fulfilled, on the other they were supposedly fulfilling dozens of them.
Can a person fulfill end time prophecy while at the same time believing it has already been fulfilled? It's a very odd circumstance.
The Watchtowers method is clear. Always teach that there is only a little bit further to go. Always say there are only a few scriptures left.
I like to think of the Cold War as a prime example. Remember the Watchtower thinking that the Soviot Union was one of the last great world powers, and they would have an instrumental role in the end times? Well, they're gone now. The scriptures have been shifted. No longer do they control the #1 spot. They get moved down a few steps to make room for the next #1 (whatever that may be).
This kind of shifting has gone on ever since the beginning of the movement. Dates are a part of it, but they are not the only part. There have literally been hundreds of shifts in teaching, each one designed in order to make it appear that the end is "right around the corner". It's not just that the Watchtower has made the error of predicting the end of the world a few times through the 1910's through the mid 1920's, and then once again in the 1970's. It's bigger than that.
I think the bigger point is that like many other end times obsessed groups, they continue to only understand the present in terms of its perceived "closeness" to the end. Everything they teach is meant to keep a person believing that the end is "right around the corner".
They weren't right when they thought it was "right around the corner" in the 1800's, 1910's 1920's 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990',s. Why should we believe it is so close now?
I think the biggest rebuttal that can be given to their end times obsession not that they have failed in predicting certain dates so much as they have failed in understanding the closeness of such events.
For every time the Watchtower has given a date for the end times, they have given 500 proclamations that they are 'close' to the end.
The end was not close in 1876 through at least the 1980's and those who thought it was have been proven wrong. That is definite. Arguing over the importance of being a 'false prophet' is less important to me when compared to understanding their complete history as a testimony to not knowing anything about how close we are to some future apocalyptic event.
Do you care about calling the Watchtower a false prophet?
by drew sagan 29 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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drew sagan
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james_woods
I don't really see why "prophet" as a generic term has to be religious. If I read the above right, the tone seemed to be that unless you believe in religious prophecy being valid in certain cases, you somehow cannot use your own good judgement to proclaim the WTS falsehoods. Nonsequiter, in my view. If they were wrong on a prophecy, they are false prophets...i.e. the things prophesied "did not come to pass". I don't need some particular religious viewpoint to observe that.
Arthur C. Clark, sci-fi author, might well be called "prophetic" for his visionary views on telecom satellites, the moon mission, etc. So, in that sense - he was confirmed as a true prophet. You might even say the same for Jules Verne.
Popular Mechanics spent a good deal of effort in the 1950s trying to convince the public that soon everyone would have a flying car, or at least a private helicopter, in their garage. This has now been revealed as an illusion - hence, one might say a "false prophecy".
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M.J.
Their method of interpretation has a name. It's historicism. Historicism is the practice of interpreting Revelation and Daniel in the history of the church. Traditionally "The Church" was the Catholic church. Augustine was one of the key early promoters of this method. The "year for a day" method comes right out of the historicism playbook. The methodology can and has been used by individual sects to describe much of the prophecies in terms of the sect's own history.
The WTS inherits this methodology direct from William Miller. SDA's are also inheritors of it. The particular brand of historicism promoted by Miller was the "Pre-Millennial" variety. Meaning that all of Revelation up to the great tribulation was already fulfilled. In fact, pre-millennial historicist interpreters had already "predicted" the "wounding" of the Papacy in 1798-1799, after Napoleon's troops marched on Rome, set up a republic and banished the pope, as the fulfillment of the 1260 day-years. (remember how Russell considered 1799 as the beginning of the end times?) -
M.J.
Man for some reason I really kill threads when I start spouting off this stuff. Sorry Drew!
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WTWizard
All they need is to have falsely predicted the end once, and they are a false prophet. They have done that repeatedly, and have been pushing that more now in the past few years. Hence they are false prophets, since the end did not come around when they said it would.
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Nathan Natas
I do not accept the suggestion that because I am an atheist I cannot say that the WTB&TS is a false prophet.
Are men exempt from identifying beautiful women because the men are not female?
Can only a Muslim judge a Muslim, Hindu a Hindu, Scientologist a Scientologist, etc?
Why does one have to be a member of the "I have an invisible friend" club to speak out against delusions and misrepresentation?
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drew sagan
I don't really see why "prophet" as a generic term has to be religious. If I read the above right, the tone seemed to be that unless you believe in religious prophecy being valid in certain cases, you somehow cannot use your own good judgement to proclaim the WTS falsehoods. Nonsequiter, in my view. If they were wrong on a prophecy, they are false prophets...i.e. the things prophesied "did not come to pass". I don't need some particular religious viewpoint to observe that.
I agree that the term does not have to be religious, but when used against the Watchtower Society I feel the context defines it as such. I suppose that "false prophet" label appears to me to be more like a Biblical label, something I'm less worried about.
Their method of interpretation has a name. It's historicism. Historicism is the practice of interpreting Revelation and Daniel in the history of the church. Traditionally "The Church" was the Catholic church. Augustine was one of the key early promoters of this method. The "year for a day" method comes right out of the historicism playbook. The methodology can and has been used by individual sects to describe much of the prophecies in terms of the sect's own history. I would say that Historicism does play a role in the watchtower method, but I do not believe it is totally defined by it.
The Watchtower does interpret it's own history through scripture, and that is Historicism. But there is another force at work as well, and that is their desire to continually see the present as if it is on the brink of a cataclysmic change in the order of humanity. No matter what point in time you examine throughout the groups history, you will see a very definite proclamation that all has been fulfilled and there is nothing to wait for but the end. -
Meeting Junkie No More
Calling them a false 'prophet' is even giving them too much credibility, imho. They're just doomsday hucksters.
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Zico
I find their prediction of events more revealing than their dates. Example, in WW2 Rutherford predicted Armageddon would come after Germany won the war. This isn't the only event they've predicted wrong. (You pointed out their King of the North failures) Despite a 100% failure rate in predicting events that will cause Armageddon in the past, Jehovah's Witnesses still believe without question the Society when they say Armageddon will be caused by the UN banning religion.
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sacolton
Luke 21:8
He said, "Be careful that you are not deceived, because many will come in my name and say, 'I AM' and 'The time has come.'Don't follow them."
2 Peter 2:1
Now there were false prophets among the people, just as there also will be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many people will follow their immoral ways, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned. In their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words.