The WTS participated in the national day of prayer on May 30, 1918, in the US.
The WTS also supported through bonds the war effort in 1918.
Judge Rutherford Was Extremely Politically Neutral
by God_Delusion 15 Replies latest watchtower bible
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TD
I'm a little confused after reading the Reader's Digest article in jgnat's post. The article was published in 1941, and it references the witnesses' changing the 1914 doctrine to mean Christ's rule would start WWI. I thought they didn't change this till 1943?
Could someone please clear that up?
For some strange reason, the Proclaimers book states that 1874 was not discarded as the year of Christ's return until 1943. That statement is incorrect; this change actually happened in the early 1930's.
People have latched onto that statement and it has become a persistent bit of 'tribal knowledge' on the internet because it makes the JW's look even worse than they already do.
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Leolaia
Rutherford was anything but neutral. He was obsessed with "fifth column" rumor (he published two booklets on this called Fascism and Freedom and Judge Rutherford Uncovers Fifth Column) and constantly wrote and talked about how the United States government was being destroyed from within by the Roman Catholic Church. He portrayed himself as a populist defender of American liberty. In a letter published in the 16 November 1938 issue of Consolation, Rutherford wrote that the Vatican is "a political institution bent on taking away the liberties of the people ... particularly liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and liberty of worship", by conspiring to amend the Constitution so as to make it "worthless to the people" (pp. 17-19). He added that "the fundamental principles of the American government which have been held dear to the American citizens for so long are in jeopardy" and said that he felt that "I would be a traitor to the American people" if he did not sound the warning. His writings quoted from obscure anarchist publications and sometimes had "inside information" about upcoming plots (such as the "secret communications" that Rutherford quoted in his 1933 booklet The Crisis, which gave him advance notice of the Business Plot). He also got himself mixed up in the Bonus Army affair in Washington D.C., as Jim Penton chronicled in Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich (pp. 117-118). In 1934, Rep. Louis T. McFadden (R-Pennsylvania) submitted a bill (H.R. 7986) to Congress that gave support to Rutherford's radio broadcasts and Rutherford had thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses petition and lobby for public support for passage of this Congressional bill into law (Golden Age, 28 March 1934, p. 397), and the Secretary of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society (Arthur R. Goux) testified in the Congressional hearings in support of the bill. Rutherford's views on Big Business and Jews were also strikingly similar to that of McFadden's, and when McFadden failed in his bid for re-election, the Golden Age published an article that praised him as "courageous and honest and capable" and asserted that McFadden was used by God and his loss at the election was the work of Satan: "Naturally the Devil and his ally, the Roman Catholic Church, would do everything possible to prevent the return to Congress of any man who would dare to stand for liberty and righteousness in this evil time. We are assured that God, who gave him such great privileges of usefulness last winter [when McFadden submitted H. R. 7986 to Congress], is not forgetful or indifferent and the time will come when Louis T. McFadden will look back and rejoice that he was permitted to be absent when scenes about to be enacted shall occur" (16 January 1935 issue, p. 237). This view towards Jehovah's involvement in American politics was nothing new, by the way. The 1 June 1918 Watchtower states that "God was graciously pleased to cause this nation to be formed and to grow under the most favorable conditions in the world for the preservation of liberty, civil and religious .... Countless blessings have flowed to devout people through the wise provisions of the laws of the United States" (pp. 173-174). Similarly, we read in the 30 November 1927 issue of the Golden Age: "God's plan provided that America should be, in a peculiar sense, the workshop and experimental laboratory of the time of the end; and accordingly, from this central source He has distributed His chief blessings of the millenial dawn period. Hence, His favor has rested upon this country from the first in a very special sense. It has been, indeed, 'the land shadowed with wings,' providential protection.... Jehovah raised up a Washington, through whose instrumentality He overruled the anger of men and devils for good, and 'brought forth on this continent a nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal' " (pp. 140-143).
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Terry
Nixon, whose cabinet was over-represented by Jews
I can't think of any at all. Who are you thinking of?
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Prognoser
Terry, according to Nixon from the Whitehouse tapes:
Later, alone with Colson, Nixon said, “Well, listen, are they all Jews over there?”
“Every one of them,” Colson said. “Well, a couple of exceptions.”
“See my point?”
“You know goddamn well they’re out to kill us.”
Before lunch, Nixon gave his chief of staff an order. “Now, point: [White House Personnel Director Frederic V.] Malek is not Jewish.”
“No,” H.R. “Bob” Haldeman said.
“All right, I want a look at any sensitive areas around where Jews are involved, Bob. See, the Jews are all through the government, and we have got to get in those areas. We’ve got to get a man in charge who is not Jewish to control the Jewish . . . do you understand?
“I sure do.”
“The government is full of Jews,” Nixon said. “Second, most Jews are disloyal. You know what I mean? You have a [White House Consultant Leonard] Garment and a [National Security Adviser Henry A.] Kissinger and, frankly, a [White House Speechwriter William L.] Safire, and, by God, they’re exceptions. But, Bob, generally speaking, you can’t trust the bastards. They turn on you.”
It would be more accurate to say that Jews couldn’t trust Nixon, that he turned on them. On July 24, 1971, he mentioned that Colson had found out sixteen BLS officials were registered Democrats, only one a registered Republican. “The point that he did not get into that I want to know, Bob, how many were Jews?” Nixon asked. “There’s a Jewish cabal, you know, running through this, working with people like [Fed Chairman] Burns and the rest. And they all only talk to Jews.”
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maccauk11
jJW's are not politically neutral. THe governing body members signed allegience to the United States on their passports so they can travel