Knox, History JHW PDF

Journal of Religious History
Vol. 35, No. 2, June 2011

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9809.2010.01030.x
ZOE KNOX
Writing Witness History: The Historiography of

the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watch Tower
Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
From their humble origins as small, loose-knit groups of Bible students in Pennsylva-
nia in the 1870s, Charles Taze Russell and his followers laid the foundations of a highly
visible, and frequently controversial, worldwide religious organisation known since
1931 as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Despite the Witnesses’ broad historical role in defin-
ing and shaping understandings of religious tolerance, freedom of conscience, and
civil liberties around the world, historians have paid very little attention to the Wit-
nesses, with the notable exception of their treatment in Nazi Germany and the United
States and Canada in wartime. The paucity of historical knowledge is all the more
surprising given their visibility and notoriety. This article aims to initiate discussion of
this under-researched history by addressing what has been written, by whom, and for
what purpose. It represents the first effort to evaluate the English-language historical
literature on the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.
From their humble origins as small, loose-knit groups of Bible students in Pen-
nsylvania in the 1870s, Charles Taze Russell and his followers laid the founda-
tions of a highly visible, and frequently controversial, worldwide religious
organisation known since 1931 as the Jehovah’s Witnesses.1 Throughout their
history, the Witnesses’ biblical literalism, political neutrality, rejection of ecu-
menism, and emphasis on discipline have drawn criticism from governmental
authorities, civic organisations, and mainstream Christian churches. Since the
1940s, The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania,2 the corporate
body of the Witnesses, has become genuinely international, using its distinctive
doorstep ministry to spread its teachings (“the Truth”) around the world. How-
ever, it is not the size or spread of the organisation that has attracted opposition,
both popular and political, but rather its challenge to understandings of religious
freedom, civil liberties, and individual rights, from Russell’s day to the present.
1. The upper case “w” for “witnesses” was not used by the organisation until 1976.
2. Hereafter referred to as “the Society” or “the Watch Tower Society.”
Dr Zoe Knox is a Lecturer in Modern Russian History in the School of Historical Studies at The
University of Leicester, UK.
_ 157..180
157
© 2011 The Author
Journal of Religious History © 2011 Religious History Association
158 J O U R N A L O F R E L I G I O U S H I S T O RY
The requirement that all members engage in evangelism and abstain from
participation in political and civic life has repeatedly brought Jehovah’s Wit-
nesses into conflict with both democratic and authoritarian governments. For
this reason, sociologists of religion have recognised the treatment of Witnesses
as a critical barometer of a state’s respect for freedom of conscience and
religious diversity and as an indicator of the public level of tolerance for
non-traditional religious groups. Since the 1960s, a number of legal studies
scholars have approached Witness history from the perspective of civil liberties.
Yet historians have paid very little attention to the Witnesses, with the notable
exception of their treatment in Nazi Germany and the United States and Canada
in wartime. Even within the historiography of nineteenth-century premillenni-
alism and of new religious movements, the Witnesses have been largely ignored.
The paucity of historical knowledge is all the more surprising given their
visibility and notoriety. It is well known that adherents do not accept blood
transfusions, celebrate birthdays or Christmas, salute the flag, or bear arms, but
beyond these issues of media interest3 there is very little popular awareness of
what the Witnesses stand for and the beliefs they labour so long to spread. While
a handful of annotated bibliographies and literature reviews have been pub-
lished, usually as an addendum to monographs, there has been no sustained
attempt to survey and chart scholarship on Witness history.4 This article aims to
initiate discussion of this under-researched history by addressing what has been
written, by whom, and for what purpose. It represents the first effort to evaluate
the English-language historical literature on this controversial religious group.
Although we might expect a historiographical survey to proceed with an
analysis of cultural, social, and political interpretations of Witness history, there
is so little serious literature on this topic that this is not practicable (indeed, most
of it is so partial that it is of limited use to the historian). Instead, this article
examines three main bodies of scholarship on the Jehovah’s Witnesses. First,
there is an abundance of historical literature produced by the Society itself. The
publication of religious literature has been of paramount importance since the
earliest days of the movement; members engaged in house-to-house ministry
are known as “publishers” and figures on membership as “publishing statis-
tics.”5 However, the Society has placed far less importance on the production
3. The media has almost exclusively reported dramatic episodes in the organisation’s history,
especially when these have involved high-profile disfellowshipping, allegations of child abuse, or
issues relating to blood transfusions. Media representations of the Witnesses are beyond the scope
of this article.
4. M. J. Penton, Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2nd ed. (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1997), 399–424; D. Cronn-Mills, A Qualitative Analysis of the
Jehovah’s Witnesses: The Rhetoric, Reality and Religion in the Watchtower Society (Lewiston,
Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999), 49–71; J. Bergman, Jehovah’s Witnesses: A Comprehensive
and Selectively Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999).
5. In accordance with Isaiah 52:7: “How comely upon the mountains are the feet of the one
bringing good news, the one publishing peace, the one bringing good news of something better, the
one publishing salvation, the one saying to Zion: ‘Your God has become king!’” New World Bible
Translation Committee, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (New York: Watch Tower
Bible and Tract Society, 1961), 823. The verse is from the Society’s own bible, translated from
Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew into “modern speech” (p. 5) by the New World Bible Translation
Committee and published in six instalments between 1950 and 1960. The complete volume was
first published in 1961.
© 2011 The Author

WRITING WITNESS HISTORY 159
and preservation of material on the organisation’s own history, which has led to
a limited engagement with historical inquiry. Second, since the 1970s, there has
been an explosion of memoirs by disassociated (i.e. voluntarily departed) and
disfellowshipped (i.e. expelled from, and shunned by, the congregation) Wit-
nesses, which is similar to the literature written by critics of the faith, who write
almost exclusively from a Christian denominational perspective. These types of
literature use the language of the Anti-Cult Movement (ACM) and usually aim
to expose the evils of the organisation’s leadership and the fallacies in its
interpretation of scripture. Although most of this material has very little aca-
demic value, it is relied upon by scholars outside the discipline of history who
seek to understand the fundamentals of Witness history, such as medical and
health-care researchers explaining the theological and historical reasons for the
Society’s ban on the storing of blood, blood donation, and blood transfusions.
The paucity of reliable accounts has, it is suggested, encouraged the Society to
respond by engaging more with, and recently even contributing to, academic
studies. Finally, historians have focused on Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Second
World War, when their political neutrality clashed with the heightened demands
of wartime governments, and Witnesses were vilified in many countries for
being unpatriotic and even seditious. This article will conclude by suggesting
four reasons why there is a dearth of serious historical analysis of this very
visible and highly influential worldwide organisation.
Although this article aims to examine the historiography, not the history,
of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, before discussing how this history has been
represented, it is essential to outline the movement’s origins, evolution, and
expansion.
Historical Development
The movement was founded by Charles Taze Russell, born in 1852, the son of
a draper from Allegheny City, which is now a part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Russell was raised Presbyterian but moved to Congregationalism in his youth.
He began to question Christianity when he was unable to defend traditional
tenets of Protestantism (i.e. eternal punishment/hell, the Trinity, and the doc-
trine of predestination) when challenged by non-believers. In 1870, Russell
wandered into a sermon given by Jonas Wendell, a Second Adventist preacher,
where, he later wrote, “I first had my attention called to the second coming of
our Lord.”6 The chance encounter renewed his interest in studying the Bible,
which led in turn to revelations about prophecy, based on biblical chronology.
The chronology uncovered by Russell centred on the overthrow of Jerusalem
by Babylon, which marked the end of Jehovah’s theocratic governance and the
beginning of man’s, an era called the Gentile Times.7 Russell’s first pamphlet,
6. C. T. Russell, “‘Supplement to Zion’s Watch Tower’ and ‘Herald of Christ’s Presence,’” in

Zion’s Watch Tower, and Herald of Christ’s Presence 1, No. 1, 1 July 1879 [CD ROM: Magazines
That Motivate].
7. For a detailed discussion of Russell’s chronology, see R. Crompton, Counting the Days to
Armageddon: The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Second Presence of Christ (Cambridge: James
Clarke & Co., 1996).
© 2011 The Author

The Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return (1877), was principally con-
cerned with end-time occurrences, the events leading to Armageddon. The
underpinning of his chronology was detailed in The Divine Plan of the Ages
(1886), and the six other volumes in the Millennial Dawn series (later renamed
Studies in the Scriptures).8 It showed a precise programme of end-time events,
concluding in 1914, the year which would mark the return of rule by Christ.
According to Russell, Jesus Christ was born the son of God in 2 B.C.E. In
common with many religious figures of the day, most notably Adventists
following the failure of William Miller’s prophecy (the “Great Disappoint-
ment” of 1844), Russell was preoccupied with the second coming. He believed
that Christ would return invisibly rather than bodily to resurrect the dead and
during his presence would establish rule over heaven and earth (hence second
presence, not second coming).9
Russell was convinced that the word of God had been obscured by the
mainstream Christian churches. His mission was to seek the truth in scripture
and advertise this to all, principally through the printed page.10 Guided by
Russell’s own tracts, small groups of men began meeting to study scripture;
they became known as Bible Students.11 In 1877, fifty thousand copies of the
booklet The Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return were produced, funded
by Russell from the proceeds of the family business. This marked the begin-
ning of a prolific publishing venture. Russell began financing periodicals, most
notably Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence (known since
1939 as The Watchtower). The opening sentence of the first edition of July 1879
stated the aims of the publication:
That we are living “in the last days” — “the day of the Lord” — “the end” of the
Gospel age, and consequently, in the dawn of the “new” age, are facts not only
discernible to the close student of the Word, led by the spirit, but the outward signs
recognizable by the world bear the same testimony, and we are desirous that the
“household of faith” be fully awake to the fact . . .12
8. The final instalment was published posthumously and completed by Clayton J. Woodworth and
George H. Fisher, based (they claimed) on Russell’s plans for the volume. C. T. Russell, The
Finished Mystery: Compiled from the writings of C. T. Russell by Clayton J. Woodworth and
George H. Fisher (New York: International Bible Students Association, 1917). It was highly
controversial, both within the movement (leading to schism) and without (leading to the impris-
onment of members of the Governing Body). See, for example, this response from Australia: C. F.
Main, Notes and Comments on “The Finished Mystery,” i.e. the Work Published under the Name of
Charles Taze Russell (Adelaide: Bible Students Tract Society, 1919). For more on these debates,
see G. D. Chryssides, Historical Dictionary of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Lanham, MD, Toronto,
Plymouth: The Scarecrow Press, 2008), xxxix–xl.
9. For Russell, the evidence was to be found in John 14:19: “Yet a little and the world no longer
beholdeth me; But ye behold me, Because I live Ye shall also live.” J. B. Rotherham, The
Emphasized New Testament: A New Translation (London: H. R. Allenson, 1897), 110. The verse is
from the first Bible printed by the Society. In 1902, the Bible Students ceased to use this version,
turning to the Emphatic Diaglott by Benjamin Wilson, which was printed from 1947 until the New
World Translation was introduced.
10. This began with the young Russell writing scripture in chalk in public places, for the benefit
of passers-by. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the
Divine Purpose, 1st ed. (New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1959), 17.
11. They were also known as “Millennial Dawners” and the study groups as “Dawn Circles.”
12. C. T. Russell, “Prospectus,” Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence 1, No. 1
(1879): 1 [CD ROM: Magazines that Motivate].
© 2011 The Author

In 1884, a legal corporation was established: Zion’s Watch Tower and Tract
Society (the inclusion of “tract” in the name points to the primary reason for
incorporation — to oversee the production of printed material). Russell
became very well-known in his day. He had regular syndicated columns in a
large number of US newspapers, much to the chagrin of Catholic and Protes-
tant clergy. Russell also travelled extensively, across North America and
Europe and to Japan and Russia, accompanied by small groups of supporters.
This international activity was guided by the belief that Christ would come
when his word is ministered to the end of the Earth.13 This is the same strategy
guiding the Witnesses’ worldwide activities today. Men were dispatched by the
Society to different countries to oversee the establishment of national head-
quarters called branch offices. The first was opened in London, England in
1900.
Russell died on 31 October 1916, on a train in the Texas Panhandle, return-
ing from a speaking circuit. If the spread of Russell’s word through his
extensive travels was one measure of success, another was the distribution of
vast amounts of printed material. The annual report for the year of his death
informed readers that 22,158,000 copies of Bible Student Monthly had been
sold, the Photo Drama of Creation, a slide show narrated by Russell, had been
seen by twelve million viewers, and The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s
Presence was published in English, German, Polish, Swedish, Dano-
Norwegian, and French. There were sixteen million copies of the Studies in the
Scriptures series in circulation and the Bible Students had branch offices in
countries as far flung as Australia.14
Narratives of the history of the Society almost always point to a radical break
between the presidencies of Russell and of Joseph Franklin Rutherford, elected
in January 1917 after a brief period of in-fighting.15 Whether the changes
introduced by Rutherford were the inspired realisation of Russell’s visions or
an opportunistic distortion of his teachings is a matter of ongoing disagree-
ment.16 What is indisputable is that there were a number of significant and
13. In accordance with Matthew 24: 14: “And this good news of the kingdom will be preached
in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” New World
Bible Translation Committee, New World Translation, 1081.
14. “Annual Report,” The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence 37, No. 24 (1916):
6021–6022 [CD ROM: Magazines that Motivate].
15. See, for example, Penton, Apocalypse Delayed, 47; W. C. Stevenson, Year of Doom, 1975:
The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses (London: Hutchinson, 1967), 42; Crompton, Counting the Days
to Armageddon, 48; E. C. Gruss and former Jehovah’s Witnesses (eds), The Four Presidents of the
Watch Tower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses): The Men and the Organization They Created (United
States of America: Xulon Press, 2003), 144; R. Franz, Crisis of Conscience: The Struggle between
Loyalty to God and Loyalty to One’s Religion, 4th ed. (Atlanta: Commentary Press, 2007), 383; A.
Rogerson, Millions Now Living Will Never Die: A Study of Jehovah’s Witnesses (London: The
Anchor Press, 1969), 50. A notable departure from this is Beckford’s analysis. He argued that the
organisational and administrative changes under Rutherford were initiated by Russell. J. A. Beck-
ford, “The Embryonic Stage of a Religious Sect’s Development: The Jehovah’s Witnesses,”
Sociological Yearbook of Religion 5 (1972): 20.
16. These changes were explained by the Society as a response to “a flood of new spiritual
truths.” Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine
Purpose, 107. A number of schisms emerged rejecting Rutherford’s initiatives and claiming to be
loyal to Russell’s vision. One of these, the Bible Students Ministries, continues to publish Russell’s
works.
© 2011 The Author

controversial changes made by Rutherford which profoundly shaped the

modern movement. His main aim was to create an identifiable, disciplined
organisation. A new name was part of this strategy. On 26 July 1931, at a
convention in Columbus, Ohio, Rutherford read a resolution that henceforth
the followers would be known as “Jehovah’s witnesses,” based on Isaiah 43:
10, 12: “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord.”17 The publishing activities
continued under Rutherford. The magazine The Golden Age was launched in
1919 (known as Consolation from 1937 and as Awake! since 1946). It was also
Rutherford who introduced doorstep ministry. Initially, publishers and “pio-
neers” (who commit more time to ministry than publishers) would carry
phonographs from house to house and play Rutherford’s speeches to the
householder. Later, pamphlets and periodicals were used, as they are today.18
The Society has had four presidents since Rutherford’s death in 1942.
Although subsequent leaders have not introduced changes which have departed
markedly from the initiatives of Rutherford, there have been changes in empha-
sis, particularly in educational work. Nathan H. Knorr, Rutherford’s successor,
insisted that Witnesses be well-versed not only in the Bible but in how to talk
to a sceptical (and occasionally hostile) public about scripture and belief.19 The
Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, a missionary academy, was established in
1943, and the first printed guide for ministry (Theocratic Aid to Kingdom
Publishers) appeared in 1945. It was under Knorr’s leadership that the Society
became truly international, expanding beyond the Anglophone world and
western Europe to open branch offices in Africa, South East Asia, the Indian
subcontinent, and the Pacific.
The key characteristics of the modern-day organisation were firmly in place
by the time of Knorr’s death in 1977 and the election of his successor,
Frederick W. Franz, who had served under him as vice-president since 1945. It
is widely accepted that Franz had authored much of the Society’s literature,
although this is not certain because all material published since Rutherford’s
death has been attributed to The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society rather
than a single author.20 Franz was a member of the committee which prepared
the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.21 The presidencies of Franz
(1977–1992), Milton George Henschel (1992–2000), and Don Alden Adams
17. The name was announced in the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1932 Year Book
(London: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1931), 18, 23.
18. Rutherford stepped up the doorstep campaign at a convention in Ohio in September 1922.
Delegates were greeted with an enormous banner with the letters A, D, and V visible. It was
unfurled to reveal the words “Advertise the King and Kingdom,” extolling delegates to engage in
house-to-house ministry with even greater vigour. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of
Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose, 101.
19. For typical doorstep ministry, see the archetypal exchanges between “Witness” and “Mr
Jones” on the latter’s doorstep in Stevenson, Year of Doom, 1975, 211. For an account of the
changes introduced by Knorr, see A. H. Macmillan, Faith on the March (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1957), 192–204.
20. It might be supposed that this was to prevent a “cult of personality” developing around
Rutherford’s successors, particularly given the continued existence of the “Russellites.”
21. The translation is attributed to the committee as a whole. Raymond Franz alleges that his
uncle, Frederick Franz, was the key figure in the committee, as the only member with sufficient
knowledge of biblical languages. Franz, Crisis of Conscience, 56.
© 2011 The Author

(2000–present) have been characterised by continued growth in attendance at

the annual Memorial of Christ’s Death, the most important event on the
calendar and the only occasion commemorated by the Witnesses, and in the
number of practising members. The worldwide presence of the organisation
has also expanded significantly.
The Society is a highly centralised organisation. Its activities around the
world are directed by the Governing Body, consisting of the president and a
small group of men, based at the international offices in the borough of
Brooklyn in New York City, as it has been since 1909. The Society’s work is
supported by voluntary work and donations (there is no tithing). The national
branch offices report to Brooklyn. The Governing Body has complete control
over all aspects of doctrine and oversees the production of printed materials, of
which there is abundance.22 These include books on Witness history, the
subject to which this article will now turn.
The Watch Tower Society on Witness History

All of the Society’s literature is produced by the Writing Committee and
published in its own printing plants. The largest of these is in Brooklyn, but many
of the 115 branch offices also have printing plants, as part of the Bethel complex,
which includes housing. The printeries serve the country or region (e.g. the
branch office in Sydney, Australia produces literature in more than twenty-five
languages for distribution to eight branches in the South Pacific). Every Witness
congregation around the world uses the same study aids for home Bible study
and weekly group meetings and places the same key tracts during house-to-
house ministry, all translated into the vernacular, for which the committee also
has responsibility. The literature produced by the Society is very carefully
written, translated, and turned out, and accounts of its history are no exception.
The official material on Witness history speaks to two different audiences.
First, the Society’s own histories aim to educate current members about
Russell’s insights, to describe the Witnesses’ historical struggles (interpreted
as evidence of the righteousness of its cause), and to explain the scriptural basis
of its teachings. Second, this material is also for potential converts; it aims to
introduce Witness history and theology. This dual audience is catered for in
both history books published to date.
The first book-length history produced by the Society was Jehovah’s Wit-
nesses in the Divine Purpose (JWDP), published in 1959. The original English
edition ran to 500,000 copies. The book comprises a series of conversations
between two sets of imaginary married couples: John and Maria, who are
Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Tom and Lois, their neighbours. Tom and Lois are
initially sceptical of the message their neighbours bring.23 Over the course of
the book, John patiently explains the history of the organisation to Tom and
22. There is a thriving market in Witness paraphernalia. Older books fetch high prices on the
antique and rare books markets as the number of specialist collectors grows.
23. Lois had been told by “her preacher” that the Witnesses “are just a lot of upstarts, just a new
religion started by some religious crank recently and without a good background.” Watch Tower
Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose, 7.
© 2011 The Author

Lois, who are an attentive and inquisitive audience. Predictably, it closes with
the one-time sceptics asking for literature to help them increase their knowl-
edge and for guidance in home Bible study meetings. John also invites them to
group study sessions at his home on Tuesday evenings. Each session is pre-
ceded by an hour of house-to-house ministry in the local area, which Tom and
Lois welcome as an opportunity to prepare for ministering themselves.
In 1993, a new history was published: Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of
God’s Kingdom (JWPGK). According to the Foreword, it aims to offer an
“objective” and “candid” account.24 It features a great deal more visual mate-
rial than JWDP, much of it in full colour. The structure of the volume is rather
awkward, following neither narrative nor thematic lines. Despite these surface
differences, the content is not much changed from the earlier history, although
it does emphasise the Witnesses’ expanded global presence. Over the years, in
these books as in pamphlets, periodicals, and yearbooks, accounts of the
movement’s history remain very similar. Indeed, there is little to be learnt
about Witness history by reading different official histories because there is
limited critical research on the topic carried out by the Society itself. This is not
a symptom of neglect or an absence of currency; these publications are valued
highly by the Witness community. The Society regards publishing as a vital
endeavour for educating adherents and converting non-adherents rather than as
a springboard for theological debate or for revision of the historical narrative.
Material from external sources is occasionally incorporated into these
accounts, particularly in discussions of legal cases. It is not uncommon for
historians and political analysts to be quoted in support of the Society’s own
interpretations. Extracts from articles in newspapers and entries in encyclo-
paedias are used in the same way. For example, an article on the year 1914
called “The ‘Time of the End’” was published in a December 1954 edition of
The Watchtower. It began:
“The turning point in our time,” “a dividing line in history,” an “age of violence” —
these are all terms used by modern historians to describe the epoch that began with
the outbreak of World War 1. What startling significance lies in their observations?
The answer affects your life.
The article continued: “It is interesting to note that many of the ‘intellectuals’
of the world — the philosophers, the scientists, the sages and the historians —
are quick to admit that since 1914 there has been a striking change.” It goes on
to quote a sentence or two from the philosopher Bertrand Russell, Harold C.
Urey, a leading atomic scientist of the day, an (unnamed) historian from
Columbia University, and extracts from editorials in newspapers, including the
Times-Herald (Washington) and the Sun-Telegram (Pittsburgh), and from
articles in the Times magazine (New York) and the Journal (Edmonton).25 Each
points to 1914 marking a significant break in human history and the beginning
24. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of
God’s Kingdom (New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1993), 5.
25. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, “The ‘Time of the End’,” The
Watchtower, 1 December 1954, 709.
© 2011 The Author

of a violent age and, although none of these refer to its spiritual significance,
lends scholarly legitimacy to the Witnesses’ own conviction of the importance
of this year. This example also offers evidence of the self-referential nature of
the Society’s own histories: these same quotations are all reproduced in Jeho-
vah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose, published five years later.26
There has only been one sanctioned insider account of the history of the
Watch Tower Society, A. H. Macmillan’s Faith on the March (1957). Mac-
millan was a significant figure in the movement from 1918, when he joined the
Society’s Board, until his death in 1966. He baptised Rutherford in 1906,
during a convention tour with Russell, whom he considered a friend.27 In his
brief introduction to the book, Knorr (then the Society’s president) wrote that
Macmillan asked “to use the Society’s files to write an account of his time in
the ministry” and “since he is a trusted member of the headquarters staff, he
was granted permission.”28 The implications are twofold: that this is a “one-
off” insider’s account and that only the most trusted of those in the higher
echelons of the Society might access these files.29
There have been very few historical accounts by rank-and-file members. A
book by Marley Cole published in 1955 was written in the voice of an outside
observer, but Cole was a Witness and the history was commissioned by the
Society.30 It proved popular with Witnesses. A former (disfellowshipped)
member of the Writing Committee has argued that it was produced by an
independent publisher in the hope of reaching an audience that might not
otherwise read the Society’s literature.31 According to M. James Penton, Cole
admitted that he had been told by the Society to rewrite the first draft of the
book because “it was not positive enough.”32 As we shall see below, historians
— Penton chief among them — have been highly critical of such efforts to
direct the production of Witness history.
The most revealing account of the Governing Body’s decision-making is by
Raymond Franz, the nephew of Frederick Franz, in Crisis of Conscience: The
Struggle between Loyalty to God and Loyalty to One’s Religion (first published
in 1983). Franz worked at Brooklyn Bethel for fifteen years, for nine of those
as a member of the Governing Body (1971–1980). Franz claimed that although
26. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine
Purpose, 270.
27. Macmillan, Faith on the March, 43.
28. N. H. Knorr, “Introduction,” in Macmillan, xi.
29. The anonymous authors of The Four Presidents of the Watch Tower Society interpret Knorr’s
brief introduction quite differently. They argue that when Knorr writes in the closing sentences
“The book is a straightforward and truthful account. It is unique only in the personal experiences
of A. H. Macmillan. In many other respects it could be the story of any one of hundreds of
Jehovah’s witnesses whom I have known,” he trivialises Macmillan’s role within the organisation.
In minimising his contribution in this way, Knorr was acting out of “pettiness” and a fear of losing
his position to this man, widely regarded as Rutherford’s deserved successor. Gruss and former
Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Four Presidents, 97.
30. Cole describes himself as a “reporter” and writes: “I had tried to study them to the point
where I could speak their language, think their thoughts, catch their vision.” M. Cole, Jehovah’s
Witnesses: The New World Society (New York City: Vantage Press, 1955), 168–9.
31. Franz, Crisis of Conscience, 74.
32. Original italics omitted. Penton does not clarify to whom Cole made this admission. Penton,
Apocalypse Delayed, 359, note 29.
© 2011 The Author

the Body had a high degree of control over the lives of millions of Witnesses
worldwide, from doctrines influencing life and death (such as the stance on
blood transfusion) to the most intimate spheres of human relations (such as the
sex acts permissible between married couples), there was little concern for
scriptural truth or justice.33 Rather than spending time studying scripture, the
Governing Body was more often concerned with responding to queries from
elders about whether or not certain behaviour exhibited by their congregants
were matters for disfellowshipping.34 Franz’s account is, of course, dismissed
by the Society as apostate literature.
Most scholars do not question the Society’s own statistics on membership,
which are publicly available, clearly defined, and transparently calculated.
These are published in its yearbooks and have appeared in The Watchtower
edition of 1 January annually since 1927.35 The most recent figures are avail-
able on its web site. The Society offers a number of membership figures for the
countries in which it is active, with the exception of those in which it is forced
to operate underground (it does not wish to aid governments who seek to
eliminate its presence). Although the definitive membership figure given by the
Society is the number of practising members, defined as those involved in
public Bible educational work (i.e. house-to-house ministry), a far greater
number attend the Memorial of Christ’s Death. In August 2009, the number of
practising members was 7,313,173 and the number attending the Memorial
was 18,168,323.36 The latter figure is much larger, but the Society gives the
former, more conservative one for membership. Another reason scholars trust
these figures is because historically, the Society has acknowledged losses as
well as increases in membership.37 Sociologists have pointed to the correlation
between the membership statistics and national censuses in the United States
and Canada, concluding that the Society’s own statistics “offer a very conser-
vative estimate” of membership.38 Finally, one anthropologist reported that
fluctuations in membership across the United States were broadly in line with
his own observations of a single congregation in New Jersey.39
33. He offers as an example the changing policy on sexual relations between married couples,
tracing the wavering line presented in Watchtower in the late 1960s and 1970s and describing his
own role in clarifying the official policy. The policy on what kinds of sex acts couples might engage
in resulted in the disfellowshipping of errant Witnesses and even divorces in cases where one-half
of the couple was not a Witness. Franz, Crisis of Conscience, 47–56.
34. Franz, Crisis of Conscience, 111.
35. Prior to 1927, the annual reports appeared in Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence
at the end of each calendar year.
36. Office of Public Information of Jehovah’s Witnesses, “Statistics: 2009 Report of Jehovah’s
Witnesses Worldwide,” http://www.watchtower.org/e/statistics/worldwide_report.htm (accessed 1
February 2010).
37. For example, in 1930 it was acknowledged that “The total number of those who have
withdrawn from the Society and now oppose its work is comparatively large, when such are taken
all together. These are now divided into many companies. . . .” “Opposing God,” The Watchtower
and Herald of Christ’s Presence, 15 November 1930, 342. The 1955 Yearbook also noted that 4,000
left the organisation in the controversy over Rutherford’s election.
38. R. Stark and L. R. Iannaccone, “Why the Jehovah’s Witnesses Grow so Rapidly: A Theo-
retical Application,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 12, No. 2 (1997): 138.
39. L. R. Cooper, “‘Publish’ or Perish: Negro Jehovah’s Witness Adaptation in the Ghetto” in
Religious Movements in Contemporary America, ed. I. I. Zaretsky and M. P. Leone (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1974), 705.
© 2011 The Author

The foregoing discussion of the Society’s literature on Witness history has

focused on who produces it, how it is distributed, and the intended audiences.
The Society’s attitude towards secular history is particularly interesting in light
of the common accusation that it “re-writes” history.40 The vast quantity of
printed material available in public libraries and online means that alterations
in the Society’s presentation of Witness history can be traced through its
periodicals and yearbooks. The most instructive examples relate to key dates in
Russell’s chronology of the end-times. Rutherford reaffirmed that 1914 was
indeed a watershed year marking the invisible return of Christ as King in his
speech “The World has Ended — Millions now living will never die!” of 24
February 1918. This was the beginning of the worldwide “Millions campaign,”
which included advertisements on billboards and in newspapers and the dis-
tribution of Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1920), which has become one
of the best known and most widely distributed tracts in the organisation’s
history. The start of World War I was confirmation of the prophecy.41 Instead of
marking the commencement of the final battle of Armageddon, however, it was
those of the generation of 1914 (i.e. people alive at that time) who would see
the battle, not the year 1914. The Society has since further amended the stance
that the generation of 1914 would witness the second presence, most recently
in the mid-1990s. Every edition of Awake! includes a brief statement under the
heading “Why Awake! is Published.” Until 22 October 1995, this statement
ended with: “Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator’s
promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the
events of 1914 passes away.”42 After this issue, the closing sentence was
changed to read: “Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the
Creator’s promise of a peaceful and secure new world that is about to replace
the present wicked, lawless system of things.”43 The reference to the generation
of 1914 witnessing the second presence — a frequent theme in the Society’s
literature before 1995 — was removed as this generation was dying out.44
In 1933, Milton Stacey Czatt, the earliest researcher of the Witnesses, wrote
of the Society’s preoccupation with “the mechanical details of a scheme of
40. M. J. Penton, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Third Reich: Sectarian Politics under Persecution
(Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 145, 239.
41. “The physical facts, the fulfilled prophecy and prophecy further in course of fulfilment, prove
overwhelmingly and beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord is present, that the world has ended,
that the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” J. F. Rutherford, The Harp of God: Proof Conclusive that
Millions Now Living Will Never Die; a Text-Book for Bible Study Specially Adapted for Use of
Beginners; with Numerous Questions and Scripture Citations (London: International Bible Stu-
dents Association, 1924), 250.
42. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, “Why Awake! Is Published,” Awake!
22 October 1995, 4.
43. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, “Why Awake! Is Published,” Awake!
8 November 1995, 4.
44. See, for example, The Watchtower, 15 May 1984. The issue marked seventy years since 1914.
The front cover depicted sixteen elderly men and women and read “1914: The generation that will
not pass away.” It confirmed “Just as Jesus’ prophesies regarding Jerusalem were fulfilled within
the life span of the generation of the year 33 C.E., so his prophecies regarding the “time of the end”
will be fulfilled within the life span of the generation of 1914!” Watch Tower Bible and Tract
Society of Pennsylvania, “1914: The Generation That Will Not Pass Away,” Watchtower, 15 May
1984, 7.
© 2011 The Author

history.”45 This “scheme of history” is worth exploring for what it tells us about
the Society’s view of spiritual and secular history. An article on biblical
chronology in The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence in 1923
explained: “Secular history is no standard by which to correct the supposed
errors of the Bible” and “We are not called upon to harmonize these [biblical
dates] with the tangled records of secular history.”46 This demonstrates a
distinct separation of the chronology underpinning Witness beliefs from the
facts of secular history. Another tenet of Witness theology is that all worldly
events are predetermined by Jehovah. Russell wrote in The Divine Plan of the
Ages that Christ did not attempt to harness politics to affect change and that the
apostles followed this example: The Lord’s children, he wrote,
should remember that this is the Lord’s battle, and that so far as politics or social
questions are concerned, they have no real solution other than that predicted in the
Word of God. The duty of the consecrated, therefore, is first of all to see that they are
not in the way of Jehovah’s chariot, and then to “stand still and see the salvation of
God,” in the sense of realizing that it is no part of their work to share in the struggle,
but that it is the Lord’s doing, through other agencies.47
This explains why Witnesses have not been lobbyists for political causes, even
for salient issues on which they have been at the forefront of debate, such as
conscientious objection. The Witness view is that it is immodest to assume
human action might alter the divine plan. In 1938, Rutherford advised Wit-
nesses not to struggle against Hitler’s forces: “The Totalitarian combine is
going to get control of Europe and America. You cannot prevent it. Do not try.
Your safety is on the Lord’s side.”48 For the Society, there is little point
interrogating and interpreting the organisation’s history — in its scheme of
history, events are part of Jehovah’s plan.
The Watch Tower Society’s attitude towards history also shapes the preser-
vation of historical documents. The conviction in the immanence of Armaged-
don means there has been little emphasis upon the preservation of materials
(what use is archiving if the creation of Jehovah’s Kingdom, free from earthly
concerns — such as secular history — is imminent?). It is very rare that there
are references in the Society’s publications to materials held in its own files,
but these do appear.49 There are references to the destruction of “official files”
during World War I, but it is not clear what type of material was lost.50 Penton
45. M. S. Czatt, The International Bible Students Jehovah’s Witnesses, No. 4 (Scottdale, PA:
Mennonite Press, 1933), 43.
46. Timothy 3:16, 17 was quoted in support: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man
of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” “A Clear Vision of Chronol-
ogy,” The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence 44, No. 18, 1 July 1923, 196, 202.
47. C. T. Russell, Millennial Dawn, Vol. 1: Plan of the Ages (Pittsburgh, PA: Zion’s Watch Tower,
1886), 341–2.
48. J. F. Rutherford, Face the Facts, 1938. This was initially a talk by Rutherford, later published.
Cited in Herbert Hewitt Stroup, The Jehovah’s Witnesses (New York: Columbia University Press,
1945), 136.
49. See, for example, footnotes b and c on pages 166–7 of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose.
50. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine
Purpose, 89.
© 2011 The Author

observed during research in the 1970s that the Canadian and British archives
were “poorly kept” and reported in 2004 that he was told in “more recent years”
that the “American Witness archives are still not properly catalogued.”51 This
may have changed, but it is not clear what resources are held at the international
headquarters because the archives are not open to scholars.
“Apostate Literature”
There is an enormous body of literature penned by former Witnesses who have
disassociated from the Society or been disfellowshipped. The Society calls this
“apostate literature” because it signals a wilful rejection of Jehovah’s teach-
ings. The purpose of such publications is invariably to tell the author’s story
and, in doing so, uncover the inner workings of Brooklyn Bethel, expose the
inhumanity of the Governing Body, or reveal how the organisation “controls”
rank-and-file Witnesses. Very often the explicit aim is to help Witness readers
to escape from the Society’s clutches and to find Christianity. As a rule,
apostate literature can be identified by its title.52 For the most part, these kinds
of accounts do not purport to contribute to the reader’s understanding of
Witness history and theology beyond exposing the evils of the organisation but
are worth discussing here because they are frequently cited uncritically, even in
scholarly publications such as medical journals.53
The authors of apostate literature usually employ the language of the ACM.
The ACM is the organised opposition to non-traditional religious movements
which originated in the United States in the 1960s. The testimonies of “survi-
vors” or “escapees” of cults and of families who have “lost” treasured members
are central to ACM campaigns. The terms used by the movement were thor-
oughly discredited by psychologists in the 1970s but are key words in the vast
majority of the non-academic literature on the Witnesses. A well-known
example is 30 Years a Watchtower Slave by William Schnell, first published in
1956 but since reprinted many times in different editions. Schnell was a former
elder (an elder presides over a congregation’s affairs). In his exposé, he seeks
to “describe how and why I became involved in and finally enslaved to one of
the world’s most dictatorial and autocratic systems.”54 Schnell’s account exem-
plifies the well-worn language of the ACM genre. He refers to a “seven-step
indoctrination programme,” “brainwashing,” and “entering slavery,” writing of
his increasing involvement with the Society: “Little did I realise that I was
leaving Christian individuality behind and was entering into a sort of Zombi
51. Penton, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Third Reich, 239.

52. Two very different examples, although both memoirs, are D. A. Reed, Blood on the Altar:
Confessions of a Jehovah’s Witness Minister (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1996) and J.
Castro, The Truth Book: Escaping a Childhood of Abuse among Jehovah’s Witnesses (New York:
Arcade Publishing, 2005). Reed is a former elder and Castro is a professor of English at an
American university.
53. S. Woolley, “Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Emergency Department: What Are Their Rights?”
Emergency Medicine Journal 22, No. 2 (2005): 869–71. This article cites Harrison as an authority
on Witness history and beliefs. Harrison herself admits: “When I began this book, I was a
theological illiterate.” B. Grizzuti Harrison, Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jeho-
vah’s Witnesses (London: Hale, 1980), 223.
54. W. Schnell, 30 Years a Watch Tower Slave (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001), 18.
© 2011 The Author

[sic] existence. . . .”55 Indeed, Schnell’s memoir aims to demonstrate that the
Society wants to destroy individual autonomy and create a mass of believers
prepared to bend to its will. While Schnell does offer a rare insight into a period
on which there are few first-hand accounts, this language much diminishes its
value to the scholar.
Other types of apostate literature are at best a pastiche of Society publica-
tions and escapee testimonies. The body of work by Edmond C. Gruss is an
example of this genre. For many years, Gruss was head of the history depart-
ment at The Master’s College in California. In 2003, he was editor of a book
called The Four Presidents of the Watch Tower Society, written by an unnamed
third-generation former Witness who had served at Brooklyn Bethel. The
observations of three anonymous “informants,” also former Witnesses, are
dotted throughout the book, offering support for the author’s claims.56 Gruss’
precise contribution to the authorship of the work is not clear, although under
his editorship “revisions were made, and much new material and extensive
documentation were added.”57 It is a pastiche of the writings of other detrac-
tors, contemporary newspaper accounts, personal testimonies, and Witness
publications. It is essentially a character assassination of Russell, Rutherford,
Knorr, and Franz, focusing on Russell’s divorce trial of 1906, Rutherford’s
alleged drinking problem, rumours of Knorr’s homosexuality, and so on.
Some authors claim to offer credible accounts of the history of the move-
ment, such as Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses (1980) by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, who was baptised in 1944, at
the age of nine, at a national convention in upstate New York. Grizzuti Harrison
also worked at Brooklyn Bethel, between 1953 and 1956, before “escaping” at
the age of 21. Her “inside account” details her loneliness, the heartlessness of
her fellow workers, and her constant fears that her doubts about the Society’s
teachings would become known to Knorr and to her co-workers. Although the
author cites extensively from primary sources, there is no scholarly apparatus
and the book is essentially a memoir documenting the psychologically and
physically damaging effects of her association with the Witnesses. This book is
cited frequently by those writing on Witness history, however (perhaps simply
because it is one of the very few books published in English with both
“history” and “Jehovah’s Witnesses” in the title).
Very often the explicit aim of these publications is to reach out to current
members and help them to find Christianity. In the Foreword to his book,
Schnell writes: “By the Lord’s grace I am a Christian. I was found by God in
my tender youth. Early in life I was inveigled to join the Watchtower Organi-
sation, and subsequently became totally enslaved to it. . . . But now, again, I am
free.”58 Edmund Gruss was raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses but left at the
55. Schnell, 30 Years, 20, 29.

56. The names are withheld because “To give their names could invite malice unheard of in the
Christian community upon these men, their families, their friends and relatives.” Gruss and former
Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Four Presidents, ix.
57. Gruss and former Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Four Presidents, ix.
58. Schnell, 30 Years, 7.
© 2011 The Author

age of 17 “through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”59 The twist at the
end of Grizzuti Harrison’s story is that through all this, she finds God. The
stories are presented as cautionary tales for the naive Christian. A similar type
of literature is produced by Christians campaigning against the Witnesses. For
example, Anthony A. Hoekema’s influential book The Four Major Cults (1963)
aimed to counter the negative influence of “cults” by outlining the history,
organisation, and theology of the four most active, numerous, and therefore
most dangerous: Christian Science, Seventh-Day Adventism, Mormonism, and
Jehovah’s Witnesses. The book points out how each deviates from Christianity
and offers guidelines on how Christians might approach “cultists.”60
Carolyn Wah, a legal advisor in the Watch Tower Society in Brooklyn, wrote
in an article on the research material available on the Witnesses: “Given the
scarcity of writing about Jehovah’s Witnesses, it would be natural for the
researcher to turn to these works [by former members] for information.”61 It
may be a “natural” response for scholars to turn to literature by ex-Witnesses
and Christian critics of the Society, but this must be recognised as partial
analysis and treated with appropriate caution. Although we might expect the
work of professional historians to be free of such bias, this is not always the
case.
Historians and Witness History

There are only two areas on which there is a sizeable body of historical
literature on the Jehovah’s Witnesses: Nazi Germany and the United States and
Canada in wartime. The former is largely limited to the Witness experience of
the Holocaust, the latter to the Society’s legal precedents. This article will now
turn to key issues of debate in the historical literature, although the aim of the
discussion is to reflect on the contexts that have interested historians rather than
to fully explore these literatures.
By far the largest body of historical scholarship is on the Ernste Bibelfor-
scher (Earnest Bible Students), as German Witnesses were known.62 There
were an estimated 20,000 Witnesses in Germany at the time Adolf Hitler came
to power, a greater number than in any country other than the United States.
The Witnesses were the first religious denomination to be banned by the Nazi
Party, on 23 June 1933.63 Thereafter, the Witnesses were severely persecuted
(Hitler reportedly vowed: “This brood will be exterminated in Germany!”).64
59. Gruss and former Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Four Presidents, ix.
60. A. A. Hoekema, The Four Major Cults: Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism,
Seventh-Day Adventism (Grand Rapids, MI: The Paternoster Press, 1969), 238–89. For a more
recent example, see D. Harris, The Jehovah’s Witnesses: Their Beliefs and Practices (London:
Gazelle, 1999).
61. C. R. Wah, “An Introduction to Research and Analysis of Jehovah’s Witnesses: A View from
the Watchtower,” Review of Religious Research 43, No. 2 (2001): 167.
62. This is somewhat ironic, given that religion itself was slow to be addressed in the English-
language historiography on Nazi Germany.
63. J. S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–45 (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1968), 371.
64. This statement is reproduced in a number of published works, although the original source is
unclear. Bergman cites a written affidavit by one Karl R. Wittig, who witnessed the outburst during
a meeting with William Frick, Minister of the Reich and Prussia. Wittig claims that “Hitler
© 2011 The Author

The refusal to give the Nazi salute and to serve in the Wehrmacht, alongside the
continuation of ministry while under ban, led to direct confrontation with the
fascist state. The literature the Witnesses continued to take from door to door
included openly hostile tracts, such as the pamphlet Fascism or Freedom
(1939), which claimed that the Devil controlled Hitler. The Witnesses soon
became a special category of prisoner in the Nazi camps, distinguishable by
their purple triangle, used systematically from 1938.
The debates among historians have centred on two issues: the fundamental
reasons behind Nazi persecution of the Witnesses and, more recently, the
Society’s stance towards Nazism in the first years of the regime. The Witnesses
claim to be politically neutral, so there was no challenge to the regime on
political or ideological grounds. Christine E. King, who wrote the first sub-
stantial English-language study of the Witnesses in Germany, published in
1982, wrote that at the heart of this conflict was “the clash of two totalitarian
systems.”65 Other historians have extended this by pointing to the alleged
similarities between the Nazis and the Witnesses, most notably John Conway,
who wrote that in addition to the Witnesses’ international connections and their
Old Testament theology (in common with Judaism), the Nazi persecution is
explained by their similarities: “. . . in the Witnesses’ ‘petty bourgeois’ milieu,
their messianic message, their fanaticism and readiness to make ultimate
sacrifices, and their skilful manipulation of propaganda, the Nazis believed
they saw a new form of their own Party organization.”66 One of the most
controversial historians of the Witnesses, M. James Penton, himself a former
member, has argued that President Rutherford is to blame for the persecution:
his insistence that German Witnesses continue to distribute openly confronta-
tional tracts invited persecution. Penton has also challenged the consensus
among historians that the Witnesses firmly opposed Nazism from the first. He
claimed that Rutherford sought compromise with the regime and only adopted
a position of opposition when these overtures were not well received.67 George
D. Chryssides has countered that Rutherford’s stance should be viewed neither
as tacit support for Nazism (as Penton claims) nor as confrontational
(as Gabrielle Yonan, among others, has claimed)68 but as opportunistic.
suddenly appeared” and, upon being shown telegrams opposing the persecution of the Witnesses,
“jumped to his feet and with clenched fists hysterically screamed; ‘This brood will be exterminated
in Germany!’ ” J. Bergman, “The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Experience in the Nazi Concentration
Camps: A History of Their Conflicts with the Nazi State,” Journal of Church and State 38, no. 1
(1996): 89. See also Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses in
the Divine Purpose, 142.
65. C. E. King, The Nazi State and the New Religions: Five Case Studies in Non-Conformity
(New York, Toronto: E. Mellon Press, 1982), 176.
66. Conway, The Nazi Persecution, 197. King’s was the first work in English to devote a
substantial part of the analysis to the persecution of Witnesses; Conway’s book was published
earlier but focused on the mainstream Christian churches.
67. This is the central argument of Penton, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Third Reich.
68. G. Yonan, “History, Past and Present: Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany: An Analysis of the
Documentary Stand Firm against Nazi Assault from the Perspective of Religious Studies,” in
Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah’s Witnesses during the Nazi Regime: 1933–1945, ed. Hans
Hesse (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 2003), 332–42.
© 2011 The Author

Rutherford’s infamous Declaration of Facts was a chance to disassociate the

Witnesses from the Jews.69
The Watch Tower Society’s own literature on the Holocaust presents the
Witnesses as martyrs, and as such a special type of Nazi victim. Unlike other
categories of prisoners, after September 1938 Witnesses were offered the
opportunity for freedom: they could sign a document renouncing their faith
and be released from the camps. According to Detlef Garbe, no more than a
dozen Witnesses signed this document.70 Testimonies of the uncompromising
position adopted by imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses are reproduced at length
in the Society’s materials on the Nazi era, which includes documentaries and
accompanying study guides.71 These recount the commemoration of the
Memorial by prisoners in the camps, the conversion of other inmates, and the
refusal to renounce their faith despite the promise of release as evidence of
“Jehovah’s Witnesses stand[ing] firm against Nazi assault,” the title of a con-
troversial video produced by the Society in 1996.72 Indeed, the exemplary
behaviour of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the camps is one of the proudest moments
in the organisation’s rich history of persecution.73 Controversially, Penton has
argued that since the early 1990s there has been a campaign by the Watch
Tower Society to publicise Nazi-era persecution.74
The confrontation between Witnesses and ostensibly democratic govern-
ments has led legal studies scholars and historians of religious rights to assess-
ments of Witness history through the prism of civil liberties, most notably in
the context of the United States and, to a lesser extent, Canada.75 Although
69. G. D. Chryssides, “Provocation or Persecution? The ‘Bibelforscher’ in the Third Reich (An
Examination of the Conflict between Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Nazis)”, CESNUR 2006 Inter-
national Conference, available at: http://www.cesnur.org/2006/sd_chryssides.htm, accessed 8 Sep-
tember 2009. There is also debate over the Nazi flags which appear in photographs of the exterior
of the Wilmersdorf Tenishallen and the singing of the German national anthem. The Declaration
of Facts is reproduced in The 1934 Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses (New York: Watch Tower
Bible and Tract Society, 1933), 131–43.
70. Cited in J. Chu, “From Marginalization to Martydom,” in Persecution and Resistance of
Jehovah’s Witnesses during the Nazi Regime: 1933–1945, ed. Hans Hesse (Bremen: Edition
Temmen, 2003), 373. For more on Jehovah’s Witnesses in the concentration camps, see 1974
Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 108–212 and 1989 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 111–34.
71. See the DVD Jehovah’s Witnesses under Nazi Persecution and Watch Tower Bible and Tract
Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose, 166–74.
72. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses Stand Firm
against Nazi Assault, VHS 1996. For discussion of the production, see Hans Hesse, ed., Persecu-
tion and Resistance of Jehovah’s Witnesses During the Nazi Regime: 1933–1945 (Bremen: Edition
Temmen, 2003), 306–66.
73. As model prisoners, the Witnesses were so trusted they became servants of the SS guards in
the camps. Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess
(London, Sydney: Pan Books, 1959), 94–8.
74. Penton argued that Nazi persecution has been exploited by the Society. In a chapter entitled
“Riding the Holocaust Bandwagon,” he applied Norman Finkelstein’s controversial thesis about
the political uses of the remembrance of victimhood by US Jewry: “If, as Finkelstein says,
‘Holocaust memory is an ideological construct of vested interests,’ the same is true to an equally
great extent among Jehovah’s Witnesses” (italics in original). Penton, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the
Third Reich, 211.
75. W. Kaplan, State and Salvation: The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Their Fight for Civil Rights
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989); D. R. Manwaring, Render under Caesar. The
Flag-Salute Controversy: A Study of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Legal Struggle against Constitu-
tional Flag Salute in Public Schools (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1962); M. J.
Penton, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada: Champions of Freedom of Speech and Worship (Toronto:
© 2011 The Author

some American Witnesses had been arrested for ministering as early as 1928
(for door-knocking on Sunday), it was not until January 1941 that the first
report on the Witnesses and civil liberties appeared, published by the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). This was a direct response to the persecution,
discrimination, and harassment suffered by Witnesses across the United States.
The report began: “Not since the persecution of the Mormons years ago has
any religious minority been so bitterly and generally attacked as the members
of Jehovah’s Witnesses — particularly in the spring and summer of 1940.”76
The pamphlet records a catalogue of violent attacks on the Witnesses, noting
the complicity of law enforcement officials and the approval of editorials in
newspapers. The year 1940 was not, as the ACLU expected, the height of
anti-Witnesses persecution. It was to intensify as the war continued.77
A wave of legal and extra-legal persecution was prompted by what Shaun F.
Peters has called the “explosive combination”78 of the fear of an Axis Fifth
Column and the Supreme Court ruling in the case Minersville School District
v. Gobitis in 1940, which upheld the expulsion of Witness children from a
public school in Pennsylvania for refusing to salute the flag.79 Witnesses were
subjected to vigilante attacks across the United States, stemming from the
belief that they were in league with Nazi Germany. This was encouraged by
President Roosevelt’s fireside chat of 26 May 1940, in which he referred to a
“Fifth Column”: some listeners understood this to be a reference to the Wit-
nesses.80 There were of course also non-violent forms of discrimination, such
as when Witnesses were dismissed from employment for a lack of patriotism
and labour unions would not defend them, or when courts removed children
from the care of a Witness parent in custody battles. Witnesses were also jailed
Macmillan of Canada, 1976); M. O. Newton, Armed with the Constitution: Jehovah’s Witnesses in
Alabama and the U.S. Supreme Court, 1939–1946 (Tuscaloosa, London: University of Alabama
Press, 1995).
76. The report continued that there had been 335 instances of mob violence in 44 states during
1940, involving 1,488 men, women, and children. American Civil Liberties Union, The Persecu-
tion of Jehovah’s Witnesses: The Record of Violence against a Religious Organization Unparal-
leled in America since the Attacks on the Mormons (New York City: American Civil Liberties
Union, 1941), 3.
77. A report published by the ACLU in June 1944 further emphasised the centrality of Witnesses
to the historical development of civil liberties. The section on religious liberties is almost entirely
dedicated to the discussion of Witness cases, in Mississippi, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and
New Jersey. American Civil Liberties Union, In Defense of Our Civil Liberties: A Report of the
American Civil Liberties Union in the Third Year of the War (New York: American Civil Liberties
Union, 1944), 52–53.
78. S. F. Peters, Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights
Revolution (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 89.
79. Lillian Gobitas, one of the children involved, reflected on the legal case and said that with the
ruling it became “open season” on Witnesses. Cited in Peters, Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses, 71.
The family name (Gobitas) is spelt incorrectly in the legal documents relating to the case.
80. “Today’s threat to our national security is not a matter of military weapons alone. We know
of new methods of attack. The Trojan Horse. The Fifth Column that betrays a nation unprepared for
treachery. Spies, saboteurs, and traitors are the actors in this new strategy. With all of these we must
and will deal vigorously.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, “52. At This Time When the World is Threatened
by Forces of Destruction, It Is My Resolve and Yours to Build up Our Armed Defenses,” Fireside
Chat on National Defense, May 26, 1940, in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D.
Roosevelt: War — And Aid to Democracies 1940, Vol. 9, ed. Samuel I. Rosenman (New York:
Russell & Russell, 1969), 238.
© 2011 The Author

for conscientious objection. It was in 1918, under Rutherford’s leadership, that

members of the Society were first persecuted for their stance on military
service.81 In World War II, the Witnesses’ claim to exemption from military
duty was on the grounds that all Witnesses are ministers because all Witnesses
are expected to spread God’s word.
These episodes of persecution strengthened the conviction of the Witnesses
in the righteousness of their cause and hardened the resolve of the Society to
fight for their right to distribute literature and to march on the streets during
information campaigns, and for the recognition that all members are ministers.
There was a coordinated and comprehensive response implemented by the
Society’s legal team. A number of tireless lawyers defended Witnesses across
the country, most notably Victor Blackwell and Hayden Covington.82 Jennifer
Henderson argued that the Society “expanded First Amendment protections in
a precisely orchestrated, deliberately instigated plan,”83 and that Covington
provoked local authorities into action, sending Witnesses to play Rutherford’s
anti-Catholic speeches on streets overwhelmingly populated by Catholics in
order to instigate legal proceedings once the local authorities had responded.84
Across the United States, the defence of Witnesses’ rights became part of
weekly study sessions. Brochures such as Jehovah’s Servants Defended (1941)
and Freedom of Worship (1943) outlined recent legal cases and instructed in
defending their activities based on scripture. The resultant legal rulings set
precedents which profoundly shaped interpretations of minority and individual
rights in the US First Amendment. Using trial documents, legal rulings, and
interviews with law enforcement agents, Peters, Henderson, Merlin Newton,
and David Manwaring have argued that the Witnesses’ role in expanding
freedoms for all Americans and Canadians has been both seminal and largely
overlooked. Indeed, Peters has argued that the legal struggles in the 1940s
paved the way for the civil rights movement.85
As we have seen, Witnesses are particularly vulnerable in times of war, when
their refusal to enact the most visible symbolic acts of patriotism, such as
pledging allegiance, saluting flags, singing anthems, and bearing arms,86 leads
to conflict with governments demanding heightened displays of loyalty. The
Witnesses were also banned in Australia and Canada during World War II
(they were regarded as a particular menace in Quebec, largely because of
81. Rutherford and eight other members of the Governing Body were sentenced to twenty years
in jail under the US Espionage Act in 1919 for producing The Finished Mystery, which was ruled
to be seditious for its discouragement of men taking up arms. The men served only nine months of
the term.
82. Both Blackwell and Covington eventually fell out of the Society’s favour (albeit temporarily),
Blackwell for publishing O’er the Ramparts They Watched (Aurora, MO: Stoops Manufacturing
Company, 1976), his account of the legal trials, because the Society believed he was trying to exalt
himself. Covington went on to successfully contest Mohammed Ali’s draft classification.
83. J. J. Henderson, “The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Their Plan to Expand First Amendment
Freedoms,” Journal of Church and State 46, No. 4 (2004): 832.
84. Henderson, “The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Their Plan,” 817.
85. Peters, Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses, 294.
86. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe all governments to be ruled by Satan. Consequently, to pledge
allegiance to or to fight for a worldly government is to be a tool of Satan.
© 2011 The Author

Rutherford’s vitriol against the Roman Catholic Church).87 Examining the

historical contexts of Nazi Germany and wartime America is useful for point-
ing to instances of sharpest conflict between the Witnesses and twentieth-
century governments. Historians have yet to examine the confrontation in other
contexts, apart from a handful of articles which have also tended to focus on
World War II.88 Furthermore, it is not so much the history of the organisation
that has interested historians but the Witnesses’ persecution during wartime
and their influence on legal rulings. The emphasis on these two contexts fails
to recognise the Witnesses’ broad historical role in defining and shaping
understandings of religious freedom around the world.
Historiographical Lacunae
It is not only in the discipline of history that the Witnesses have been largely
overlooked. This is also the case in sociology. In 1997, two eminent sociolo-
gists of religion wrote that aside from a handful of articles focusing on the
prophetic failure of 1975, “. . . social scientists have produced only two sub-
stantial studies of the Witnesses during the past 50 years.”89 The authors noted
that a good deal more attention had been given to religious movements of lesser
size, visibility, influence, and global spread. Since this article appeared, there
has been increased interest in the Witnesses by sociologists — perhaps because
the authors predicted that their impressive growth over the preceding century
(4 per cent per annum) would continue.90 There are four areas of focus in the
sociological literature on the Witnesses: growth and membership, the degree of
tolerance accorded them by wider society, the behaviour of members, and the
organisation’s relationship with the state. While sociologists have pointed to
the importance of understanding the Witnesses today, they have written little
about their origins and historical development despite the Society’s role in
profoundly shaping modern understandings of religious tolerance and
freedom. The final part of this article will suggest why there is a dearth of
historical literature on this remarkable religious minority.
The first reason Jehovah’s Witnesses have been overlooked as a historical
subject might be attributed to their beliefs and lifestyle, which for many
observers seem fanatical, if not peculiar. There is a tendency for scholars to
87. Even after Rutherford’s death and the end of the war, relations between Roman Catholics and
Witnesses were antagonised by the publication of the leaflet Quebec’s Burning Hate (1946). 1.5
million copies were published in English, French, and Ukrainian. Kaplan, State and Salvation, 233.
88. For example, C. R. Wah, “Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Empire of the Sun: A Clash of Faith
and Religion during World War II,” Journal of Church and State 44, No. 1 (2002): 45–72; J.
Persian, “ ‘A National Nuisance’: The Banning of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Australia in 1941,”
Flinders Journal of History and Politics 25 (2008): 4–17. Notable exceptions include M. Dennis,
“Surviving the Stasi: Jehovah’s Witnesses in Communist East Germany, 1965–1989,” Religion,
State and Society 34, No. 2 (2006): 145–68; E. B. Baran “Contested Victims: Jehovah’s Witnesses
and the Russian Orthodox Church, 1990–2004,” Religion, State and Society 35, No. 3 (2007):
261–78, and articles by K. Berezhko, Z. Knox and K. Stoklosa in Religion — Staat — Gesellschaft
2 (2009).
89. Stark and Iannaccone, “Why the Jehovah’s Witnesses Grow so Rapidly,” 133.
90. Stark and Iannaccone, “Why the Jehovah’s Witnesses Grow so Rapidly,” 154. For a different
view, see D. Voas, “The Trumpet Sounds Retreat: Learning from the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” in The
Centrality of Religion in Social Life, ed. E. Barker (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 117–30.
© 2011 The Author

segue from historical analysis into the subject of the challenge posed by the
organisation to mainstream Christian churches.91 Garbe put it very well: “As
soon as one begins to dispute the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses, one loses
the descriptive purpose of a historical study — that of reporting about histori-
cal occurrences based on available sources in an effort to reconstruct past
events on an empirical basis.”92 One of the most comprehensive histories of the
movement, by Tony Wills, suffers this flaw, much reducing its benefits for the
researcher.93 The critic of the Witnesses’ beliefs very rarely goes on to offer
sound historical analysis, and historians engaging in theological critique
usually stray from robust academic assessment. While analysis of the organi-
sation need not be uncritical of its theology and governance, this should not be
the primary focus for historians.94 The inability to strike this balance has led
many a scholar to stray from academic analysis into theological critique.
The Watch Tower Society as an organisation, as well as the broader belief
system of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, are frequently trivialised by historians with
the use of the crude shorthand term “totalitarian.” This is a feature of the
earliest assessments of the Witnesses.95 It is a singularly unhelpful descriptor:
“totalitarian” reminds us of the most tyrannical political regimes of the last
century. The Witnesses’ abstention from political participation is obscured by
a label imbued with political meaning. Furthermore, the clashes between the
Witnesses and modern governments have not arisen from their political oppo-
sition but from their scriptural interpretations, including their overt challenge
to mainstream Christian churches. King labelled the Witnesses “totalitarian,”
as noted earlier, and argued: “Real conflict [with the Witnesses] is only likely
to arise when the state is totalitarian in its demands.”96 The root of the clash lies
not in the totalitarian character of a state, however, but in the intransigence of
the Witnesses in the face of any demands to politicise them regardless of the
state in which they operate. The Witnesses are always seen as political by their
91. See, for example, J. Bergman, “The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Experience in the Nazi Concen-
tration Camps,” 110–3. The article concludes by criticising the Society’s members and its leader-
ship and dismisses much of the literature on the Witnesses: “Many accounts of their [the
Witnesses’] experiences in Nazi Germany are favorable to the Watchtower partially because
anyone who stood up to Nazi Germany is now seen in a positive light.” Bergman, “The Jehovah’s
Witnesses’ Experience in the Nazi Concentration Camps,” 113.
92. D. Garbe, Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 7.
93. The canonical history of the movement since its publication in 1967 has been A People for
His Name: A History of Jehovah’s Witnesses and an Evaluation by “Timothy White” (a pseud-
onym). A second edition was published in 2006, this time under the author’s real name, Tony Wills.
There is nothing new in the 2006 edition apart from the author name and the addition of an index;
the story ends in 1967. T. Wills, A People for His Name: A History of Jehovah’s Witnesses and an
Evaluation (Morriseville, NC: Lulu, 2006).
94. An argument for a balanced approach has been made by Hugh B. Urban: “. . . the historian
of religion needs to remain at once respectful and critical of both religious movements and the
governmental powers that would monitor and control them” (italics in original). H. B. Urban, “Fair
Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America,” Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 74, No. 2 (2006): 385.
95. Stroup, The Jehovah’s Witnesses, 124.
96. King, The Nazi State and the New Religions, 172. More recently, Andrew Holden wrote: “The
information conveyed to present members is carefully vetted in a way that typifies a totalitarian
movement.” A. Holden, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement
(London: Routledge, 1999), 153.
© 2011 The Author

opponents, whether that is in Roosevelt’s America, Catholic Quebec, or Nazi

Germany.
The second reason historians may have been slow to tell the story of the
Witnesses is the relatively small size of the organisation. The Society’s most
recent figures put the number of practising members at just over 7.3 million.
This is not a large number given the global spread of the Witnesses, but this is
what makes the story of this movement so much more important. These figures
belie a far greater significance. Witnesses have consistently been at the fore-
front of debates about church–state relations, freedom of conscience, and
individual and civil rights. Moreover, as in the discipline of sociology, when
compared to the volume of literature on other religious movements there is a
clear lack of academic interest in the Witnesses.97
The third reason the Witnesses have been given short shrift by historians is
the challenge posed by the Society’s position on scholarly inquiry. There is an
abundance of material produced by the Society, but it says little about the
motivations and debates behind changes in doctrines since the earliest days of
the movement. The lack of access to internal sources has frustrated academic
observers since the first study was undertaken in the 1920s by Czatt. He sent
500 questionnaires to Jehovah’s Witnesses asking for information on a range of
issues, from educational levels to economic position to political loyalties.
President Rutherford responded to this inquiry in an article entitled “The
Timely Warning,” published in the Golden Age on 6 March 1929. He
denounced Czatt as being “employed by the active members of Satan’s orga-
nization to gather information” and advised readers to have nothing to do with
the survey.98
As noted, the critical examination of the history of the organisation has been
actively and persistently discouraged by the Society. There are some indica-
tions that this position may be softening, however, marked most clearly by an
article by Wah entitled “An Introduction to Research and Analysis of Jehovah’s
Witnesses: A View from the Watchtower” in the journal Review of Religious
Research in 2001. Wah wrote that despite the volume of material produced by
the Society for public consumption, “some non-Witnesses view the Witness
organization — The Watch Tower Society — as a closed and secret society”
when in fact “Information about the Witnesses is . . . voluminous, detailed, and
readily accessible.”99 As has been shown here, the Society presents a highly
sanitized version of Witness history which is uncritical and propagandistic (of
course, this is no different to official materials produced by any religious
organisation) and consequently, the information Wah points to has clear limi-
tations for the serious scholar. The fact that this article was published, however,
does suggest a shift in the attitude towards independent researchers. The
97. On a related point, it could also be argued that Jehovah’s Witnesses have been overlooked
because their stance on political neutrality means they have not been part of the rise in the political
influence of conservative evangelical Christianity in the United States, particularly under the
administration of George W. Bush.
98. Czatt, The International Bible Students, 20.
99. Wah, “An Introduction to Research and Analysis of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” 161.
© 2011 The Author

rationale behind this may be that the numerous memoirs and exposes are
dominating the literature and serious studies are in short supply. Garbe has
suggested that as the generation of 1914 dies out and Armageddon seems less
imminent than it once did, there may be a tendency to place a greater emphasis
on the past, hence the Society becoming increasingly willing to engage with
historical questions.100 Whatever the reasons, since the millennium the Society
has presented itself as more open to independent analysts of its history. The
contribution of Watch Tower employees to volumes alongside non-Witness
scholars also suggests this change.101
Finally, historians may have been discouraged by the challenges of assessing
this “old” new religious movement. It is some 140 years since Russell uncov-
ered his biblical chronology, so the Witnesses cannot be described as a new
religious movement. Some commentators even predicted the organisation’s
demise (W. C. Stevenson wrote that it was “essentially a phenomenon of this
twentieth century”).102 Indeed, until well after Rutherford’s death the Witnesses
refused to identify themselves as a religious group because “Religion is a snare
and a racket,” to use one slogan of the Rutherford era. The movement should be
seen for what it is — an offshoot of nineteenth-century Millerite thought,
marginalised only in the middle of that century alongside other premillenialist
groups. Russell’s initiatives are very rarely discussed in the context in which
they arose.
Conclusion
Stevenson wrote in 1967: “Considering the size and influence of Jehovah’s
Witnesses as a movement, there has been surprisingly little written about it, and
much of that has come from sources so hopelessly prejudiced that their con-
tribution is quite worthless.”103 Precisely the same can be said at the time of
writing, more than four decades later. This article has sought to survey the
existing literature on the history of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and examine the
challenges and limitations of the material available to researchers. Although
scholars of sociology, religious studies, and legal studies have engaged in
studies of the organisation, historical developments are largely written out of
these accounts.
While secular history is marginalised in the Society’s own accounts, as it
ignores ideologies, social movements, and political parties and looks only to
the Bible for explanation, historians should not be likewise reluctant to mean-
ingfully engage with issues in Witness history. Historians of the Witnesses are
faced with unique challenges, not least the lack of access to the Society’s
archives. The Society should not define the academic agenda, however. Its
internal deliberations may not be available to scholars, but an expansive body
of religious literature is, and it is through the close examination of this
100. Garbe, Between Resistance and Martyrdom, 529.

101. See, for example, the contributions by researchers from the Society in Hesse, ed., Perse-
cution and Resistance.
102. Stevenson, Year of Doom, 1975, 195.
103. Stevenson, Year of Doom, 1975, 210.
© 2011 The Author

literature that the Society’s changing organisation, policies, and theological

positions can be traced. While there are, increasingly, research aids such as
encyclopaedias, historical dictionaries, and bibliographies available to histori-
ans,104 studies of Witness history invariably draw on the Society’s own, pub-
licly available accounts of the movement’s origins and development (in
particular Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom and the 1975
Yearbook). Even works by the fiercest critics rely heavily on accounts produced
by the Society. As this article has shown, the writing of Witness history has
been marginalised within the organisation and the existing accounts are uncriti-
cal. The modest body of serious literature leads to a high degree of cross-
referencing and occasionally leads researchers to sources which lack scholarly
apparatus and credentials. This is not simply down to sloppy scholarship; there
are few works on the history and beliefs of the organisation which are reliable
and up to date.
Given the limitations of the research materials available to historians,
writing Witness history demands that scholars are enterprising about the range
of possible sources, looking beyond the material produced by the Society and
by its critics. The legal studies discussed herein have relied on documents,
interviews, and records generated by the legal trials and police investigations
involving Witnesses. My own research on Witnesses in the Soviet Union
includes the examination of material related to the harassment and persecution
of the Witnesses generated by the communist authorities. The Witnesses were
seen as a particular menace in the USSR and were subjected to an inordinate
amount of attention (particularly given the modest size of the community). The
documents of the surveillance and security organs of the communist state
offers one valuable bank of sources on the history of Soviet Witnesses — to be
analysed with sensitivity towards the purposes and intended audiences of the
documents, of course.
While the balance is starting to be redressed, there remains any number of
areas for further research. These range from studies of key figures in the
movement (there is no scholarly biography of either Russell or Rutherford, for
example)105 to how the Watch Tower Society has influenced broader society
beyond legal issues directly related to theology. There has not been a scholarly
publication bringing together country or regional studies or thematic chapters.
It is time to redress the imbalance in the historical record to reflect the
prominence of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in discussions about religious liberty
and civil rights and to seek to understand how such a small religious movement
has been able to exert so much influence over contemporary understandings of
freedom of conscience, religious tolerance, and human rights.
104. Chryssides, Historical Dictionary of Jehovah’s Witnesses; Bergman, Jehovah’s Witnesses.

105. This was noted as a gap in the literature in the early 1960s. G. Shepperson, “The Compara-
tive Study of Millenarian Movements,” in Millennial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative
Study, ed. Sylvia L. Thrupp (Mouton & Co.: The Hague, Netherlands, 1962), 51.
© 2011 The Author

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Journal of Religious History

Vol. 35, No. 2, June 2011

Writing Witness History: The Historiography of

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6. C. T. Russell, “‘Supplement to Zion’s Watch Tower’ and ‘Herald of Christ’s Presence,’” in

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controversial changes made by Rutherford which profoundly shaped the

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(2000–present) have been characterised by continued growth in attendance at

The Watch Tower Society on Witness History

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© 2011 The Author

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The foregoing discussion of the Society’s literature on Witness history has

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© 2011 The Author

51. Penton, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Third Reich, 239.

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55. Schnell, 30 Years, 20, 29.

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Historians and Witness History

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© 2011 The Author

Rutherford’s infamous Declaration of Facts was a chance to disassociate the

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© 2011 The Author

for conscientious objection. It was in 1918, under Rutherford’s leadership, that

© 2011 The Author

Rutherford’s vitriol against the Roman Catholic Church).87 Examining the

© 2011 The Author

© 2011 The Author

opponents, whether that is in Roosevelt’s America, Catholic Quebec, or Nazi

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100. Garbe, Between Resistance and Martyrdom, 529.

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literature that the Society’s changing organisation, policies, and theological

104. Chryssides, Historical Dictionary of Jehovah’s Witnesses; Bergman, Jehovah’s Witnesses.

© 2011 The Author

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