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There is more to Jehovah's Witnesses than we may believe. When we think of
them as people who go door to door ringing doorbells and talking about religion.
This particular faith is a separate part of the religion related to
Christianity. They have their own thoughts about life and after life. They also
have their own views on issues dealing on a worldly basis. The founder of
Jehovah's Witnesses is Charles Taze Russell. The faith is simple and is derived
from Orthodox Christianity.
This faith is led by the Watchtower Society, whose headquarter is in
Brooklyn, New York. They believe in Almighty God, whom they refer to as Jehovah.
They believe that Christ is God's son and is inferior to him. There will be a
kingdom under Christ, and he will rule it in peace. They believe that the Earth
as we know it today will be changed after the battle of Armageddon. At the end
of everything, the wicked people will be destroyed, the good people will live on
Earth, and 144,000 people will go to heaven (Fama 1). In 1884, Russell founded
the Watchtower Society. This was the early name for Jehovah's Witnesses. This
society is what leads and governs the religion. The Society believes that they
are the sole channel between God and humanity (Campbell 1).
The headquarter for the Witnesses is located in Brooklyn, New York. Jehovah's
Witnesses are expected to go to meetings at local Society meetings within their
own local community at least three times a week. The Society is what the
followers are a part of. Going to meetings held by the Society is a big part of
their faith. It makes up and determines many laws for the followers. One major
issue that the Watchtower Society is to make predictions. They had many
predictions in the past. A few are as follows: In 1874, they believed that Jesus
had come back to Earth to set up his invisible kingdom. In 1914, Jesus would
judge the Earth and its good and bad people; they then looked forward to
momentous events in 1918 (Campbell1). By the time it hit 1925, and nothing
supernatural happened, the Watchtower Society had lost three-fourths of its
members (Campbell 1).
The Society makes predictions for the battle of Armageddon and the ending of
the world. They believe that a generation lasts eighty years. After each marking
point of a generation something can happen. The ending of the last generation
was in 1994, 1914 plus 1998 equals eighty, eighty years after the prediction was
expected. They say this because they believe that the average lifespan of a
human in eighty years according to the psalms. The Society does a lot of ruling
and regulates the religion (Campbell 2). The followers are expected to abide by
the laws of the Watchtower Society, and there are no exceptions for this.
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