Kingdom Ready

© 2011 Jaco van Zyl

To read part 2 of this article, you may click here.

I remember as a young and zealous Witness how an elder, advanced in years, used to thank God for His “Mother-organization.”  It stood out as odd and I could never adopt that expression.  My brother, on the other hand, loved using that term, “Mother-organization.”  This was what that organization was called decades ago.  In the Watchtower of May 1, 1957 page 274, the article said:  “Two things are mentioned [in Proverbs 6:20, 23]:  the command of the father and the teaching or law of the mother…The world is full of Bibles, which Book contains the commandments of God.  Why, then, do the people not know which way to go?  Because they do not also have the teaching or law of the mother, which is light. ..God has not arranged for that Word to speak independently or to shine forth life-giving truths by itself…It is through his organization that God provides this light that the proverb says is the teaching or law of the mother.  If we are to walk in the light of truth we must recognize not only Jehovah God as our Father but his organization as our mother.”  How strikingly similar this sounds to what Cyprian of the third century said about the “mother Church,” “…from her womb we are born, by her milk we are nourished, by her spirit we are animated…. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.”  Thus the Watchtower Organization, like the Roman Catholic Church, becomes a kind of co-parent with God, the earthly agency by which the Father conveys all his instructions to his children among mankind.

It comes as no surprise then, that this concept greatly undermines the role of Jesus Christ and holy spirit.  In the article quoted above, reference to Jesus and the holy spirit is strikingly absent.  The writer of that thorough exposition saw no necessity to include Jesus and the holy spirit in its outline.  As a psychology major, I have noticed that in the impromptu speech of most Witnesses, the common tendency is to think only in terms of “Jehovah and his organization” with Christ Jesus being given the back-seat.  Holy spirit is very seldom mentioned.  Those who have JWs as friends will testify to this very phenomenon.  The Watchtower’s words have the highest authority.  If the Watchtower says the sky is green, it is green, and you shall believe it!

This very presumptuous and God-dishonoring tendency has reached full maturity in the Watchtower Organization.  Group think (the social psychological phenomenon to uncritically accept the decisions of a group as morally infallible)can be seen in the total and absolute obedience the Watchtower demands from its members.  For instance, even though the Bible says that “every eye” shall see Jesus and his mighty angels return in Kingdom power, you shall believe that Jesus came invisibly in 1914, because the Watchtower says so.  Even though the Bible says that Jesus was not an angel (Luke 1:35, Heb. 1) you shall believe that he is Michael the archangel, because the Watchtower says so.  Prior to 1975, even though Jesus said that no one knows the hour of his return, you shall believe and proclaim 1975 to be a most significant year in human history.  Even if the Bible says that there is no distinction among followers of Jesus, that all are sons and therefore “Royals,” you shall be categorized into two classes, the heavenly or the earthly, and you shall behave accordingly, because the Watchtower says so.  Of the 7 million JWs on earth, only about 10 000 confess being born-again.  This means that virtually no JW (0.14%) believes that he/she is part of the body of Christ and they are the only ones who take part in the Lord’s Evening Meal.  Rutherford said that there are two classes, and you shall believe it!  The Bible says that you shall not judge your brother; but where it comes to the Watchtower, Jesus has a different set of scales.  The Watchtower are the ones to judge who is eligible for everlasting life or not; who qualifies to be called a Witness of the Most High or not, namely, by believing all the teachings of the Watchtower and by submitting a field service report every month.  The Watchtower prides itself in fighting for the rights of religious objectors.  Acts 5:29 is quoted or cited ad nauseam in its publications, and yet, they are the very ones who would rather obey the demonstrably unscriptural and inhumane inventions of men than to obey God as ruler.  Those who cannot go along with the Watchtower inventions are branded “apostate” or “haters of Jehovah” while love for truth and obedience to Jehovah – even at as high a price as facing being shunned by dear family and friends – is what prevented these men and women from following and proclaiming the lie.   Even though the Watchtower admits that Revelation 14 speaks of a symbolic Mount Sinai, a symbolic Lamb, symbolic first fruits, symbolic virgins, symbolic new song, symbolic 12 tribes and symbolic Israel, you shall believe in a literal 144 000, because the Watchtower says so.  Eating blood is prohibited by the Bible.  But the Watchtower says that transfusion of blood is synonymous to eating blood.  So powerful is the conditioning of the Watchtower that no medical doctor who is also a JW would see the monstrous fallacy in the blood policy, namely, that transfusing blood into a starving human would not save the person, precisely because transfusion is not equivalent to eating.  Thousands have died and are still dying because of this unscriptural, demonstrably cultic and murderous teaching of the Watchtower each year.  But, alas, “the Mother” has spoken…

Due to harmful, even murderous policies, the Watchtower has demonstrated its disowning even the Master they verbally confess.  A disowning, as evidenced not only from an indisputable deviation from His legacy, but also from the emotional, spiritual, even physical harm they inflict on current and former members.  While many have survived the merciless oppression of a demonstrably merciless “Mother,” some have succumbed to spiritual shipwreck ending up atheistic, even dead.  Will the Watchtower be free from accountability?  Will she survive the just and deserved punishment by the One she dishonored by her doctrinal flip-flops, spiritual black-mail and injustices?  Survival would be possible only if she repents.  If not, then only if the Jesus Christ of the Bible has double standards…