Church history?

Over the last several weeks we have had Jehovah's Witnesses coming to our door inviting us to come to their church. This particular group seems to be less focused on evangelizing us themselves and more focused on handing out tracts of information and extending a warm welcome for us to investigate their faith.

This past weekend, the tract they gave us said that we as Christians are called to commemorate the day of Jesus's death. Okay, yep, so far so good. Well then they went on to say that this year the anniversary of Jesus's death fell on that day, Sunday April 17.... right. Apparently, they arrived at this calculation by examining the ancient Jewish calendars etc.

So this piqued my interest, and I got online to learn some more about what these people believe. They have some very interesting doctrines, but the part that really got my attention was their history.

Charles Williams, the founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses first got involved with the Adventist movement, and their faith revolved around a prophesy that the world was going to end in 1843. When this proved untrue, they readjusted their calculations and said that the world would actually end in 1844. When this also turned out to be false, the majority of people left the movement with the exception of a small group who formed the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Williams was greatly influenced by this movement, and despite his lack of schooling, he took the title of pastor and formed the Watch Tower which would later become the Jehovah's Witnesses. In 1908, he moved the headquarters to Brooklyn where it still remains.

Among many other unusual teachings, he taught that the world would end in 1914 with a great battle between good and evil. When this didn't happen, he claimed that Jesus did return, but he did so invisibly.

When Williams died in 1916, he was succeeded by Rutherford who further amended the 1914 date to say that millions of people who were alive in 1914, would live to see Armageddon. Since most people alive in 1914 are no longer living, this has recently been changed to an indefinite time, but they believe that Armageddon will occur in the near future.

In 1931, they officially became known as Jehovah's Witnesses, and in 1942, Rutherford died while living in a mansion he had prepared to house Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when he predicted they would return to Earth in 1925...

Knorr took over for Rutherford, and he insisted that their missionaries attend classes to be trained on how to be effective at door to door evangelization. He was also faced with the fact that most of the JW's bizzare doctrines were at odds with the Scripture that has been preserved through the centuries. His response was to appoint a five person committee to formulate a new Bible translation titled the New World Translation. 


This translation is not used by any other sect than the JW's, and it has come to light that four out of the five "translators" had zero qualifications for translating Scripture. The fifth committee member studied non Biblical Greek for less than two years...

So if the JW's come to your door and show you Scripture verses that seem to actually support what they are saying, keep in mind that their Bible translation has been tailored to fit their doctrines.

As a Catholic, I have put my trust in a 2000 year old faith that maintains an unbroken line of apostolic succession. Although the Catholic Church has made her fair share of mistakes along the way, her doctrine has remained solid and consistent throughout history.

So it is very difficult for me to get my brain around the history of JW's. I just can't understand how any person can read everything I cited above and not question the moral fiber and fabric of his JW faith. Do you think they just don't put much thought into this part?