Watchtower admissions in the 1970s
Shortly after my baptism, the Society released the book Organized
for Kingdom-Preaching and Disciple-Making. This book was designed to
be a congregational manual for Witnesses. Chapter 6 is devoted to forms
of evangelism. That chapter's title, Your Service to God, is indicative
of the shift of emphasis during the 1970s. For the first time, albeit cautiously,
the Watchtower backs off the use of standard prooftexts for house to house
work, Matthew 10, Acts 5 and Acts 20. (See especially pages 112-116.)
Ex-Governing Body member Raymond Franz devotes much space to the background
of these changes, governing body discussions during the 1970s. He records
that Watchtower leaders unanimously approved the Organization
book chapter on ministry – minus the traditional prooftexts, Acts
5:42 and Acts 20:20. These texts, Franz reports, were thoroughly discussed
at governing body meetings, and finally there was no dissent at all among
the 11 members of the Watchtower elite that, while the door-to-door method
would continue to be promoted, it could not be supported from these texts.
Franz goes on to note that this understanding continued unchallenged during
the Watchtower's years of fastest growth, 1972-1975. Then, suddenly, the
Witnesses experienced an unprecedented 2 consecutive years of numerical
decline. Apparently, by 1980, about a million Witnesses drifted away or
deliberately defected. Franz shows how the governing body dealt with this
reversal. Instead of blaming themselves for the 1975 scandal, they instead
blamed the 'brothers' for expecting too much(!!), and decided simultaneously
that the old favourite prooftexts were needed after all to shore up the
Witnesses lagging interest in witnessing. By 1983 the Society found it
necessary to rewrite the Organization book, barely a decade old,
and now retitled Organized to Accomplish Our Ministry. This time,
however, the chapter on 'field service' is entitled Ministry of good
news, rather than Your service to God, and its emphasis is right
back where it was before 1972:
House-to-house preaching is not a modern innovation of Jehovah's Witnesses.
It was firmly established in theocratic history long ago in the days of
the apostles. Outstandingly, the apostle Paul refers to his teaching in
the homes of people ... (p. 84)
Once again, the Society draws attention to how "thoroughly" Paul
did his work in Ephesus. Then the writer quickly moves off the text, exhorting
Witnesses to imitate the apostles and support the local congregation's
field service arrangements. So little space is given to the Acts texts
– in fact, Acts 5:42 isn't even mentioned – that the hasty reader
of the cited paragraph might miss a telling detail. After insisting Jehovah's
Witnesses didn't invent house-to-house preaching, the Society's writer
supports his argument by referring to Paul's work in the homes, not
at the doors, of his disciples in Ephesus. Why this subtle shift? Was
the writer aware of the tangled web he would weave by insisting Paul meant
door-to-door evangelism rather than home visitation? Yet, despite the faltering
faith of the Watchtower leaders in the usefulness of Acts 5:42, you will
still find that the average Witness blithely refers to it in 'proving'
early Christians went door-to-door just as he does. And indeed, a superficial
reading of that text – apart from its context – might well seem
to support the Watchtower position.
Were the Apostles Really 'Jehovah's Witnesses'?
As outlandish as that question may seem, Jehovah's Witnesses
take pride in the claim that they -- and they only – are imitators
of the method of evangelism practised by the early church. But did 1st
century believers -- even the apostles -- go door-to-door, or does the
book of Acts present a different picture of preaching work of the early
church?
