June 10, 2000 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) -- The Jehovah’s Witnesses appear to be reinventing themselves into a more "evangelical" image, and it will not be surprising to find soon that they, too, are being accepted into the mainstream of the ecumenical movement. In recent weeks I have published reports on how the Mormons and the Seventh-day Adventists are already being accepted.

The following is excerpted from "The Watchtower’s New Image" by David Reed, from the Sword & Trowel, 2000, No. 1 [Metropolitan Tabernacle, Elephant & Castle, London SE1 6SD. 020-7735-7076 (voice), SwordTrowel@MetropolitanTabernacle.org (e-mail)] --

It is now becoming clear that the Watchtower organisation has dramatically shifted direction. Its focus is no longer on prophecy, nor on doctrine, nor on membership growth. Rather, the organisation seems determined to create a new image for itself.

It has embarked on a campaign to make Jehovah’s Witnesses appear to be a mainstream Christian church -- a church without cultic doctrines or practices.

For some time now, everything coming out of Brooklyn headquarters has been tailored to fit this new image, as Jesus is given greater prominence in Watchtower books and magazines. Christian-sounding terminology is now being used as if it applied to all Jehovah’s Witnesses, not merely to the elite remnant of 144,000 anointed ones. Controversial policies are either being abandoned or swept under the rug. Compromise is taking the place of opposition to worldly governments.

The Jehovah’s Witness organization’s new image campaign has been in the making for some time, but it has taken a while for the policy shift to become clear. However, an unmistakable pattern has now emerged. . . .

NEW EMPHASIS ON JESUS

Jesus became the focus of a JW book for the first time in 1991, when the Watchtower Society published The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived. This marked a sudden reversal of the trend the organisation had been following for the previous hundred years, a trend that had been characterised by less and less emphasis on Jesus Christ. . . .

Both in printed discussions and in colourful illustrations, Christ has become more prominent in Watchtower publications. The result is that new visitors to JW Kingdom Halls are less likely to notice the tremendous distance of the cult from mainstream Christian practice. This is probably the reason for the change -- to make Jehovah’s Witnesses appear more mainstream.

However, the change is only skin deep, since there has been no published change in Watchtower theology. Christ is still, in the official JW view, merely the first angel God created. The Society’s increased public emphasis on Jesus resembles Mormons’ outwardly Christian appearance which masks their official view of Jesus as one of many gods and goddesses.

Christian-sounding terminology is another feature of the campaign to make Jehovah’s Witnesses appear to be a mainstream Christian church. Since Judge Rutherford’s day the sect has openly taught that only the elite remnant of the 144,000 anointed ones are born again and declared righteous in Christ. The great crowd of other sheep are privileged to associate with these members of the Bride, the body of Christ, but are not actually part of His Church. The expression "in Christ" (or "in union with Christ" as it is rendered in the JW New World Translation) was reserved exclusively for the "heavenly class."

The millions of rank-and-file JWs were taught to respond to such New Testament promises by saying, "That does not apply to me, for I am one of the ‘other sheep’ and not begotten of God’s spirit" (Life Everlasting -- in Freedom of the Sons of God, 1966, p. 153).

The Watchtower for 1st June 1998 addresses its JW readership with a major article entitled "Go on Walking in Union with Christ." It applies this expression to even the newest members. Although the official teaching is still that the intimate relationship of being "in Christ" (or "in union with Christ") does not apply to rank-and-file JWs, the language is used loosely to give the impression that JWs are a mainstream church. . . .

So, the underlying Watchtower doctrine has not changed. The official teaching of a tiny elite, an "anointed remnant," ruling over a "great crowd" of second-class Christians remains in place. But language is now being employed more loosely to hide this cultic stand from the public.

ALLOWED TO VOTE

Compromise with worldly governments that was previously unthinkable is now the rule for the sake of corporate financial advantage. The organisation’s ban on members voting, for example, has been cited by various governments when denying the Watchtower Society special tax advantages given to other religious organizations.

A 1997 US State Department report said the JW organisation in Germany had been denied the special status of a "public body" (and the accompanying tax benefits) due, in part, to the sect’s stand on "public elections." Hints of compromise showed when German JWs found that they were now allowed to vote in non-political school or labour union elections.

Then French JWs told us the organisation was encouraging them to register and vote even in political elections, but to cast blank ballots.

Now, a "Questions from Readers" article in the November 1st, 1999 issue of The Watchtower asks, "How do Jehovah’s Witnesses view voting?" It says voting in a political election is a "personal decision" that each JW must make "based on his Bible-trained conscience and an understanding of his responsibility to God and to the state."

Outsiders may take these words as granting JWs freedom of choice, but Witnesses themselves know the implication of this statement. . . . If a Jehovah’s Witness not under pressure from an unbelieving husband or hostile government were to cast a ballot at all, he or she would certainly lose "privileges" at their Kingdom Hall and might face judicial action by the elders. . . . The seemingly liberating changes are all form and no substance, to give an impression of orthodoxy. . . .

JWs still refuse blood, under penalty of "judicial action" against any who accept transfusion. The organisation’s lawyers filed deceptive papers with the European Commission of Human Rights in a March 1998 settlement with the government of Bulgaria. They promised "that members should have free choice in the matter for themselves and their children, without any control or sanction on the part of the association." But internal documents and Watchtower press releases make it clear that there has been no change. Violators of the ban on blood are still disfellowshipped.

FREE CHOICE?

Outsiders are often confused by tricky wording about "personal decisions" and "free choice" used in Watchtower publications for public consumption. But the Witnesses know the wrong "choice" will lead to the punishment of disfellowshipping.

So, the recent "adjustments" in Watchtower policies are misleading. Jesus is given more prominent mention in JW publications, but He has not been elevated in their theology. The change is merely cosmetic. . . .

The JW changes are more like those of the Mormon "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," which has mounted public-relations campaigns aimed at concealing non-Christian doctrine and corrupt practices. The JWs and the Mormons are both up to the same deception.

[The previous is excerpted from "The Watchtower’s New Image" by David Reed, from the Sword & Trowel, 2000, No. 1 [Metropolitan Tabernacle, Elephant & Castle, London SE1 6SD. 020-7735-7076 (voice), SwordTrowel@MetropolitanTabernacle.org (e-mail)]