Jehovah Witnesses Predicting the End—Again

The following is from OpinionJournal.com, June 27, 2006.

 

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the Jehovah's Witnesses are going door to door with more urgency than usual:

It's a scene that's playing out across the county and across the country as Jehovah's Witnesses, in an unprecedented effort, seek to invite as many people as they can to their annual convention.

The yearly gathering of Witnesses, a Christian faith founded in Pittsburgh 136 years ago, is a huge worship celebration. This year, it has special significance because Witnesses are seeking to get out the word to millions of households that Armageddon, or the end of the world, is imminent. Or, as the invitation says: “Deliverance at Hand. “

The signs are everywhere, Mr. Hickok said.

“World wars have ruled the current generations. Fear is dominant, especially with the rise of terrorism. There is a breakdown in family structure. The magnitude and frequency of earthquakes is growing. There is an increase in pestilence, such as AIDS.”

If deliverance is at hand, why are the Witnesses holding a "yearly" convention instead of a "final" one?

 

Editor’s note: Back around 1972, I had an intensive discussion with Jehovah’s Witnesses in which one of them confessed to me that they had been taught that the end of the world would be in 1975.  I asked him about previous predictions, and he said that it was too late for errors now and that those making these prophesies had now matured, and they could not be wrong.  I asked him if I could meet with him after 1975, and if we met in 1976, would he still hold to his faith in the Watchtower Society?  He said that he could not even entertain that thought.  When people get to the point that they cannot even entertain the possibility that their prophets could be wrong they are without hope – this even if their prophets happen to be right.  Is your faith in man or in God?   -- Dave Brown