Lloyd Evans on The History of the Jehovah's Witness Movement - Mormon Stories

Mormon Stories Podcast is excited to interview Lloyd Evans—founder and senior editor of JWsurvey.org—a website that promotes freeness of thought among Jehovah’s Witnesses. He is also author of “The Reluctant Apostate,” a book that chronicles his experiences growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness and his journey to freedom from Watchtower indoctrination. His wildly popular Youtube channel “John Cedars” hosts a range of videos aimed at dissecting the various teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as new developments in the religion.

In this portion of our time with Lloyd, we focus on the history of the Jehovah Witness movement to provide a foundation for our future discussion on what it is like to be a Jehovah’s Witness as well as his experience leaving the religion behind.

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Timecodes:
00:00 Introduction by John
03:56 Lloyd adds a little about himself
05:49 Start JW tradition. 1844 William Miller (Adventism) predicts 2nd coming of Christ.
06:57 Late 1870s Charles Taze Russell starts the JW, then as the Bible Student movement
10:46 Parallel with LDS: believe in imminent 2nd coming
11:59 Continuing Taze Russell story. Another prediction
14:48 Continuing Taze Russell story. Instead of a single moment, a series of events
16:26 JW changing beliefs, parallel in LDS where beliefs also change a lot
17:22 Russell founds Watch Tower Society 1881. Magazine and books
18:00 New theology based partly in piramidology. 1914 prediction Armageddon
19:28 WW 1 came to Taze Russels rescue. JW still use this. Russell dies shortly after that.
21:31 Joseph Rutherford successor to Taze Russell, changes chronology to 1919
24:42 Rutherford as someone who develops the religion and creates doctrine
26:10 Controversy when Rutherford took over. Parallel with Brigham Young taking over LDS
27:53 Spread of Bible students across the world
29:18 Rutherford recreates the organization. Gets imprisoned. A fulfillment of bible prophesy
32:10 A few doctrinal themes that got ditched
34:28 Parallel with LDS about the resurrection
35:47 Other changes with Rutherford. More a rational organization. Dropping Zionism. Writing anti-semite diatribe. Tries to ingratiate JW with the nazis but when that fails goes the opposite way. 1200 JW die.
38:34 Parallel in LDS with racism. Might be something that would a current JW to doubt their faith.
42:04 During Rutherford JW grew to a few 100.000. Problem with 144.000 ruling in heaven with Christ.
44:07 Rutherford finds verse that LDS also uses. The great crowd in Revelation. Problem solved! But, no.
50:23 Other doctrinal innovations. E.g. ban of Mother's day. Faithful and discrete slave.
51:57 Where do JW leaders get their authority from? Parallel with LDS: Smith's vision
55:08 Nathan Knorr succeeds Rutherford in 1942. Preaching and missionary work. Ballooning JW numbers to millions.
57:48 Excellent in delegating e.g. new theology. Fred Franz notion 'Governing body'.
1:00:00 Campaign of real estate development. Selling HQ to go to another place for 2 bn. Armageddon 1975.
1:01:49 1975 No armageddon so what do we do now? No more predictions. No larger doctrinal changes since that moment.
1:05:10 1975 Power struggle that leads to Governing body taking over.
1:06:42 1945 Not accepting blood donations. Thousands of JW died ever since. Knorr also introduces strict rules around sex.
1:15:34 Parallel with LDS Fanny Alger
1:19:07 Further details of JW history. 1952 starting disfellowshipping. 1981 Disassociating means you'll be shunned
1:21:15 What does disfellowshipping mean? Reasons people can get disfellowshipped
1:22:42 Parallel with LDS? No order to shun. In JW shunning is a command of God. Ways to get back.
1:25:44 Other disfellowshipping event offenses. Disassociating as a different thing
1:32:24 Secret Elders manual. Parallel to handbook of instruction.
1:32:44 Further history since Knorr. Generation teaching. Parallels in legal structuring
1:38:00 Closing