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He condemned the observance of traditional celebrations such as Christmas and birthdays, the saluting of national flags and the singing of national anthems. He introduced the name "Jehovah's witnesses" in 1931 and the term "Kingdom Hall" for houses of worship in 1935. [17]
Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses by M. James Penton. Penton, who is a professor emeritus of history at University of Lethbridge, examines the history of Jehovah's Witnesses, and their doctrines. Read selections from: Google Book Search Publisher: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-7973-3 (Canada, 1998)
Those remaining supportive of Rutherford adopted the new name "Jehovah's witnesses" in 1931. They renamed their magazine as The Watchtower . Many of the most prominent Bible Students who had left the society held their own meeting in October 1929 to gather other dissenters; the First Annual Bible Students Reunion Convention was held in the old ...
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is God's only direct creation, that everything else was created through him by means of God's power, and that the initial unassisted act of creation uniquely identifies Jesus as God's "only-begotten Son". [159] As part of their nontrinitarian beliefs, they do not believe that Jesus is God the Son. [160]
Members of Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the "star" was a vision or sign created by Satan, rather than a sign from God. This is because it led the pagan astrologers first to Jerusalem where King Herod consequently found out about the birth of the "king of the Jews", with the result that he attempted to have Jesus killed.
Jehovah's Witnesses' practices are based on the biblical interpretations of Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916), founder (c. 1881) of the Bible Student movement, and of successive presidents of the Watch Tower Society, Joseph Franklin Rutherford (from 1917 to 1942) and Nathan Homer Knorr (from 1942 to 1977).
[227] [228] Celebrating Christmas is banned in the Jehovah's Witnesses, as the Governing Body believes that Christmas is originally pagan and again that it is without basis in Scripture. [229] Christmas celebrations have also been prohibited by atheist states such as the Soviet Union [ 230 ] and more recently majority Muslim states such as ...
In 2016, Jehovah's Witnesses had the lowest average household income among surveyed religious groups, with approximately half of Witness households in the United States earning less than $30,000 a year. [5] As of 2016, Jehovah's Witnesses are the most racially diverse Christian denomination in the United States. [6]