On Religious Complexity

On Religious Complexity The premise of this paper will deal exclusively with the tendency for religions to grow not only in terms of creedal complexity, but in sheer aloofness from their core origins. I will compare the growth and evolution of original Christianity with that of the origins of Jehovah’s Witnesses; to better grasp the historical susceptibility of religion to doctrinal drift. Just as the origins of the Christianity began humbly enough only to grow into what is known as the Catholic Church, so the Watchtower Society also entered existence as truth-seekers only to splinter off from the mainstream and devolve into something akin to early Catholicism. Their growth tracks are extraordinarily similar. The Transformation of Christianity Christianity as a religion1 grew quite rapidly, from Jesus and his twelve disciples to hundreds of thousands by the end of the first century to over a million by the end of the second. 2 A sect of a conquered people, Christianity was often misunderstood by the Romans as a “depraved and immoderate superstition” full of strange practices but which Pliny the Younger3 claimed strove toward a relentless spreading out, ‘captivating people of every age, rank, and sex.’4 Under Nero the religion was banned and was viewed suspiciously thereafter by subsequent rulers.5 In the period following Jerusalem’s destruction, the Jewish nation was essentially wiped out, becoming no more than a scattered people of small communities. As Paul Johnson put it, “The cen1 History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, Twenty-Fifth Edition, 1910, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Thrübner & Co. Ltd., Dryden

House, Gerrard Street, W, John William Draper, M.D., LL.D. Professor University of New York, Chapter 2: “[Jesus’] doctrines of benevolence and human brotherhood outlasted [his death] . . . From this germ was developed a new, and as the events proved, all-powerful society -- the Church; new, for nothing of the kind had existed in antiquity; powerful, for the local churches, at first isolated, soon began to confederate for their common interest. Through this organization Christianity achieved all her political triumphs.” 2 World Christian Encyclopedia, 1st Edition, 1982, includes membership data for the majority of world religions. 3 Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911, entry “Pliny the Younger”: “Publius Caecilius Secundus, later known as Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus

(A.D. c. 61-c. 113), Latin author of the Letters and the Panegyric on Trajan.” 4 History of the Christian Church, Volume 2, Philip Schaff, records Emporer Trajan’s reply to Pliny: “[Christians] should not be searched for; but

when accused and convicted, they should be punished; yet if any one denies that be has been a Christian, and proves it by action, namely, by worshipping our gods, he is to be pardoned upon his repentance, even though suspicion may still cleave to him from his antecedents. But anonymous accusations must not be admitted in any criminal process; it sets a bad example, and is contrary to our age . . . The emperor evidently proceeded on political principles, and thought that a transient and contagious enthusiasm, as Christianity in his judgment was, could be suppressed sooner by leaving it unnoticed, than by openly assailing it. He wished to ignore it as much as possible.” 5 Church in Rome in the First Century, Lecture 8, George Edmundson, writing of the Neronian persecution of 65: “The Christians were then

condemned for crimes which were summed up by Tacitus as constituting ‘hatred of the human race,’ in other words they were condemned as enemies of the Roman state and people. The mere confession of the Christian name henceforth in itself entailed punishment. The principle of action, which Tertullian calls the Neronian Institution, continued to be the settled policy of the Roman government.” Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine, Eusebius Pamphilius: “It is said that in [Domitian’s] persecution the apostle and evangelist John, who was still alive, was condemned to dwell on the island of Patmos in consequence of his testimony to the divine word . . . To such a degree, indeed, did the teaching of our faith flourish at that time that even those writers who were far from our religion did not hesitate to mention in their histories the persecution and the martyrdoms which took place during it.” Apologeticus, Tertullian, Chapter 5: “Domitian also, who possessed a share of Nero’s cruelty, attempted once to do the same thing that the latter did. But because he had, I suppose, some intelligence, he very soon ceased, and even recalled those whom he had banished.”

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tral organization of the Church disappeared.”6 It was at this point “the Christian Church could no longer find shelter under the shadow of the privileges of the synagogues.”7 They had become a religion unto themselves, fully exposed to all grievances and persecutions once leveled against their Jewish heritage.8 And as the persecutions came upon them, growth followed thereafter. As Tertullian stated: “All your ingenious cruelties can accomplish nothing; they are only a lure to this sect. Our number increases the more you destroy us. The blood of the Christians is their seed.” Why it grew so rapidly and so completely as to become first a legal religion, and subsequently the official religion of Rome, is a subject for another debate.9 Yet, grow it did. The need for unity in the new faith was a natural outgrowth of its expansion. However, the nature of such unity was, and continues to be, a point of contention. Early on, they were in near complete harmony.10 At the time of Jerusalem’s fall, the ‘body of Christian doctrine’ had come into its own, durable enough to survive a relentless wave of expansion. Yet “it had no organization to it . . . Paul did not believe in such a thing. He believed in the Spirit working through him and others. Why should man regulate when the Spirit would do it for him. And of course he did not want a fixed system with rules and prohibitions . . . Worship was still completely unorganized and subject to no special control . . . The atmosphere was in short that of a loosely organized revivalist movement . . . From the start there were numerous varieties of Christianity.”11 Of these varieties, gnosticism, the religion of knowledge which “claims to have an inner explanation of life”, was a primary danger to the young religion.12 Johnson described it as a “spiritual

6 A History of Christianity, 1976, Paul Johnson, p.44 7 History of the Christian Church, Volume 2, Lecture 8, Schaff. 8 History of the Christian Church, Lecture 8, Schaff, “Hindrances and Helps”: Until the reign of Constantine it had not even a legal existence in

the Roman empire, but was first ignored as a Jewish sect, then slandered, proscribed, and persecuted, as a treasonable innovation, and the adoption of it made punishable with confiscation and death. Besides, it offered not the slightest favor, as Mohammedanism afterwards did, to the corrupt inclinations of the heart, but against the current ideas of Jews and heathen it so presented its inexorable demand of repentance and conversion, renunciation of self and the world, that more, according to Tertullian, were kept out of the new sect by love of pleasure than by love of life. The Jewish origin of Christianity also, and the poverty and obscurity of a majority of its professors particularly offended the pride of the Greeks, and Romans.” 9 History of Latin Christianity, Book One, Henry Hart Milman, 1867, p. 50: “[Christianity] was ever instilling feelings of humanity yet unknown

or coldly commended by an impotent philosophy, among men and women, whose infant ears had been habituated to the shrieks of dying gladiators; it was giving dignity to minds prostrated by years, almost centuries, of degrading despotism; it was nurturing purity and modesty of manners in an unspeakable state of depravation; it was enshrining the marriage bed in a sanctity long almost entirely lost, and rekindling to a steady warmth the domestic affections; it was substituting a simple, calm, and rational faith and worship for the worn-out superstitions of heathenism; gently establishing in the soul of man the sense of immortality, till it became a natural and inextinguishable part of his moral being.” 10 The Apostles, Ernest Renan, Carleton, Madison Square, New York, 1869, p. 116: “The perusal of the books of the Old Testament, above all the

Psalms and the prophets, was a constant habit of the sect . . . They were persuaded that the ancient Hebrew books were full of him, [and] they were convinced that the life of Jesus was foretold and described in advance . . . Jesus, with his exquisite tact in religious matters, instituted no new ritual movement. The new sect had not, as yet, any special ceremonies . . . [Their] assemblies had nothing precisely liturgic about them . . . There was nothing yet of sacerdotalism. There was no priest; the presbyter is the elder of the community, nothing more. The only priest is Jesus . . . Fasting was considered a very meritorious usage. Baptism was the sign of entrance into the sect.” 11 A History of Christianity, Johnson, p. 44. 12 The Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume 1, John William Draper, p. 273: “Gnostic Christianity had reached its full development

within a century after the death of Christ; it maintained an active influence through the first four centuries and gave birth, during that time, to many different subordinate sects.”

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parasite which used other religions as a carrier.” He also explained that “Paul fought hard against gnosticism, recognizing that it might cannibalize Christianity and destroy it.” The Corinthians and Collosians both had sizable numbers of adherents who were “well-educated” and ready to change with the constant inflow of new knowledge and understanding.13 Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons at the end of the second century, was also an enemy of gnosticism.14 The Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), stated: “In the period between 130 and 180 A.D. the varied and complicated Christian fellowships in the Roman Empire crystallized into close and mutually exclusive societies—churches with fixed constitutions and creeds, schools with distinctive esoteric doctrines, associations for worship with peculiar mysteries, and ascetic sects with special rules of conduct.”15 Wrote John W. Draper: “In the beginning, the Church was agitated by a lingering attachment to the Hebrew rites, and with difficulty tore itself away from Judaism.” In doing so, their former attachment was replaced by countless sects, each with its own peculiar creeds and traditions unique to its geographic culture16; some mystic in nature, others conservative existentialists.17 Amidst this flurry of variety, though, Christians remained united in the sense of their standing out as different.18 Tertullian, in his argument Apology or Defense of the Christians against the Accusations of the Gentiles (c. 200) to the Roman magistrates at the trial of Severus, attempted to give credence to his faith, dating the foundation of Christianity as much earlier than was generally understood. “The books of Moses, in which God has inclosed, as in a treasure, all the religion of the Jews, and consequently all the Christian religion, reach far beyond the oldest you have, even beyond all your public monuments, the establishment of your state, the foundation of many great cities -all that is most advanced by you in all ages of history, and memory of times; the invention of letters, which are the interpreters of sciences and the guardians of all excellent things. I think I may say more -- beyond your gods, your temples, your oracles and sacrifices. The author of those books lived a thousand years before the siege of Troy, and more than fifteen hundred before Homer.” 13 A History of Christianity, Johnson, p. 45. 14 Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911, entry “Irenaeus”: “The chief work of Irenaeus, written about 180, is his Refutation and Overthrow of Gnosis,

(usually indicated by the name Against the Heresies).” 15 Entry, “Marcion” 16 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Adolph Harnack, p. 124: “[The Church] went right back to the Apostles, and deduced from secret traditions what

no tradition ever possessed. Huge spheres of ecclesiastical activity embracing new and extensive institutions — the reception of national customs and of the practices of heathen sects — were in this way placed under “Apostolic” sanction, without any controversy.” 17 The Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume 1, John William Draper M.D., Harper & Brothers, New York, 1876, p. 270: “For several

centuries, [the Church] became engrossed with disputes respecting the nature of Christ, and creed after creed arose therefrom; to the Ebionites he was a mere man; to the Docetes, a phantasm; to the Jewish Gnostic, Cerinthus, possessed of a two-fold nature.” Page 271, regarding the differences between Eastern and Western Christianity: “[The East] was rich in doctrines respecting the nature of Divinity. The [West] abounded in regulations for the improvement and consolation of humanity. For long there was a tolerance, and even liberality toward differences of opinion. Until the Council of Nicea, no one was accounted a heretic if only he professed his belief in the Apostles’ Creed.” 18 Ibid, p.275: “As a body, the Christians not only kept aloof from all the amusements of the times, avoiding theatres and public rejoicings, but in

every respect constituting themselves an empire within an empire,”

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In an effort to accomplish a palpable unity 19 in such a liberal environment, the early leaders resorted to creed. Regarding its initial formation, Philip Schaff detailed in his book Creeds in Christendom, that from the humble beginnings of confession of Christ, the Church expanded this foundation to include various aspects of living and acceptable worship to God.20 He went on to articulate the basic fundamental difference in how Catholics and Protestants view creed in their respective systems of worship.21 He stated the purpose for creeds was “to distinguish the Church from the world, from Jews and heathen, afterwards orthodoxy from heresy, and finally denomination from denomination.”22 But Schaff recognized an inherent danger in the blind acceptance and following of creeds when place above the scriptures in weight and importance.23 He also understood the primary value of the nature of creeds: cohesiveness, durability, and unity.24 Professor Draper explained the external pressures on Christianity that began to shape it: “The primitive modifications of Christianity are three--Judaic Christianity, Gnostic Christianity, African Christianity.”25 However, in time, the influence of gnosticism gradually died out, leaving the Petrine-Judaic version and the Pauline-Hellenistic version to vie for control; the latter of which was victorious, largely due to Marcion’s efforts. By the third century, Harnack describes the general view of the leadership: “The Church, its doctrine, institutions, and constitution, were held, in and by themselves, to constitute the source of knowledge and the authoritative guarantee of truth.

19 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 192: “Necessity became a virtue, i.e., every new point which was felt to be needed in order to pre-

serve the unity of the Church, or to adapt its institutions to the taste of the time, was inserted in the list of authorities. This method was in vogue even in the third century.” 20 Creeds in Christendom with Historical and Critical Notes, 1877, Philip Schaff, Volume 1, p. 26: “The first Christian confession or creed is that

of Peter, when Christ asked the apostles, 'Who say ye that I am?' and Peter, in the name of all the rest, exclaimed, as by divine inspiration, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matt. xvi. 16). This became naturally the substance of the baptismal confession, since Christ is the chief object of the Christian faith. Philip required the eunuch simply to profess the belief that 'Jesus was the Son of God.' . . . Gradually it was expanded, by the addition of other articles, into the various rules of faith, of which the Roman form under the title 'the Apostles' Creed' became the prevailing one, after the fourth century, in the West, and the Nicene Creed in the East.” 21 Ibid, p. 27: “In the Protestant system, the authority of symbols, as of all human compositions, is relative and limited. It is not co-ordinate with,

but always subordinate to, the Bible, as the only infallible rule of the Christian faith and practice. The value of creeds depends upon the measure of their agreement with the Scriptures . . . The Greek Church, and still more the Roman Church, regarding the Bible and tradition as two coordinate sources of truth and rules of faith, claim absolute and infallible authority for their confessions of faith. The Greek Church confines the claim of infallibility to the seven ecumenical Councils, from the first Council of Nicæa, 325, to the second of Nicæa, 787. The Roman Church extends the same claim to the Council of Trent and all the subsequent official Papal decisions on questions of faith down to the decree of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and the dogma of Papal Infallibility proclaimed by the Vatican Council in 1870.” 22 Ibid, p. 28. 23 Ibid, p.28: “It is objected that [creeds] obstruct the free interpretation of the Bible and the progress of theology; that they interfere with the

liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment; that they engender hypocrisy, intolerance, and bigotry; that they produce division and distraction; that they perpetuate religious animosity and the curse of sectarianism; that, by the law of reaction, they produce dogmatic indifferentism, skepticism, and infidelity . . . The objections have some force in those State Churches which allow no liberty for dissenting organizations, or when the creeds are virtually put above the Scriptures instead of being subordinated to them.” 24 Ibid, p. 30: “The heretical sects connected with Protestantism mostly reject symbolical books altogether, as a yoke of human authority and a

new kind of popery. Some of them set aside even the Scriptures, and make their own reason or the spirit of the age the supreme judge and guide in matters of faith; but such loose undenominational denominations have generally no cohesive power, and seldom outlast their founders.” 25 The Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume 1, John William Draper, p. 271.

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As the holy, Apostolic, and Catholic institution, it possessed nothing whatever untrue or capable of amendment either in its foundations or its development.”26 In the midst of this doctrinal struggle, what began as general guidelines to a principled life of faith and love, hardened over time to become a set of inelastic regulations, complete with structured punishments for disobedience. In short, they needed a book of their own, 27 a canon to form the spiritual foundation of their faith. The Jews had the Old Testament, which was tailored to their formal style of worship. The Christians, however, as followers of Jesus, had no such concrete formality; a fact that was seen as the root cause for regional variety in their teachings. With Christians now entering every level of Roman society, it was practically unavoidable for some amount of cultural amalgamation to occur within its system of beliefs and traditions; a fact that was worrisome to early Church leaders. In this respect, Islam took a much different tack.28 With the passing of the last of the original twelve “pillars” an inevitable issue arose over which of the “masses” of Christian texts floating among and between the disparate congregations to canonize as divine in origin. Marcion, from Greece, traveled to Rome in the 120s with the express intention of bolstering and enabling the spread of the unadulterated Christian faith.29 He saw it through Paul’s eyes and found it interwoven among Paul’s writings to the congregations; throughout he noticed a purity in Paul that was lacking in many of the others. “To Marcion, the teaching of Paul was, essentially, the gospel of Jesus.” Proceeding from such a narrow notion of what constituted literature Jesus might hypothetically endorse, he championed the pruning of thousands of circulating letters and expositions30 until the texture of the New Testament became purely Pauline in nature.31 A primary challenge facing that generation of leadership is described by Harnack: “It had (1) to demonstrate the agreement between the two Testaments, in other words; to christianise the O. T. completely, to discover prophecy everywhere, to get rid of the literal meaning where it was obnoxious, and to repel Jewish claims; Sozomen says (H. E. V.22) that the Jews were more readily seduced to heathenism, because they only interpreted Holy Scripture πρὸς ῥητόν, and not πρὸς θεωρίαν; (2) to harmonise the statements of Holy Scripture 26 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 207. 27 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 197: “When the collection was limited to 26 (27) books, the reading of others in the Church was,

from the end of the fourth century, more strictly prohibited. But even at the beginning of the fifth, men in a position to know, like Jerome and Sozomen, can tell us that the prohibition was here and there unknown or disregarded. Some primitive Christian writings were thus in use in the Churches down to the fifth century and later.” 28 History of the Conflict, Draper, Chapter 2: ”Though the Christian party had proved itself sufficiently strong to give a master to the empire, it

was never sufficiently strong to destroy its antagonist, paganism. The issue of the struggle between them was an amalgamation of the principles of both. In this, Christianity differed from Mohammedanism, which absolutely annihilated its antagonist, and spread its own doctrines without adulteration.” 29 Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911, entry “Marcion”: “The pure gospel, however, Marcion found to be everywhere more or less corrupted and

mutilated in the Christian circles of his time. His undertaking thus resolved itself into a reformation of Christendom. This reformation was to deliver Christendom from false Jewish doctrines by restoring the Pauline conception of the gospel.” 30 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 196, 197: “We have to multiply by hundreds the lists which enumerate 26 (27) books, i.e., the Ac-

knowledged and the Disputed melioris notæ of Eusebius . . . [Though] from the end of the fourth century real unanimity prevailed, in the main, as to the contents of the N. T. and the authorship of the separate books.” 31 A History of Christianity, Johnson, p. 46.

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with the prevailing dogmatics; (3) to furnish every text with a profound meaning, one valuable for the time.”32 In this they were largely successful. What began as the universally-respected New Testament, then, grew into what we know today as the Apostles’ Creed.33 It is a summary of ideals and principles generally agreed upon by many renowned Christians through the ages.34 It is not to be thought of as concrete with defined limits, however, as were the Ten Commandments or even the original set of holy books35 in their precision. It was a flexible and yielding entity, organic and prone to revision amongst disparate groups and cultures.36 As a body, the Creed was not viewed as divine on the same level as were the holy scriptures, but was more akin to an interpretive expository used to explain what it meant to live the life of Christ. It was the seed from which all subsequent regulations sprouted, the precursor to every extraneous bit of dogma still preached to this day.

32 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 199 33 Creeds, p. 34: “The Apostles' Creed, or Symbolum Apostolicum, is, as to its form, not the production of the apostles, as was formerly believed,

but an admirable popular summary of the apostolic teaching, and in full harmony with the spirit and even the letter of the New Testament . . . It contains all the fundamental articles of the Christian faith necessary to salvation, in the form of facts, in simple Scripture language, and in the most natural order—the order of revelation— from God and the creation down to the resurrection and life everlasting.” 34 Ibid, p. 35 footnote: “Augustine calls the Apostolic Symbol 'regula fidei brevis et grandis; brevis numero verborum, grandis pondere sententia-

rum.' Luther says: 'Christian truth could not possibly be put into a shorter and clearer statement.' Calvin (Inst., Lib. II. c. 16, § 18), while doubting its strictly apostolic composition, yet regards it as an admirable and truly scriptural summary of the Christian faith . . . J. T. Müller (Lutheran, Die Symb. Bücher der Evang. Luth. K., p. xvi.): ‘It retains the double significance of being the bond of union of the universal Christian Church, and the seed from which all other creeds have grown.' Dr. Semisch (Evang. United, successor of Dr. Neander in Berlin) concludes his recent essay on the Creed (p. 28) with the words: 'It is in its primitive form the most genuine Christianity from the mouth of Christ himself (das ächteste Christenthum aus dem Munde Christi selbst).’” 35 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 193, 199: “To the two Testaments a unique authority was ascribed. They were the Holy Scriptures

κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν; every doctrine had to be proved out of them, in other words, opinions that held something necessary to faith which did not occur in Scripture, had no absolute validity. Any one who declared that he took his stand on Scripture alone did not assume an uncatholic attitude . . . [However] the conception that the canonical books were solemnly set apart, occurs first in Athanasius.” 36 Creeds, p. 36, 37: This “Creed was at first not precisely the same. It assumed different shapes and forms in different congregations. Some were

longer, some shorter; some declarative, some interrogative in the form of questions and answers.”

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For the better part of three centuries, this Apostolic Creed ‘was committed to memory, not to writing,’37 lending itself an aptitude to change and transformation.38 Thereafter, it endured another several hundred years of evolution, eventually congealing into its currently accepted form around the eighth century.39 In the midst of this span, two other creeds came into being. The first was a direct result of the Council of Nicea (325 A.D.). Known as the Nicene Creed, it was “more definite and explicit than the Apostles' Creed.”40 In it, the emphasis of Christ’s divinity and of the Holy Spirit’s nature is ratcheted up noticeably from their portrayal in the Gospels and by the earliest of writers.41 The sixth century witnessed the second additional creed, a step in the evolution of this series, when the Church took up the Athanasian Creed. It was an extended ruleset that Schaff wrote was “in strong contrast [to] the uncontroversial and peaceful tone of the Apostles' Creed, [and] begins and ends with the solemn declaration that the catholic faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation herein set forth is the indispensable condition of salvation, and that those who reject it will be lost forever.”42 Not only did it represent the first explicit, and definite, elucidation of the Trinity as a doctrine, it also made it incumbent on all Christians to profess belief in it as a prerequisite to eternal life. This poses an interesting question: If what began as a ‘kernel of the apostolic age’ took eight hundred years to form a body of fundamental, incontrovertible truths, to what external pressures

37 Creeds, p. 37.

Beginnings of Christianity, Volume 1, 1903, Paul Wernle, p. 132: “In the first period of its development Christianity existed as a sect (heresy). The metamorphosis from sect into Church was a very gradual process. Step by step the Christian sect separated itself from the Jewish Church. By slow degrees it emerged from its obscurity into publicity. But it was only in the reign of Constantine that the transformation was completed.” p. 133, 134: “No instruction preceded baptism. It was not necessary. The confession of faith in the Messiah was so simple. But as a rule adults only were baptized . . . The baptized now shared in the meals of the brethren. The chief meal was always, or at least frequently, connected with the repetition of a portion of the account of the Last Supper. At the same time they would speak of the blessing of the death of Jesus, and rejoice at the thought of His coming again . . . The foundation of [Christianity], however, brings about the first great change in the new religion. It can be traced in a certain increasing rigidity both without, where it assumes the shape of exclusiveness, and within, where it becomes legality. Between the brethren and those that are without, an impassable barrier has been set up by the institution of baptism and the profession of faith in the Messiah.” 38 Beginnings of Christianity, Volume 1, 1903, Paul Wernle, p. 159: “It was [Paul] who brought Christianity out of Palestine and transplanted it

among the Greeks and Romans, chief of all civilized nations. It could no longer now remain a mere Jewish sect. It had to measure its strength with the religions, the civilization, and the philosophy of the leading nations in the world’s history. It had to enter into their needs, their language, and their social intercourse, assuming now a friendly, now a hostile attitude. It was bound to undergo a radical transformation, not merely of external form but of innermost essence.” 39 Ibid, p. 38: “If we regard, then, the present text of the Apostles' Creed as a complete whole, we can hardly trace it beyond the sixth, certainly

not beyond the close of the fifth century, and its triumph over all the other forms in the Latin Church was not completed till the eighth century, or about the time when the bishops of Rome strenuously endeavored to conform the liturgies of the Western churches to the Roman order. But if we look at the several articles of the Creed separately, they are all of Nicene or ante-Nicene origin, while its kernel goes back to the apostolic age.” 40 The Creeds of Christendom, Volume 1, Philip Schaff, p. 24. 41 Epistle of Polycarp to the Phillippians, c. 150: “May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Son of

God, and our everlasting High Priest, build you up in faith and truth.” Polycarp’s belief that there is a clear distinction between God and Christ, one of a father/son relationship is obvious. There is no hint of Trinitarian oneness in his writings. 42 The Creeds of Christendom, Volume 1, Philip Schaff, p. 39.

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were these doctrines exposed during their formation? Has the Creed strayed from the original message of the New Testament?43 If it has, to what extent has it strayed? In my endeavor to answer that question, I have taken it upon myself to gather together a core list of authoritative references--both secular and inspired--to break down the heart of what it meant to be an early Christian44 and then to piece together those materials until they coalesce into the most simplified list of requirements of approved worship for us today. To do this I will have to brave the fog of two thousand years of church dogma and seek out the ‘kernel’ of what Jesus stood for and ultimately gave his life for. I am chiefly interested in the comparisons, and contrasts, between the Catholic Church and the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, and how they each grew and expanded their own power over their parishioners.45 As the modern-day Catholic Church claims to be the only Christian religion to stretch back two millennia and as such is--and always has been--the instrument God uses to guide the flock, the Watchtower Society, while claiming a more recent birth, similarly holds that throughout the past two thousand years there have always been representatives of God on earth. Yet the beginnings of both groups were marked by a much humbler tone.46 How did we get from the two greatest commandments of loving God and neighbor to what we have today? Is earthly organization nec-

43 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 200: “Tychonius, a Donatist, drew up for the interpretation of Holy Scripture seven rules which

were to remove all difficulties . . . These rules are of material importance (for theology). The first treats of the Lord and his body: i.e., we must and may apply the truth concerning the Lord to the Church, and vice versa, since they form one person; only in this way do we frequently get a correct sense. The second deals with the bi-partite body of the Lord: we must carefully consider whether the true or the empirical Church is meant. The third takes up the promises and the law, i.e., the spirit and letter; the fourth treats of genus and species: we must observe the extent to which texts apply; the fifth, of the dates: we must harmonize contradictory dates by a fixed method, and understand certain stereotyped numbers as symbolical. The sixth discusses repetition: i.e., we have frequently to refrain from assuming a chronological order, where such an order appears to exist, and the seventh deals with the devil and his body, i.e., the devil and the godless, many things referring to the latter which are said of the devil and vice versa—see the first rule.” p. 200 footnote: “When brought face to face with inconvenient passages of Scripture, a way was found out of the difficulty in the demand that the historical occasion of the text must be carefully weighed.” p.202: “As regards the relation of the two Testaments to each other, three views existed side by side. The Old Testament was a Christian book as well as the New: it was throughout the record of prophecy: it contained the true creed under certain limitations and imperfections, and led and still leads educationally to Christ. These points of view were adopted alternately as the occasion required.” 44 Beginnings of Christianity, Volume 1, 1903, Paul Wernle, p. 159: “The immediate result of [Jesus’] activity—the early Christian fellow-

ship—remained a mere sect composed of communities of pious Jews who longed for the Messiah and the kingdom, lived strictly according to the commandments of Jesus, and loved their own people.” 45 In an effort to remain consistent and to simplify what is needless organizational structure, this paper will refer to the Catholic Church as ex-

actly that and the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania as the Watchtower Society. Technically, since 2000, the Society has utilized a legal instrument known as the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses to organize and coordinate congregational procedure. 46 December 1894 Watchtower: “It is plain that the forming of a visible organization of such gathered out ones would be out of harmony with the

spirit of the divine plan; and, if done, would seem to indicate on the part of the Church a desire to conform to the now popular idea of organization or confederacy . . . We do not esteem a visible organization of the gathered ones to be a part of the Lord's plan.” 1 John 2:26, 27: “These things I write YOU about those who are trying to mislead YOU. 27 And as for YOU, the anointing that YOU received from him remains in YOU, and YOU do not need anyone to be teaching YOU.” (New World Translation) This was a letter to the congregation’s members, not to a group of men which authority had been given.

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essary for Jehovah to efficiently teach His people? Tertullian (160-220 AD) had much to say on the subject.47 In the early days of Abraham’s descendants, they noticed that all the nations around them were represented by kings, yet they had none. Their desire to place an earthly representative between them and their God was satisfied but with historically tragic results. Why? Because these representatives were human beings with human tendencies which were often at odds with Jehovah’s purpose for them. When a king led them astray, they were punished for following him. Always they were expected to live up to Jehovah’s standards, not the king’s. Is there a lesson in there for us today? Does Jehovah expect us to support a scripturally inaccurate position simply because our religion refuses to yield? Or does He expect us to uphold His Word above all else, even if our doing so results in persecution by those close to us? A glance at where it all began, the Jerusalem Christians, shows the type of mindset and customs48 they had at the beginning. They were Jews in the fullest sense, eager to read and study the prophesies and were among the majority who were looking for the Messiah to come. They found fulfillment in Jesus as the One and followed him; which was basically the only difference between them and their Jewish brothers.49 In the evenings, they would reenact the Last Supper.50 They had a very simplistic view of the soul and what happened after death.51 The initial generation these brought into Christianity placed their own mark on the religion.52 When we examine the apostolic decision recorded in Acts, another doctrinal development arises. How binding was the ‘decision’ reached by the older men of Jerusalem, and why was it disseminated? They stated: “For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to YOU, except these necessary things, to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and

47 History, Schaff: “Tertullian, in prophetic anticipation as it were of the modern Protestant theory, boldly tells the heathen that everybody has a

natural and inalienable right to worship God according to his conviction, that all compulsion in matters of conscience is contrary to the very nature of religion, and that no form of worship has any value whatever except as far as it is a free voluntary homage of the heart.” 48 The Apostles, Ernest Renan, Carleton, Madison Square, New York, 1869, p. 104, 105: “The custom of living together in a community profess-

ing one identical faith . . . necessarily produced many habits common to all society. Very soon rules were enacted . . . All, then, lived in common, having only one heart and one mind . . . On becoming disciples of Jesus, they sold their goods and presented to the society the price of them . . . They dwelt in one neighborhood only. They took their meals together, and continued to attach to them the mystic sense that Jesus had ordered. Many hours of the day they spent in prayer . . . Their harmony was perfect; no quarreling about dogmas, no dispute respecting precedence.” 49 Ibid, p. 107: “The faithful of Jesus . . . scrupulously observed all Jewish customs, praying at the appointed hours, and observing all the pre-

cepts of the Law. They were Jews, only differing from others in their belief that the Messiah had already come.” 50 Ibid, p. 108: “[The memorial emblems] were first served every night, but soon custom restricted them to Sunday evenings only.” 51 Ibid, p. 119: “That the soul exists before and after death . . . [was an idea] in no way entertained by the first Christians. They appear generally

to have believed that man has no existence apart from his body. This persuasion lasted a long time, and only gave way when the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in the sense of the Greek philosophy, had been received into the Church, and became associated, for good or for evil, with the Christian dogma of the resurrection and universal restoration.” 52 Ibid, p. 125: “The most celebrated men of the apostolic age [were part of] a second Christian generation, parallel to that which had been

formed five or six years previous . . . This second generation, not having seen Jesus, could not equal the first in authority, but surpassed it in activity and in the ardor for distant missions . . . Although the new converts were all Jews by religion . . . they belonged to two very different classes of Jews; ‘Hebrews’ . . . and ‘Hellenists’ . . . The primitive nucleus of the Church [however] was exclusively composed of ‘Hebrews’.”

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from blood and from things strangled and from fornication.”53 In very concrete terms, that council came to the conclusion that it was forbidden for Christians to eat food which had been sacrificed to an idol. Yet, later in his letters to the Corinthian Christians, the apostle Paul informed those brothers that the eating of food sacrificed to idols was a conscience matter, that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with it since the gods to which the food had been offered were powerless. -- 1 Cor. 8:4-11. To the Christians in Rome, Paul alluded to the fact that faith is a very personal, subjective ideal, its strength varying widely among individuals in the congregation.54 He did likewise in his letter to the brothers in Ephesus. (Eph. 4:11,12) He told the brothers in Philipi to “keep working out your own salvation.” (Phil. 2:12) In his letter to the Collosians, he wrote: “Let no man judge you in eating and drinking or in respect of a festival or of an observance of the new moon or of a sabbath . . . why do YOU, as if living in the world, further subject yourselves to the decrees: “Do not handle, nor taste, nor touch,” respecting things that are all destined to destruction by being used up, in accordance with the commands and teachings of men? . . . Those very things are, indeed, possessed of an appearance of wisdom in a self-imposed form of worship” (Col. 2:16, 2023) The brothers were free to engage in these activities as a matter of conscience, but it was no longer incumbent upon them, or even encouraged for them, to do so. An examination of Paul’s life and dealings with the early congregations supports the notion that conscience plays a vital role in Christian living; much more so than tradition and manmade rules. He asked the Galatians, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it.” (Gal. 1:10-12, NIV) Rather than basing our faith on a rigid set of standards and thereby imposing them on others, Paul encouraged: “Continue putting up with one another and forgiving one another freely if anyone has a cause for complaint against another. Even as Jehovah freely forgave YOU, so do YOU also.” (Col. 3:13, NWT) Even in the case of sexual impropriety, Paul warned “that no one go to the point of harming and encroach upon the rights of his brother in this matter, because Jehovah is one who exacts punishment for all these things,” while further admonishing them “to make it YOUR aim to live quietly and to mind YOUR own business.” (1 Thess. 4:6,11) The question of congregational authority and the weight of its decisions is at the core of my argument. If Paul, widely held to be the most zealous of all early Christians, viewed an organizational rule forbidding something he later viewed to be a conscience matter, how are we to view ‘rules’ written down for us by the many Christian religions that exist today? Are they binding the 53 Acts 15:28, 29 (New World Translation) 54 Romans 14:1-3: “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat every-

thing, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him.” (New International Version)

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same way divine scripture is binding? On the flip side, if Paul condemned something in scripture is that condemnation still honored today two thousand years later? In either case we should be consistent in our view of scripture. An example of the latter, Paul stated at Hebrews 10:24, 25 to “not forsake the gathering of yourselves together.” This is viewed as an absolute command by the Society; no wiggle room, no allowance for personal conscience. They view it in as cut-and-dry fashion as the command relating to fornication. Yet, Paul also stated at 1 Timothy 2:9 for the women ‘to not braid their hair or wear gold or pearls.’ Scripturally, this was framed in the same context as Hebrews 10, in a manner that left no room for conscience or opinion. Why, then, does the Society interpret the first scripture literally, to be wholly binding on Christians today and even a prerequisite for surviving Armageddon, while they view the second as a mere guideline to dress and grooming, bound only by cultural trends and personal taste? Another example is Romans 14:2, 3: “One [man] has faith to eat everything, but the [man] who is weak eats vegetables. Let the one eating not look down on the one not eating, and let the one not eating not judge the one eating.” The Society interprets this as a person’s freedom to eat anything as long as it is not blood or tobacco, though the passage provides for no exceptions or exemptions. It plainly states that anyone can eat anything. Period. However, Paul also stated at 1 Timothy 2:11, 12: “Let a woman learn in silence with full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach, or to exercise authority over a man, but to be in silence.” The Society views this as hyperbole, an exaggeration to drive home the point that men have the primary responsibility to teach. The reality is that women teach all the time in their personal ministry, doing so in an obvious aloofness to Paul’s clear command to them. My point is this: Does the Society not view much of the Bible as more a guide book than a rule book? Why, then, do they insist on turning some of Paul’s instructions into rigid laws while skirting the instructions not in line with their theology? Even more, why do they insist on ‘adding to’ the biblical guide book in terms of their unofficial ban on beards, independent Bible reading and study, and in the area of questioning the Governing Body? A further area of concern is how we view those who are taking the lead. How did Paul view them? “Now we request YOU, brothers, to have regard for those who are working hard among YOU and presiding over YOU in [the] Lord and admonishing YOU; and to give them more than extraordinary consideration in love because of their work. Be peaceable with one another.” (1 Thess. 5:12,13) In verse 21 of the same chapter, however, he warned the congregation “to make sure of all things.” Why would Paul have included that phrase in the context of our view of the elders? Could it not be that while he wanted there to exist among the brotherhood a sense of love and mutual respect--especially toward those working hard for the faith--he did not expect the brothers to blindly follow those who might lead them astray? Is it not possible for the words of imperfect elders or even mandates emanating from the Governing Body to be out of harmony with the Bible? Being “a Hebrew born of Hebrews,” (Phil. 3:5) Paul knew well that misdirected zeal can prove a very dangerous trait. 11

History bears witness that the initial liberty of Christian living, which had freed them from bondage to a written set of laws and traditions, would slowly give way to another set of regulations imposed by subsequent congregational leaders. Their ability to accomplish this was generated by their gradual accumulation of power.55 Along with this loss of liberty, a cadre of regressive modifications crept into the teachings of the Church. Monotheism was replaced by polytheism.56 The purity of Christian tradition became adulterated by centuries of adjuncts and manipulations.57 The straightforward understanding of the soul began to grow in complexity and within thirty years of John’s death took on the character of physical separation from the body and even intelligence.58 Even the practice of apostolic succession was foreign to the earliest Christians, 59 as was the definition of an ‘apostle’ as a traveling minister.60 The notion of conscience and love was replaced by harsh dogma to the point that the world, as led by the Catholic Church, would enter a period called the Dark Ages.61 It was a stretch of time that covered over a thousand years when fear of church reprisal was rampant, when freedom from anxiety gave way to endless su-

55 The Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume 1, John Draper, p. 274,275: “The constitution of the churches changed, the congregations

gradually losing power, which became concentrated in the bishop.” 56 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 125: “Up to the middle of the third century, every Catholic Christian was, in all probability, a genu-

ine monotheist. That can no longer be said of the generations who afterwards pressed into the Church. Polytheism had lost its name, indeed, but not its influence in the Church of the fourth century . . . Christian priests had to respect and adjust superstition, in order to keep the leadership in their hands, and theologians had no difficulty in finding, in the O. T. and in many views and usages of Christian antiquity, means of justifying what was most novel, alien, and absurd.” 57 Ibid, p. 184, 185: “In the [fifth and sixth] centuries no one continued to put any trust in a documentary authority, a record of proceedings, or

protocol. The letters by Bishops of this period throng with complaints of forgeries; the defeated party at a Synod almost regularly raises the charge that the acts of Synod are falsified; Cyril and the great letter-writers complain that their letters are circulated in a corrupt form; the epistles of dead Fathers—e.g., that of Athanasius to Epictetus—were falsified, and foreign matter was inserted into them; the followers of Apollinaris and Monophysites, e.g., systematically corrupted the tradition.” 58 Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, 130 A.D.: “The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body . . . The invisible soul is guarded by the visible

body . . . The soul is imprisoned in the body, yet preserves that very body . . . The immortal soul dwells in a mortal tabernacle.”

59 The Apostles, Ernest Renan, Carleton, Madison Square, New York, 1869, p. 110: “[After selecting Matthias as Judas’ replacement], the apos-

tles were considered hitherto as having been named by Jesus once for all, and as not proposing to have any successors. The idea of a permanent college, preserving in itself all the life and strength of association, was judiciously rejected for a time. The concentration of the Church into an oligarchy did not occur until much later.” 60 Ibid, p. 110: “We must guard against the misunderstandings which this appellation of ‘apostle’ may induce . . . the idea that the apostles were

essentially traveling missionaries . . . Nothing is more opposed to the truth. The twelve disciples were permanently settled in Jerusalem . . . except on temporary missions.” 61 History of the Conflict, John Draper, Chapter 2: ”The Christian party asserted that all knowledge is to be found in the Scriptures and in the

traditions of the Church; that, in the written revelation, God had not only given a criterion of truth, but had furnished us all that he intended us to know. The Scriptures, therefore, contain the sum, the end of all knowledge. The clergy, with the emperor at their back, would endure no intellectual competition. Thus came into prominence what were termed sacred and profane knowledge; thus came into presence of each other two opposing parties, one relying on human reason as its guide, the other on revelation. Paganism leaned for support on the learning of its philosophers, Christianity on the inspiration of its Fathers The Church thus set herself forth as the depository and arbiter of knowledge; she was ever ready to resort to the civil power to compel obedience to her decisions. She thus took a course which determined her whole future career: she became a stumbling-block in the intellectual advancement of Europe for more than a thousand years.”

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perstition, when the production of literature was monopolized by the clergy 62, when choice was replaced with forced submission, when the joy of accurate knowledge gave way to generations of unimaginable ignorance. If Constantine’s conversion in the fourth century marked the beginning of Catholic dominion over the world, the Protestant Reformation marked the beginning of its end. What followed was a movement to regain mastery over the scriptures, to peal away hundreds of years of distortions in an effort to understand what it originally meant to follow Christ. Martin Luther spearheaded the movement out of sincere appreciation for biblical truth.63 However, history was destined to repeat itself as Catholic dogma eventually gave way to Protestant dogma. This, as I see it, is the trouble with religion; what begins as something very basic and even noble eventually grows into something complex and mind-bending and altogether different. Soon the meaning of biblical laws are lost in a morass of congregational rules of conduct to the point where you do not trust what you read with your own eyes. Tradition replaces reason while principled conscience yields to strict organizational procedure. Divine scripture becomes some mysterious, strange thing that must be interpreted by someone else to be of any benefit. We lose the ability to wield the “sword” as the piercing dagger of spiritual warfare it is. Intelligence and logical thinking are shelved in lieu of blind submission to human authority. The release of human restriction Paul preached is now lost, and we find ourselves bound by the same chains we were once freed from. The Course of the Watchtower The organization behind Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, experienced an evolution quite similar to that of early Christianity. Its founder, Charles Taze Russell, began his journey by leaving the denomination of his birth and conducted an extensive study of the world’s religions. Ultimately, he found truth in all religions; only it was partial truth. From their beliefs, he extracted teachings he felt were scriptural and disposed of those which weren’t and began publishing literature that would be used to disseminate these truths.

62 History of Civilization in England, Volume 1, Part 1, 1913, Henry Thomas Buckle, p.222, 223: “The literature of Europe, shortly before the

dissolution of the Roman Empire, fell entirely into the hands of the clergy, who were long venerated as the sole instructors of mankind . . . Literature being thus monopolized by a single class, assumed the peculiarities natural to its new masters. And as the clergy, taken as a body, have always looked on it as their business to enforce belief, rather than encourage inquiry, it is no wonder if they displayed in their writings the spirit incidental to the habits of their profession . . . Indeed the aptitude for falsehood became so great that there was nothing men were unwilling to believe.” 63 The Catholic Encyclopedia, article “Martin Luther”: “Luther's theological attitude at this time, as far as a formulated cohesion can be deduced,

was as follows: The Bible is the only source of faith; it contains the plenary inspiration of God; its reading is invested with a quasi-sacramental character . . . The hierarchy and priesthood are not Divinely instituted or necessary, and ceremonial or exterior worship is not essential or useful. Ecclesiastical vestments, pilgrimages, mortifications, monastic vows, prayers for the dead, intercession of saints, avail the soul nothing. All sacraments, with the exception of baptism, Holy Eucharist, and penance, are rejected, but their absence may be supplied by faith. The priesthood is universal; every Christian may assume it. A body of specially trained and ordained men to dispense the mysteries of God is needless and a usurpation. There is no visible Church or one specially established by God whereby men may work out their salvation.”

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Russell understood that the “light” of Bible truth would get brighter for those who took pains to dig for it. He also recognized that simply calling an idea or theory “new light” had the potential for becoming problematic.64 His was a system of beliefs that had the Bible as its ultimate authority; not the whims of men. Together, he and his beloved Bible Students, celebrated birthdays and Christmas, voted in elections, took up arms in defending their country, proudly bore the cross as a means of commemorating what Jesus had done for mankind, and looked forward to eternal life in heaven following the end of their earthly course. Russell’s students didn’t look at their group as a religion, even going as far as proclaiming their abhorrence of accepting the label of a denomination 65, as they understood the dangers inherent in men laying down rules only to be viewed as law.66 Theirs was a course not taken up by later incarnations of what came to be viewed as God’s earthly organization of Witnesses. What began as a movement founded in biblical simplicity eventually grew into an unwieldy beast, a global religion in its own right that took on a life and energy of its own. Sadly, the history of the Watchtower Society is littered with proclamations of “new light” at every turn; many of which were later reversed or altogether dropped. In their efforts to pinpoint the moment Jehovah begins Armageddon, they have jumped from one year to the next, each time citing Bible prophesy for support and tying it to the “critical times” in which we live. It is this track record of inconsistency that erodes their credibility regarding their claim of acting as God’s exclusive channel for dispensing spiritual food. Regardless of their track record, they continued forward with statements like the following: “This book [Light] within itself conclusively proves that God directed its presentation, and that its human author was not employing his own judgement and wisdom in its preparation. No human creature could have written Light unless the holy spirit of God operated on his mind, actuated his thoughts, and guided its utterances. It matters not whether Jehovah individually inspired the volume or had his representative Jesus do it. The evidence is that the work is of the Lord… The wisdom therein is beyond human. It is divine.”67 64 Zion's Watchtower, Feb 1881, pg. 3: "If we were following a man undoubtedly it would be different with us; undoubtedly one human idea

would contradict another and that which was light one or two or six years ago would be regarded as darkness now: But with God there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, and so it is with truth; any knowledge or light coming from God must be like its author. A new view of truth never can contradict a former truth. "New light" never extinguishes older "light," but adds to it. If you were lighting up a building containing seven gas jets you would not extinguish one every time you lighted another, but would add one light to another and they would be in harmony and thus give increase of light: So is it with the light of truth; the true increase is by adding to, not by substituting one for another." 65 April 1882 Watchtower: “We are strictly unsectarian, and consequently recognize no sectarian name”, that “We have no creed (fence) to bind

us together or to keep others out of our company. The Bible is our only standard, and its teachings our only creed . . . If all Christians were to thus free themselves of prescribed creeds, and study the Word of God without denominational bias, truth and knowledge and real Christian fellowship and unity, would result.” 66 July 1879 Watchtower: “It is revealed to us in His word. ‘Search the Scripture,’ as Paul says, ‘Compare Scripture with Scripture,’ for ‘God is

His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.’ We are too much inclined to ask What does my church say about any question, instead of What saith the Scriptures? Too much theology studied, and the Bible not enough.” 67 February 1, 1931 Watchtower

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The May 1, 1957 Watchtower further stated: “If we are to walk in the light of truth we must recognize not only Jehovah God as our Father but his organization as our mother.” The following month, in the June 15 Watchtower, it was declared: “It is vital that we appreciate [Jehovah’s channel of communication] and respond to the directions of the ‘slave’ as we would to the voice of God.” Is there a danger in referring to published material as the “voice of God”, especially when said material has consistently been revised and changed and even altogether tossed aside as out-dated literature? The October 1, 1967 Watchtower states that ‘through them alone spiritual instruction is to come.’ The July 1, 1973 Watchtower states: “Jehovah’s organization alone, in all the earth, is directed by God’s holy spirit or active force. (Zach. 4:6) Only this organization functions for Jehovah’s purpose and to his praise. To it alone God’s Sacred Word, the Bible, is not a sealed book.” The November 15, 1992 Watchtower stated: “We will be impelled to serve Jehovah loyally with his organization if we remember that there is nowhere else to go to for eternal life.” When a religion sets itself up as the means of salvation, where does that leave Jesus Christ, whom the scriptures repeatedly call the “only means of salvation”? Conclusion It is not solely that complexity replaced simplicity or that the longer religions are exposed to the process of refinement the more rigid and judgmental they become that offends me. Personally, it is the fact that these religions share something in common: each of them gravitate toward a position which essentially replaces Jesus as our Mediator and the clear message of the Bible with their own flawed philosophy. Simply put: When a group of human beings claim that their followers must go through them before going through Jesus, I am forced to reconcile this with the scriptures; which as it turns out is a claim utterly unsupported by the very book they aspire to model themselves after. In positioning themselves as a Mediator they have overstepped their bounds; they have set themselves up as a modern-day Messiah when no such group was ever prophesied after Jesus. Much has been written on the issue of papal infallibility in terms of its power over Catholics worldwide.68 Yet, the Society’s unwritten, though divinely-inspired projection of its current “light” is just as concrete to Witnesses. Both have been consistent in their warning that should a follower question or doubt their place in God’s earthly organization, that person is putting their own eternal future at grave risk. They contend that only they can properly interpret and understand the message of the Bible, and that even if an organizational position seems at odds with the

68 M.J. Rhodes, author of His Holiness Pope Pius IX. and the Temporal Rights of the Holy See, as involving Religious, Social, and Political

Interests of the Whole World wrote that "our first duty is toward our most holy Pope Pius IX, who at present so nobly fills the chair of St. Peter.”

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Bible the congregants should wait on them to change it.69 They do this in the face of scriptural evidence to the contrary.70 The Catholic solution to the problem of their creed not always matching up to the biblical canon was ‘unwritten tradition.’71 Even Peter stated that “God is not partial, but in every nation the man that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.” Introspection at this point seems paramount. Is it incumbent on us as Christians, those who have accepted Jesus’ sacrifice and are fully aware of the personal responsibility this entails, to allow human organizations not only to outline the details of our

69 August 15, 2000 Watchtower, article “Are You a Full-Grown Christian?”: “How inappropriate it would be to challenge or undermine the

authority of appointed elders! You should also feel a sense of loyalty to “the faithful and discreet slave” and the agencies that are used to disseminate spiritual “food at the proper time.” October 5, 2008 Watchtower, study article: “With hearts full of gratitude, we stay close to "the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time." Christ has appointed this slave "over all his belongings." (Matt. 24:45-47) Therefore, even if we as individuals do not fully understand a certain position taken by the slave class, that is no reason for us to reject it or return to Satan's world. Instead, loyalty will move us to act humbly and wait on Jehovah to clarify matters.” Catholic Encyclopedia, article “Tradition and Living Magisterium”: “The Council [of Trent], as is evident, held that there are Divine traditions not contained in Holy Scripture, revelations made to the Apostles either orally by Jesus Christ or by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and transmitted by the Apostles to the Church. Holy Scripture is therefore not the only theological source of the Revelation made by God to His Church. Side by side with Scripture there is tradition, side by side with the written revelation there is the oral revelation. This granted, it is impossible to be satisfied with the Bible alone for the solution of all dogmatic questions . . . Experience proved that each man found in the Bible his own ideas . . . One man found the Real Presence, another a purely symbolic presence, another some sort of efficacious presence. The exercise of free inquiry with regard to Biblical texts led to endless disputes, to doctrinal anarchy, and eventually to the denial of all dogma. These disputes, anarchy, and denial could not be according to the Divine intention. Hence the necessity of a competent authority to solve controversies and interpret the Bible. To say that the Bible was perfectly clear and sufficient to all was obviously a retort born of desperation, a defiance of experience and common sense . . . Christ preached, He did not write. In His preaching He appealed to the Bible, but He was not satisfied with the mere reading of it, He explained and interpreted it, He made use of it in His teaching, but He did not substitute it for His teaching . . . And as He preached Himself so He sent His Apostles to preach; He did not commission them to write but to teach, and it was by oral teaching and preaching that they instructed the nations and brought them to the Faith. If some of them wrote and did so under Divine inspiration it is manifest that this was as it were incidentally. They did not write for the sake of writing, but to supplement their oral teaching when they could not go themselves to recall or explain it, to solve practical questions, etc. St. Paul, who of all the Apostles wrote the most, did not dream of writing everything nor of replacing his oral teaching by his writings. Finally, the same texts which show us Christ instituting His Church and the Apostles founding Churches and spreading Christ's doctrine throughout the world show us at the same time the Church instituted as a teaching authority; the Apostles claimed for themselves this authority, sending others as they had been sent by Christ and as Christ had been sent by God, always with power to teach and to impose doctrine as well as to govern the Church and to baptize. Whoever believed them would be saved; whoever refused to believe them would be condemned.” 70 Acts 17:11: “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and

examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (New International Version) 1 John 4:1: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” (American Standard Version) Mark 7:6-13: “He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “ 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'[You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,’ and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” 71 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 211, 212: “Men began in the fourth century—not uninfluenced by Clement and Origen—to intro-

duce the notion of a παράδοσις ἄγαρφος (unwritten tradition), in whose wholly undefined contents were even included dogmatic theories which it was not everyone’s business to understand; yet it dealt extremely seldom with the trinitarian and Christological catchwords. This idea of an ‘unwritten tradition’ crept in in a very real sense; for it conflicted with more than one main point in the fundamental positions of the Church. But it attained high honour, and its existence absolutely became a dogma.” p. 213: “All conceptions of the authority of tradition, of which many Fathers—e.g., Cyprian—described Scripture to be the main element, were based ultimately on the conviction that the Church had been invested with authority through its connection with the Holy Spirit himself.” p. 214: “From the sixth century there gradually ceased to be any doubt that the resolutions of Œcumenical Synods possessed an absolute authority. Whoever rebelled against them refused to admit that the Synods in question were regular, but did not dispute the authority of regular Synods in general. After the seventh Synod it was a settled principle in the orthodox Church of the East that Scripture and the decisions of the seven Œcumenical Councils formed the sources of the knowledge of Christian truth.”

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faith but to enforce a rigid set of unscriptural regulations on us as divine in origin? Should we view the commands of men to be on the same footing as the commands of God? Judge Rutherford, the second president of the Watchtower Society, wrote in his book Enemies (1937): “[The Jewish leaders] practiced religion based upon the traditions of men, ignoring the commandments of God.” (p. 114) “Those Jewish clergymen. . . were proud and sought the favor of men and taught the doctrines which men had invented.” (p. 115) “The religious Pharisees. . . were great sticklers for formalism.” (p. 116) Rutherford wrote this as a condemnation of their actions and disposition. Where Catholics began to revere buildings and even early leaders72, Witnesses eventually began to hold a palpable reverence for their Kingdom Halls and certain traveling speakers. In both cases, the followers, when exposed to such ‘unwritten tradition’ over time, generally take it as divinely inspired information. Each time this happens, the ‘sword’ gets a little duller and tradition a little sharper, until subsequent generations no longer question tradition as it has become thoroughly enmeshed with scripture. Does Jehovah’s Word warn us that those who fail to meet regularly in certain buildings at certain times will die at Armageddon? The general Witness mentality consistently does. Does the Bible instruct us to view what we are told as scripture, without debate or discussion or dissenting viewpoints? Hardly, yet the average Witness would find it unnerving to question what he hears from the stage at a weekly meeting, even if the words seemed counter to what he reads in the Bible. Catholics and Jehovah’s Witnesses are not the only groups who operate on the aforementioned fundamentals of absolute authority, but they seem to stand out as two of the most rigidly dogmatic. This is especially apparent in the manner they deal with issues toward which either the scriptures are silent or are at least open to the leadings of personal conscience. Paul’s letter to the Galatian congregation was a powerful one in his attempt to pry them from an imbedded Jewish mindset no longer necessary. 73 He informed them that, even at such an early date, the fundamentals of Christian living--many of which were at odds with Jewish Law--were firmly established and not to be amended. (Gal. 1:8,9) He did not seek the approval of the apostles, “with flesh and blood”, nor did he await their direction for his ministry. (Gal. 1:16,17) He engaged in a three year preaching tour before journeying to Jerusalem, and thereafter, waited another fourteen years before returning. (Gal. 1:18-2:1) In all his time as a dedicated servant of Jehovah, Paul refused to allow any man to “enslave him” with their traditions and hierarchical

72 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 215: “A peculiar reverence was inherited from the past for Apostolic Churches or their bishops,

entwined with the evidence based on history and dogmatics.” 73 The Apostles, Ernest Renan, p. 113: “It must be remembered that [the period of the early Church] was a time of zealots, who considered it a

virtuous act to assassinate any who failed in obedience to the Law; nor must we forget that some of the Christians were, or had been, zealots.”

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rules.74 He understood that to be a Christian was wholly different from being a Jew, the latter which is constantly concerned with laws and regulations as a manner of proving one’s faith. “For such freedom Christ set us free. Therefore stand fast, and do not let yourselves be confined again in a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1) From its founding, Christianity never intended to be a rigid religious order based on lists of unrelenting rules that controlled every aspect of life, and which emanated from a central governing body.75 It was, instead, one bound by an individual’s faith in what Jesus had done for him personally and the subsequent reforming of his life to one imitating Christ.76 If the faith was present, the works would be also. A comparison of two much-maligned passages from Matthew will support my point. 16:18 is a favorite of the Catholic hierarchy, while Jehovah’s Witnesses prefer 24:45. An examination of each shows the danger of infusing dogma into theology. 16:18 no more definitively identifies Peter as the “rock” upon which Jesus chose to build his church than 24:45 distinguishes the Watchtower Society as the “faithful and discreet slave.” Both can be read a number of different ways, with many varying viewpoints as to what the writer was referring to. An alternate view of 16:18 is that Jesus is the rock, not Peter. An alternate view of 24:45 is that it was simply an illustration rather than a prophesy of a future class of Messiahs. In the event that a scripture can be interpreted more than one way (which is largely the case), why do we allow another human being to insist their interpretation is the right one? Could the Bible, being a work of divine nature, not be capable of extraordinary flexibility in pertaining to each of us individually and the situations we find ourselves in daily? If the Bible is God’s Word to mankind, why do so many groups claim that only they can understand it? When it comes to personal reflection on how a particular scripture should weigh in on a decision, why are we taught that we must first follow our religion’s rule book before our own conscience? 74 Galatians 2:4,5: “But because of the false brothers brought in quietly, who sneaked in to spy upon our freedom which we have in union with

Christ Jesus, that they might completely enslave us— to these we did not yield by way of submission, no, not for an hour, in order that the truth of the good news might continue with YOU.” Galatians 2:16: “Knowing as we do that a man is declared righteous, not due to works of law, but only through faith toward Christ Jesus, even we have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we may be declared righteous due to faith toward Christ, and not due to works of law, because due to works of law no flesh will be declared righteous.” Galatians 3:10,11: “For all those who depend upon works of law are under a curse; for it is written: “Cursed is every one that does not continue in all the things written in the scroll of the Law in order to do them.” Moreover, that by law no one is declared righteous with God is evident, because “the righteous one will live by reason of faith.”” Ephesians 2:8,9: “YOU have been saved through faith; and this not owing to YOU, it is God’s gift. No, it is not owing to works, in order that no man should have ground for boasting.” 75 The Apostles, Ernest Renan, p. 111: “Scarcely were [the names of the original twelve] known out of Jerusalem, and about the year 70 or 80 the

catalogues which were published of these twelve primary elect ones only agreed in the principle names . . . ‘The brothers of the Lord’ [and the twelve] together St. Paul called ‘pillars’ of the Church of Jerusalem. We see, moreover, that no distinctions of ecclesiastical hierarchy were yet in existence. The title was nothing.” 76 The Apostles, Ernest Renan, p. 114: “Less anxious to organize and found a society, the faithful companions of Jesus were satisfied to love him

whom they had loved when alive . . . This little group had no speculative theology.”

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As Charles Russell once wrote: “We are too much inclined to ask What does my church say about any question, instead of What saith the Scriptures? Too much theology studied, and the Bible not enough.”77 If we learn one thing from the Bible and another from our religion, and the two are not in harmony, which should we support? If we first support our religious view, what does that say about our appreciation for the Bible? Which is divinely inspired when there is contradiction between the two? The Watchtower Society currently views birthdays as something Christians have no part in. Why? Their reasoning is three-fold: 1) birthdays are of pagan origin, 2) both scriptural instances carry a negative connotation, and 3) the first century Christians didn’t celebrate them. They then apply Romans 15:4, that “all things written aforetime were written for our instruction.” This is the foundation of their position. The first line of reasoning, I have dealt with in another paper; basically, everything we do today is of pagan origin. The second line is equally unbalanced. Following this logic, Christians should distance themselves from pigs, goats, or dogs, as these are only ever mentioned in the Bible in a negative light as well. The third and final line of reasoning evaporates when you recognize the Bible never indicates those same first century Christians ever formalized meeting at Kingdom Halls three times weekly, enforced anti-beard grooming standards, attended the theater, celebrated wedding anniversaries and graduation parties, or performed a mandatory pre-baptismal test of scriptural prowess. Is it logical to assume that simply because there is no record of the earliest Christians engaging in something that it is wrong for us today? In my judgement, and even that of the Society in numerous areas, it is not. My contention, in closing, is that creedal complexity too often ends up as its own vice, its own undoing. Change is not always beneficial.78 If we are expected to studiously follow the creed of our religious faith in all its dizzying intricacies as an outward sign to Jehovah of our devotion to Him, why did Jesus teach with such simplicity and lay such modest demands on us as his followers? Rather than loading down his yoke with an endless expansion of laws regulating every aspect of our person, he lightened it, condensing faith to its core; love of Jehovah and love of neighbor. When these become a part of our nature, the rest follows. Love of Jehovah keeps us focussed on pleasing Him while love of neighbor keeps us grounded and empathetic and charitable; i.e. more like Jesus. Neither principle encourages or even makes allowance for judgmentalism, legalism, or fear of reprisal; all of which are concepts foreign to Jesus’ message and example. If Jesus was disinclined to utilize these in his efforts to mold his disciples in the first century, shouldn’t we be equally disinclined to use them today?

77 July 1879 Watchtower 78 History of Dogma, Volume 3, Harnack, p. 125: “The religion of pure reason and of the strictest morality, the Christianity which the ancient

apologists had once portrayed, had long changed into a religion of the most powerful rites, of mysterious means, and an external sanctity. The historical tradition of Christ and the founding of Christianity was turned into a romance, and this historical romance, which was interwoven with the religion, constantly received new chapters. The stream of the history of salvation ended in a waste swamp of countless and confused sacred tales, and in its course took in heathen fictions and the stories of gods and heroes.”

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DATE: January 29, 2009

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