The Reluctant Apostate: Leaving Jehovah's Witnesses Comes at a Price

by Lloyd Evans

At the trial, the prosecution inquired if Rutherford approved of the book, in its entirety. Rutherford read the manuscript he received from Woodworth and Fisher from February to April 1917 and at that time endorsed it. The version he saw did not include the lecture by John Hays [sic] Holmes. In fact, he did not read that portion until early March 1918. He assumed the version that would go to print was the manuscript he read and therefore never double-checked. Rutherford claimed he did not even reexamine the book after the Canadian government raised objections to it in early 1918. Hence, several pages that were actually written by a non-Bible Student preacher—pages that formed the basis of much of the government’s case against Watchtower—had not been properly checked by the new president. Even the banning of the book by the Canadian authorities was apparently not considered sufficient incentive for Rutherford to revisit those inflammatory pages or question the wisdom of giving some other preacher’s anti-war tirade widespread distribution.