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

by Lloyd Evans

When hopes for 1925 proved to be not quite as “absolutely and unqualifiedly correct” as had been suggested, the Judge executed a stunning U-turn, insisting he had never expressed his prediction with any certainty to begin with: Question: Have the ancient worthies returned? Answer: Certainly they have not returned. No one has seen them, and it would be foolish to make such an announcement. It was stated in the “Millions” book that we might reasonably expect them to return shortly after 1925, but this was merely an expressed opinion; besides it is still shortly after 1925. Hence, what had so recently been a “proven certainty” was now “merely an expressed opinion.” If Bible Students had been too excited by the prospect of Bible heroes soon returning and ruling over the earth, this was their own fault. Privately, though, the Judge knew he had been caught out just as the Pastor before him. Decades later, a footnote in a 1984 Watchtower would reveal that Rutherford gave Bethel workers the admission he should rightfully have offered to all his followers when he told them, regarding 1925: “I know I made an ass of myself.”