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

by Lloyd Evans

Once Rutherford learned that these pages were key to the government’s pursuit of his organization, he attempted to have them removed in a last ditch attempt to forestall prosecution. Hence, a 1955 Watchtower admits to Bible Students “compromisingly cutting out pages 247-253 of The Finished Mystery, their seventh volume of Studies in the Scriptures, to please would-be censors.”[138] As pressure intensified, Rutherford even began to backtrack on his antiwar stance, as Strauss relates: On May 5, Rutherford visited a Bible Students’ meeting in Washington, D.C. A [sic] MID agent was in attendance, listening for disloyal remarks. Yet, the agent reported Rutherford “paid a glowing tribute to the President.” Rutherford explained that the current war was foretold in the scriptures and that “those who engaged in it were following a Divine command; that those sacrificing their lives in behalf of their country would inherit eternal life as the result.”