Sunday, December 7, 2008

Christmas Greetings From The Watchtower Buble and Tract Society

Here are scans of several pages from the Watch Tower and Golden Age magazines (1908-1926) for Christmas. These, of course, are from when the JWs celebrated Christmas and are very pro-Christmas. The file, about 4.5 MB, can be downloaded from:
http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f=8f7dae9a1077954b1728568a9dc71093
Christmas Greetings from the Watch Tower and the Golden Age!

I believe the last Bethel Christmas was 1926 and they stopped celebrating Christmas soon afterwards. How they passed the "spiritual inspection" in 1918 though they were still celebrating Christmas (and did so for many years afterwards) never made sense to me.
Two things in the file particularly stand out to me. The first is how the Bible Students (as JWs were called then) would personally deliver Christmas gifts back then. The ads from the Golden Age state that one could wire their Christmas order to Brooklyn and then headquarters would have the local congregation make the delivery of that order (one of their publications) as a Christmas present just in time. The second thing that stands out to me is the story of how the Christmas spirit overtook the Judge and the other Bible Students in the Atlanta penitentiary. The Feb 15, 1919 WT tells how the Bible Students showered JFR and the others Bible Students with many Christmas presents. There were several other inmates who did not have anything for Christmas, so the 8 Bible Students in prison distributed presents to those who had nothing for Christmas! A rather touching story, actually.

3 comments:

S said...

"I believe the last Bethel Christmas was 1926 and they stopped celebrating Christmas soon afterwards. How they passed the "spiritual inspection" in 1918 though they were still celebrating Christmas (and did so for many years afterwards) never made sense to me."

Why would that stop a favorable inspection? Since JWs did it at the time, it was not improper. But once JWs determined that it was pagan and Christians are not to do it, then it became improper.

So Jesus knew that once they learned that it was pagan, they would stop. That is the only thing that counts.

Reader2008 said...

Wow, and that statement came from the voice of REASON?

So the JWs were judged by JW standards at the time. How's that for guaranteeing a favorable judgment? Too bad the Catholics weren't judged by what the Catholics taught at the time, or it would have been a tie.

Damn, what would have Jesus done then?

Reader2008 said...

Wow, and that statement came from the voice of REASON?

So the JWs were judged by JW standards at the time. How's that for guaranteeing a favorable judgment? Too bad the Catholics weren't judged by what the Catholics taught at the time, or it would have been a tie.

Damn, what would have Jesus done then?