Jehovah's Witnesses

This source names Jehovahs Witnesses directly: "Pew Research Center's 2014 U.S."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "The 2024 Service Year Report of Jehovah's Witnesses Worldwide is a primary source, the organization's own annual statistical publication reporting membership, congregation counts, baptisms and..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Inc., the top organizational body of Jehovah's Witnesses, in a civil suit brought on behalf of a woman identified as J.W."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Eritrea violated the rights of three Jehovah's Witnesses, Paulos Eyassu, Isaac Mogos and Negede Teklemariam, abducted 17 September 1994 and held without charge or trial for roughly twenty six years..."

This source names Jehovahs Witnesses directly: "jw.org's news report, published 7 March 2019, stating that the last Jehovah's Witness imprisoned in South Korea for conscientious objection was released on 28 February 2019, the sixty fifth and..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "standard critical academic history of Jehovah's Witnesses' dated expectations, including 1914, 1925 and 1975, and is cited across the wider scholarly literature on the movement."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Jehovah's Witnesses' own official website reporting the release of complete or partial New World Translation Bible books in three languages during May 2026, including the complete New World..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Manchester New Moston Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses on 27 May 2014, after allegations of child abuse were made against one of the charity's trustees in 2012 and 2013; that individual was..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "in 1915," and the Wikipedia article on Jehovah's Witnesses, the movement his followers organized after his death, where it is captioned as depicting the founder of the Watch Tower Society."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "on jw.org, reviews the history of how Jehovah's Witnesses have understood this generation at Matthew 24:34, quoting the 1 November 1995 Watchtower's explanation that the term meant the..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Franz served on the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses from 1971 until his removal in 1980 and was disfellowshipped in 1981."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "jw.org states plainly, "No, Jehovah's Witnesses do not practice tithing; our work is financed by voluntary donations," explaining that the Mosaic Law's tithing commandment does not apply to..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "25 October 1994 decree stripped Jehovah's Witnesses of Eritrean citizenship rights for declining to vote in the 1993 independence referendum and for conscientiously objecting to military service."

This source names Jehovahs Witnesses directly: "The final report of Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, released December 2017 across 17 volumes with a further 3 volumes of recommendations: the largest..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "It documents the government's revocation of Jehovah's Witnesses' business licenses on 25 October 1994 over their refusal to recognize government authority, barring the group from government identity..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "denial, and documents the Ferghana Jehovah's Witnesses congregation's deregistration in August 2006."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Wikipedia's article on the history of Jehovah's Witnesses, community-edited."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "addressing the disappointment among Jehovah's Witnesses when the widely anticipated end of the present system by 1975 did not occur."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Wikipedia's article on Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions, read directly for this pass, which states that the first statement on blood transfusion appeared in the Watchtower of 1 July 1945..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "report, published 8 July 2026, on Jehovah's Witnesses' purchase of the former IBM and Kyndryl Sterling Forest Business Resiliency Services Center on Long Meadow Road, noting the sixty eight acre..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Tract Society's own 2017 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses chapter marking one hundred years since 1917, documenting Joseph Rutherford's 6 January 1917 election as the Society's second president in..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "rather than 'was God', the reading Jehovah's Witnesses build on, and the one most Greek grammarians reject."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Jehovah's Witnesses' own website, giving a partial, dated account of the organization's disaster relief efforts."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "daily newspaper not affiliated with Jehovah's Witnesses, reporting the 24 May 2026 release of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in Sundanese at a program in Bandung, West Java..."

Jehovah's Witnesses were banned in 1933 and imprisoned in thousands for refusing military service and the salute.

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "July 1931 resolution adopting the name Jehovah's Witnesses at a convention in Columbus, Ohio, documenting Joseph Rutherford's presentation of the resolution, the roughly fifteen thousand attendees..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "religion and law not affiliated with Jehovah's Witnesses or the Norwegian government, reporting the Norwegian Supreme Court's 29 April 2026 decision, including the children's rights and free..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Jehovah's Witnesses' own worldwide news page reporting the Supreme Court of Norway's ruling that the 2022 deregistration of the faith's national legal entity and denial of state grants violated..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "25 October 1994 decree stripped Jehovah's Witnesses of Eritrean citizenship rights."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "article on the Nazi persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses, community-edited."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "article on the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, community-edited."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "that Russia's 2017 nationwide ban on Jehovah's Witnesses and the 2009 dissolution of its Taganrog local organization violated Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "was misapplied to prosecute Jehovah's Witnesses' peaceful religious activity, quoting the court's finding that peaceful and non-violent attempts to persuade others of the virtues of one's own..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Jehovah's Witnesses' own 1977 Yearbook publishes this chapter, The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, on jw.org, recording the Governing Body's early December 1975 meeting in Brooklyn, its 4..."

This source names Jehovahs Witnesses directly: "The Charity Commission for England and Wales' public register entry for the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain (charity number 1077961), Jehovah's Witnesses' registered charity for..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "door to door canvassing, including Jehovah's Witnesses' ministry work."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "Wikipedia's article on Jehovah's Witnesses, a continuously edited tertiary source with no fixed publication year, accessed 2026-08-20."

This source names Jehovahs Witnesses directly: "The Watch Tower Society's own worldwide grand totals for the 2000 service year, hosted on jw.org inside the 2001 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses: 6,035,564 peak publishers, 5,783,003 average..."

This source names Jehovah's Witnesses directly: "investigation, recording that Jehovah's Witnesses' German headquarters declined to state its annual donation income when asked directly."

An unbroken line of bishops is rejected. This body dates its own organisation to the 1870s and holds that true worship had lapsed in the centuries before.

Jehovah's Witnesses reject the hypostatic union as defined at Chalcedon, consistent with their non-Trinitarian Christology.

Jehovah's Witnesses reject the Chalcedonian Incarnation formula, teaching that Jesus is God's first created Son rather than God the Son sharing one substance with the Father.

No claim of Roman primacy or infallibility is recognised. Direction comes from this body's own Governing Body.

A place of purification after death is rejected. This body teaches that the dead are unconscious and await resurrection, so there is no state in which a soul could be purified.

Mary is taught to have borne other children after Jesus, so perpetual virginity is rejected.

The annual Memorial uses bread and wine as emblems only, and almost all present decline to partake. No real presence is affirmed.

Mary is not called the mother of God, a title this body reads as depending on the Trinity it rejects.

Jehovah's Witnesses explicitly reject the Trinity, teaching strict unitarian monotheism in which only the Father, Jehovah, is God.

Jehovah's Witnesses hold that veneration of Mary has no scriptural warrant, so a Marian hymn is refused rather than merely unused. Their worship draws exclusively on their own published songs and on no part of the inherited Christian hymn repertory.

The Witnesses hold that Jesus died on an upright stake rather than on a cross, and they use no cross in worship, on their literature or on their halls.

A figure on a cross compounds what the Witnesses already refuse, since they read the veneration of any image as forbidden outright.

The sequence turns on a judgment issuing in everlasting punishment, and Jehovah's Witnesses teach that the dead are unconscious and that the unrighteous are destroyed rather than tormented, so its central claim is one they deny.

The Witnesses hold that Jesus died on an upright stake, and no cross appears on their halls, their literature or their persons. The refusal is doctrinal rather than a matter of taste.

Jehovah Witnesses refuse the category, holding the veneration of saints to be a form of the creature worship the scriptures forbid.

Jehovah Witnesses reject the council teaching that the Holy Spirit is a person to be worshipped with the Father and the Son, holding the spirit to be God active force.

Jehovah Witnesses hold that the council imported a Greek philosophical term into Christian teaching and that the resulting doctrine of the Son as of one substance with the Father is not what the apostles taught.

Jehovah's Witnesses class astrology with divination and spiritism and treat consulting it as incompatible with membership.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach the Holy Spirit is God's active force, not a third divine person of the Trinity.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Michael is a name borne by Jesus Christ in his heavenly office rather than a separate created angel, so the archangel and the Son are one person under two names.

Jesus is taught to be the Son of God and God's firstborn creation, a distinct and lesser being than the Father rather than a person of one substance with him.

The Kingdom of God, an imminent restored earthly paradise ruled by God's heavenly government, is this tradition's central and most emphasized doctrine.

A judgment following the resurrection is taught, with the outcome turning on conduct after the dead are raised rather than only on the life already lived.

Baptism follows a person's own decision and an examination in the teaching, and is by complete immersion, so no infant is baptised.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Christ was raised as a spirit and that the body of flesh did not return.

Prayer is directed to Jehovah through Christ alone, and no saint is invoked and no image used.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize 1 Esdras, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize 2 Esdras, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize 3 Maccabees, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize 4 Maccabees, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Additions to Daniel, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Additions to Esther, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Book of Baruch, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Book of Judith, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Book of Tobit, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Books of the Maccabees, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Letter of Jeremiah, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Prayer of Manasseh, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Psalm 151, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Sirach, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.

Jehovah's Witnesses hold a populated spirit realm of faithful and rebellious angels, with the archangel identified as Christ himself.

Jehovah's Witnesses receive Gabriel as a distinct angel of high rank, which is precisely what they deny of Michael, whom they hold to be Christ himself.

Held by Jehovah's Witnesses and by no other Christian body.

The war of Armageddon and the end of the present system of things are central to this body's teaching and to its public ministry.

Baptism by full immersion is administered only to those who can personally profess dedication to Jehovah, never to infants.

A worked-out account of the last things is taught, including a resurrection to life on a restored earth for most and a heavenly calling for a limited number.

Jehovah's Witnesses hold that the soul dies with the body and that the wicked are destroyed rather than tormented, so they deny both an immortal soul and any doctrine of everlasting hellfire.

God's favour is taught under the phrase undeserved kindness, which this body's own translation uses in place of grace throughout.

The film's three central subjects are chosen specifically to illustrate named Jehovah's Witness doctrines and their real historical consequences, not a passing reference to the tradition.

Twenty-seven-book New Testament canon, shared across Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant traditions alike, including this tradition.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jehovah alone is God and that Jesus is his first creation, a position that places them outside the trinitarian confession shared by most other Christian bodies.

Jehovah is taught to be almighty, and the divine name is treated as the proper name of that one God.

Scriptural prophecy is read as a running commentary on present events, and the interpretation of Daniel and Revelation is central to this body's teaching.

Christ's death is understood specifically as a ransom paying the exact price of what Adam lost, the classical Ransom Theory of the Atonement, central to this tradition's soteriology.

The ransom paid by Christ's death is the central saving act in this body's teaching, and it is the one occasion of the year on which the Memorial is kept.

The resurrection of the dead is affirmed doctrine, applied to both the earthly and the 144,000 heavenly resurrections this tradition teaches.

Salvation through Christ's sacrifice is affirmed doctrine, understood as a ransom paying the price of Adam's sin.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Christ began to rule invisibly in 1914 and that Armageddon is near, an expectation that drives their door-to-door preaching and their separation from worldly affairs.

The virgin birth is taught, with the life of God's first creation transferred to Mary's womb by holy spirit.

Closes a gap since 2022's citation of the European Court of Human Rights ruling against Russia's ban, moving the map from a legal ruling on the organization's standing abroad to its own continued institutional expansion at its Warwick world headquarters.

Adds a fact not yet on the map: a completed vernacular Bible translation reaching roughly forty million Sunda speakers in Indonesia, a different kind of institutional reach than this timeline's existing legal ruling and headquarters purchase citations.

Adds a specific, dated milestone in Jehovah's Witnesses institutional history between the founding of the Watch Tower movement in 1879 and the formal adoption of the name Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931, both already recorded here: Joseph Rutherford's election as the Watch Tower Society's second president on 6 January 1917, following Charles Taze Russell's death.

Adds a fact not yet on the map: a national government's own deregistration of Jehovah's Witnesses, unlike this timeline's existing citations of Russia, Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union, undone here by that same country's own Supreme Court after three years of litigation rather than by a change of regime.

The tradition's first twenty-first century event outside the ongoing Russian suppression already on this map, closing a gap since the 2017 Russia ban and set in a different country entirely.

Closes an 8-year gap since 2018's South Korea Ends Sixty Five Years Of Imprisoning Jehovah's Witness Objectors, the most recent event already on Jehovah's Witnesses' map, with Europe's human rights court ruling on Russia's own ban and property seizures.

Adds a specific, dated milestone in Jehovah's Witnesses' history between Stalin's 1951 deportation of Jehovah's Witnesses to Siberia and their 1991 legalization after the Soviet collapse, both already recorded here: the Governing Body's assumption of direct collective rule through six standing committees, effective 1 January 1976 at the movement's Brooklyn, New York headquarters, ending the single president model the movement had carried since 1879.

Adds a milestone in Jehovah's Witness history between Charles Taze Russell founding the Watch Tower movement in 1879 and the Society moving its headquarters to Brooklyn in 1909, both already recorded here: the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society's incorporation in Pennsylvania on 15 December 1884, giving Russell's ministry a legal existence independent of any one person.

Adds a specific, dated milestone in Jehovah's Witness history between Charles Taze Russell founding the Watch Tower movement in 1879 and Joseph Rutherford being elected president of the Watch Tower Society in 1917, both already recorded here: the Society's 1909 move of its headquarters to Brooklyn, the international base it kept for more than a century.

Adds a specific, dated institutional milestone between Charles Taze Russell founding the Watch Tower movement in 1879 and Nazi Germany's persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses beginning in 1933, both already recorded here: the 26 July 1931 convention at Columbus, Ohio, where president Joseph Rutherford presented the resolution adopting the name Jehovah's Witnesses before roughly fifteen thousand delegates and a radio audience of about 450 stations.

Adds a milestone in Jehovah's Witness history between Jehovah's Witnesses being legalized after the Soviet collapse in 1991 and Russia banning Jehovah's Witnesses as extremist in 2017, both already recorded here: the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society's 1 November 1995 Watchtower reinterpreting this generation at Matthew 24:34 to mean the contemporaneous generation of unbelievers who see the sign of Christ's presence rather than the specific generation alive in 1914.