Their most serious problems occurred in Québec after the SECOND WORLD WAR ( see RONCARELLI V DUPLESSIS SAUMUR V CITY OF QUÉBEC). Some Witnesses were denied the opportunity to do alternative service and were imprisoned for their pacifism. In 1918 their literature was banned, and they were outlawed 1941-43 under the WAR MEASURES ACT. During both world wars they suffered persecution because of their evangelical fervour, abhorrence of patriotic exercises and conscientious objection to military service. Public Criticismīible students appeared in Ontario about 1882 and soon spread throughout Canada. Knorr (1905-77) was largely responsible for their growth into a worldwide movement. Today all structures used by Witness congregations for worship and religious instruction are called Kingdom Halls. It was under Rutherford’s leadership that the first Kingdom Hall was built in Hawaii. He abandoned many of Russell's teachings, rearranged Barbour's chronology and established a "centralized theocratic government" for followers of the movement. Rutherford, gave the name Jehovah's Witnesses to those Bible students loyal to the Watch Tower Society. Russell founded the Watch Tower Society in 1881 to spread this view. Barbour, which has been basic to the date-setting apocalypticism of the Bible Students and Witnesses ever since. In 1876 he adopted the "biblical" chronology of Nelson H. Jehovah's Witnesses grew out of the Bible Student movement developed by Charles T. They hold that other religions and the secular state are demonic. The Witnesses are mortalists and believe that most humans will be resurrected physically during the millennium. In 1995 only 8645 proclaimed a heavenly hope out of more than 5.2 million active members worldwide. They teach that 144 000 will eventually dwell in heaven, but the rest of the saved will live eternally on a restored paradisiacal earth.
Witnesses deny the Trinity and hold to a semi-Arian theology which asserts that the Son of God is not co-eternal with the Father and is "a god" of a lesser degree. Now, however, they teach that Christ will do the separating work at Armageddon, and they no longer insist that it will take place during a specific time. Accordingly the world was to be destroyed at Armageddon, which was to occur before the generation born before 1914 had died out.
Until 1995 they taught that through their witnessing they were doing a "harvest work" by which humans would be separated into the saved and the damned. Witnesses are Millenarians ( see MILLENARIANISM who believe that Christ came invisibly in 1914. Jehovah's Witnesses, religious denomination known internationally for tireless door-to-door EVANGELISM, large conventions, and members' refusal to bear arms, salute flags or accept blood transfusions. Jehovah’s Witnesses traces its beginnings to the Advent Movement during the 1800s.
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