Thesis--Hamburg. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (B. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Seminary, 1969. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-199).

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University

Since 1942 the Witnesses, under the third Watch Tower Society president Nathan H. Knorr, have engaged in a widespread training campaign whose purpose has been the socialisation of new converts and their training to maintain the high rate of recruitment to the sect. The Bible student community, on the other hand, has not increased in number and has no wish to. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the problems of charisma, schism and typological categories in relation to the sects discussed earlier in the thesis. Tentative conclusions are reached as to the likely future development of the groups that stem from C.T.Russell, including Jehovah's Witnesses.

Jehovah's Witnesses claim to be the sole advocates for God's truth at this point in redemptive history. Basing this belief on their interpretation of Matthew 24:45-47 and Luke 12:42-45, the Watchtower Society proclaims that their organization is led by "the faithful and discreet slave" (FDS) of the end times. This FDS is the Governing Body of the Society, which has been charged with the responsibility of providing spiritual food for Jehovah's people. According to the Witnesses, to discount the message of the FDS is to ignore the voice of God. History reveals that the identity and the message of the FDS have changed since the conception of the Watchtower organization. The movement's founder, Charles Taze Russell, was first known as the FDS of Matthew 24 but lost the title after his death when the new leader of the group shifted the identity away from an individualistic understanding to a corporate one. After proclaiming for the bulk of the organization's history that the 144,000 anointed Witnesses were the FDS, the Society recently changed their understanding of this end times' servant in 2012. Currently, the FDS is only the anointed Witness men that are serving on the Governing Body of the Society. This progressive shift in the organization's understanding of the FDS and the eventual disappearance of these anointed Witnesses continues to necessitate theological realignments, which in turn lays the apologetic groundwork for evangelism to the Jehovah's Witnesses. As redemptive history continues to unfold, the Watchtower Society will be forced to clarify or reinterpret many of their foundational teachings. Such reinvention further opens the apologetic door for evangelism among disillusioned Witnesses. When the Watchtower organization again searches to recast their leadership along with their message, authentic Christians must be ready and seeking to direct Witnesses to the unchanging message of the gospel.

Thesis (MA(Religion))--University of South Australia, 2000

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Include bibliographical index (p. 141-145).

Fernuniv., Diss.--Hagen, 2003.

Esse trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a ação das Testemunhas de Jeová, seita religiosa milenarista norte-americana, em São Paulo, entre os anos de 1930 e 1954. Em meio aos governos de Vargas e Dutra, à Segunda Guerra Mundial e ao início da Guerra Fria, a \"Sociedade Torre de Vigia de Bíblias e Tratados\" - nome jurídico adotado pelas Testemunhas de Jeová no Brasil - teve suas publicações confiscadas, membros presos e seu registro de atividades proscrito no país entre 1940 e 1947. Sob alegações diversas e contraditórias, as Testemunhas de Jeová foram acusadas de propagandear o nazismo, o fascismo, o anarquismo e o comunismo, em vista de proclames como a não prestação de serviço militar obrigatório, não saudação de símbolos nacionais, não transfusão de sangue e de seu proselitismo anticlerical, feito de porta em porta pelas ruas da cidade. Acreditando-se \"missionários pioneiros\" em meio a uma realidade supersticiosa católica, as Testemunhas de Jeová reeditaram no Brasil, a partir da década de 20, o mesmo discurso utilizado pelos puritanos ingleses que colonizaram a América no século XVII: tratavam-se do \"povo eleito\" de Deus na Terra que se dizia em combate com organizações \"satânicas\" e \"obscurantistas\", como a Igreja Católica. A despeito do estreitamento das relações entre Brasil e Estados Unidos no final dos anos 30, de nossa definitiva entrada na Segunda Guerra Mundial ao lado dos Aliados, e da cooperação verificada entre os dois países no período pós-guerra na luta contra o comunismo, as Testemunhas de Jeová, uma organização religiosa norteamericana, foram perseguidas no país, talvez por também reeditarem no Brasil a retórica mítica de construção dos Estados Unidos, de sua defesa de liberdade de culto e do sistema democrático de governo - em oposição ao Catolicismo e ao subdesenvolvimento brasileiros. Neste sentido, buscamos perceber até que ponto a perseguição policial e judicial empreendida contra essa organização religiosa, que contava com menos de 1000 adeptos até 1947, encontrava eco no estreitamento de interesses entre a Igreja Católica e o Estado brasileiros. / This study focuses on the action of the Jehovah\'s Witnesses, a North American millenary religious sect, in São Paulo, between 1930 and 1954. During Vargas and Dutra\'s governments, the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War, the Watchtower Society (\"Sociedade Torre de Vigia de Bíblias e Tratados\") - juridical name adopted in Brazil by the Jehovah\'s Witnesses - publications had been confiscated, its members had been arrested and the registry of activities had been exiled from the country between 1940 and 1947. Under various and contradictory claims, the Jehovah\'s Witnesses had been charged with advertising the nazism, fascism, anarchism and communism, based on the lack of rendering obligatory military service, lack of salutation of the national symbols, lack of blood transfusion and anticlergy proselytism, made everywhere in the city. Believing that they were the \"first missionaries\" on a superstitious Catholic reality, the Jehovah\'s Witnesses reissued in Brazil, from the twenties on, the same speech that was used by the English Puritan who settled America on the 17th century: they were the \"elected people\" by God on Earth and told they were here to struggle with the \"devilish\" and \"obscurantist\" organizations, such as the Catholic Church. Despite the narrowing between Brazilian and American relationship at the end of the thirties, our real entrance at the Second World War with the Allied and the checked help between both countries at the post-war period against the Communism, the Jehovah\'s Witnesses, a North American organization, had been chased in the country, maybe because they also reissued in Brazil the mythical rhetorical of the USA construction, in the defense of cult freedom and democratic system - different from the Brazilian Catholicism and undergrown. Based on these, we intend to see at which extent the judicial and political chasing against this religious organization, which had less than followers until 1947, found the echo on the benefits narrowing between the Catholic Church and the Brazilian states.