False Apocalypse, False Gospel, False Witnesses – Donald C. B. Cameron.

No doubt most readers of this magazine will have encountered representatives of the Jehovah’s Witness cult either on their doorsteps or, increasingly, with placards and literature in our town centres and shopping malls. Broadly speaking, these JWs, as they are widely known, obtain a response in one of three different ways. To the wholly secular mind they are an insignificant irritant to be ignored. To the Christian they are purveyors of a pernicious doctrine to be challenged. The third response is from those who are searching for some stability in life and who are taken in by the apparently earnest and friendly approach which appears to offer a solution to their problems.

The attitude of many Christians is to dismiss their approach with, ‘I'm sorry, I’m not interested’, or ‘I haven’t time to talk to you’. This often covers for a lack of confidence in their ability to apply scripture to refute the false doctrines of the JWs. The apostle Peter exhorted his readers to ‘be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you’. We should, in fact, be grateful for an opportunity to present the true gospel to those ensnared by the adversary and in need of light and salvation.

To this end, Donald Cameron’s book is a welcome and valuable addition to the many which have tackled this subject. It is not a condensed overview of the subject, but a comprehensive study tracing the origins and history of the Watchtower movement, the development of doctrine propounded by Charles Taze Russell, and its adoption of the name ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ in 1931.

Mr Cameron tackles head on the many JW heresies, each containing that veneer of credibility. He likens their approach to that of the adversary during the wilderness temptation of the Lord Jesus, ‘using certain Bible verses with such an imbalance of truth, ignoring even more important truth, that the overall effect is lethally distorted’.

A major part of the book is taken up with an in-depth examination of JW teaching in relation to future events. Each subject is compared with the truth of scripture to expose the errors and heresy issuing from the Watchtower.

It is made clear throughout that the fundamental fault which lies at the foundation of JW teaching is an erroneous approach to the person of the Lord Jesus. This inevitably results in the propagation of ‘another gospel’, the exponents of which fall under the ‘anathema’ of God.