Talk:Watch Tower Society presidency dispute

Rename

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

---

Watch Tower Society presidency dispute of 1917 → Watch Tower Society presidency dispute (1917) — More concise, and consistent with other articles. Not particularly concerned if there are serious objections.--Jeffro77 (talk) 13:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support. I was struggling to find a concise name. That's an improvement. BlackCab (talk) 21:07, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Court challenge

There should be some Jehovah's Witnesses name in the tile, perhaps in parantheses. I am a lawyer. A legal opinion is issued by a lawyers. Opinions from one hundred million lawyers don't equal the weight of a single judge in the appropriate jurisdiction, both subject matter and geographic. Did this issue ever go before the NY or PA courts? The Bible Students seem so aggrieved and my family told me of this big dispute that it seems unlikely than Rutherford was not challenged under non profit corp. law. Does anyone know? The article should state it one way or the either. Something strikes me as not real. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75Janice (talk • contribs) 21:30, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Among all the source material there is no suggestion that the issue was taken before a court. From memory the ousted directors decided out of what they saw as Christian forbearance to abandon their claim and form other groups. The article title is accurate and sufficient; the events portrayed in it took place decades before the WTS organization adopted that name for the religion. A link to the article also appears in the box at the top of all JW-related articles. BlackCab (talk) 23:27, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Source?

I agree with this addition "Those splinter groups would remain relatively small, while the group allied with Rutherford's leadership would soon number into the millions." but I think it should either be sourced (which should be easy to find) or at the minimum give some links to the splinter groups (Dawn Bible etc) Vyselink (talk) 00:55, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Also, just on a side note, could that be better worded? It reads awkwardly to me. Vyselink (talk) 01:04, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

'Millions under Rutherford'

An IP editor inserted a claim that the movement under Rutherford's control grew to have millions of members. This is misleading. Jehovah's Witnesses did not exceed a million members until many years after Rutherford's death.--Jeffro77 (talk) 01:59, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Additionally, the use of "temporary" to describe the reduction in members as a result of the schism is misleading, because it implies that those members returned. Later growth by the addition of new members is out of scope.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:03, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

It is of interest in the "aftermath" section to note that group x later grew quite large while group y did not. 73.11.72.255 (talk) 02:11, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

It is entirely misleading to say it "soon" did so. There weren't a million members until long after Rutherford's death. It would be sufficient to say it became the dominant group.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the "millions" is misleading, but (and it kills me to say this) the IP user does have somewhat of a point (now do you see User:73.11.72.255 how talking about things and at least attempting to make a reasoned argument can help??). So I think something to the effect of what Jeffro77 proposed (i.e. "dominant group" wording) would be appropriate here. Vyselink (talk) 02:20, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Membership did experience a rollercoaster ride over the next decade. Numbers fell drastically from 1917, then from 1921 began to grow again -- from 32,000 in 1922 to 90,000 in 1925, probably fuelled by the high-profile "Millions Now Living" postwar campaign. When Rutherford's confident predictions for 1925 ("this chronology is not of man, but of God ... a proven certainty") failed, membership plummeted again, from 90,000 (1925) to 17,000 (1928). As the History of Jehovah's Witnesses article explains, Tony Wills and Robert Crompton concluded it was the "more dedicated" Bible Students who quit through the 1920s, to be replaced by newcomers in larger numbers. By that time the impact of the 1917 leadership controversy had long faded and probably the bulk of those who were associated with the group in 1917 had long since gone. BlackCab (TALK) 06:38, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

It has been suggested that this article be merged into Pastoral Bible Institute

There was no dispute, this is the story of Pastoral Bible Institute creation - John Belushi (talk) 10:03, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Oppose—There certainly was a dispute, and the Pastoral Bible Institute would be better described as one side (and a much less prominent part) of the result of the dispute.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:26, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Oppose: (copy and paste from my response at the PBI page) Um. No. The dispute did happen, and is attested to by numerous sources. The PBI may have been a consequence of this dispute, but merging the Watch Tower Society presidency dispute (1917) article is frankly absurd. Vyselink (talk) 20:04, 5 March 2018 (UTC)