Thinking People and The Golden Age Magazine
Ken Raines
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"Thinking people responded to the message of The Golden Age."
(The Watchtower, January 1, 1994, p. 21, §6)
The Watchtower Society has recently claimed that individuals who they term "thinking people" responded to the message they previously published in The Golden Age magazine.1 They didn't mention how these thinking type people responded to the message they printed in the magazine. One assumes they were referring to those sheep-like people who responded favorably, that is, those who accepted what they printed. These were the "thinking people." Those who didn't respond must have been unthinking people of some sort.
Just what was the message The Golden Age preached for the thinking people to respond to? The main message they proclaimed was the coming Golden Age or Millennium. This was expected to arrive in 1925 at the time the magazine was first launched in 1919. For example, in the first issue of The Golden Age, in explaining the new magazine's purpose, C. J. Woodworth wrote the following on the nearness of the Golden Age:
In subsequent issues of this magazine it is our purpose.... to produce the incontrovertible proof that we are standing at the very portals of the Golden Age.2
Perhaps "thinking people" would respond to "incontrovertible proof." In the subsequent issues of The Golden Age they stated that the Golden Age would come in 1925 as any "thinking person" could see. For example, in 1922 they quoted "Judge" Rutherford's following statements from his Millions Now Living Will Never Die speech at the New York Hippodrome in 1921:
"Every thinking person can see that a great climax is at hand. The Scriptures clearly indicate that that climax is the fall of Satan's empire and the full establishment of the Messianic kingdom. This climax being reached by 1925,... millions now living on the earth will be living then and those who obey the righteous laws of the new arrangement will live forever. Therefore it can be confidently said at this time that MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE."3
In retrospect every thinking person can see that 1925 did not produce the "fall of Satan's empire" and the "full establishment of the Messianic kingdom." The Golden Age also claimed, when advertising Rutherford's Millions Now Living Will Never Die booklet, that beginning in 1926, after the "climax" of 1925, there would be "unending human life" on earth, no more "blindness, lameness, deafness, dumbness; no more bald heads, glass eyes or false teeth, or wooden legs; no more sickness, disease, or pestilence... no more sorrow; no more tears!" This, they said, was "the message of the hour."4 Since such things as deafness and bald heads still plague mankind, what is a person who isn't a dimwit supposed to think? Should we, like good "sheep" have responded to this "message of the hour"?
The "Millions" message was the main message of The Golden Age magazine until 1925. When 1925 came and went without these things occurring they still proclaimed this "message," minus of course a reference to 1925. However, other messages were becoming even more prominent.
Other Messages for "Thinking People"
The Golden Age printed numerous articles denouncing the use of Aluminum cookware and vaccines. Both were of the devil. Almost every issue after 1925 had at least one article on these subjects. On the vaccination subject, "thinking people" were those who realized that the people producing vaccines were simply doing it to make a lot of money on "unthinking" people. Epidemics were started by the health boards just so they can make money from vaccinations! They said:
The public is not generally aware of how large an industry is the manufacture of serums, anti-toxins and vaccines, or that big business controls the whole industry.... the boards of health endeavor to start an epidemic of smallpox, diphtheria, or typhoid that they may reap a golden harvest by inoculating an unthinking community for the very purpose of disposing of this manufactured filth.5
Readers of The Golden Age were not these kinds of "unthinking" people though:
Whoever does any thinking on the subject must agree with Mr. S. D. Bingham's opinion:
"Vaccination summed up is the most unnatural, unhygienic, barbaric, filthy, abhorrent, and most dangerous system of infection known. Its vile poison taints, corrupts, and pollutes the blood of the healthy, resulting in ulcers, syphilis, scrofula, erysipelas, tuberculosis, cancer, tetanus, insanity, and death."6
Thus:
Thinking people would rather have smallpox than a vaccination, because the later sows the seed of syphilis, cancers, eczema, erysipelas, scrofula, consumption, even leprosy and many other loathsome affections. Hence the practice of vaccination is a crime, an outrage and a delusion.7
The thinking readers of The Golden Age however, didn't accept such a delusion! Again, in retrospect, what is a person to think of all this? The "thinking people" who responded to this message may have died prematurely or at least suffered needlessly for refusing a vaccination. One way to look at this is to consider the following statement by the Society:
According to the Bible, when we deliberately put someone's life unnecessarily in danger, we could become bloodguilty.8
This is serious to the Watchtower. They are constantly pointing to the "bloodguilt" of the churches of "Christendom" for endorsing Wars that people died in. They said about the seriousness of this:
Do you want to stand bloodguilty before God and deserve denunciation and execution at his hands?9
The Scriptures show that if we are part of any organization that is bloodguilty before God, we must sever our ties with it if we do not want to share in its sins.10
Hasn't the Watchtower Society unnecessarily put other's lives in danger by demanding their followers follow their medical positions? They have forbidden vaccinations, organ transplants and currently forbid blood transfusions. How many of their "thinking people" have died following them? Vaccinations and organ transplants are now okay with the Society. They therefore needlessly put other's lives at risk. Doesn't this make them "bloodguilty" before God for the deaths of those who listened to them and their medical hooey? If we are part of any organization that is bloodguilty in this way, shouln't we "sever our ties" with it?11
It's the only thing a "thinking person" can do!
Notes
1 This magazine was published from 1919 to 1937. In 1937 the name of the magazine was changed to Consolation. In 1946 it was again changed, this time to the current title Awake!
2 The Golden Age, October 1, 1919, p. 22.
3 The Golden Age, January 4, 1922, p. 217.
4 The Golden Age, January 19, 1921, p. 240.
5 The Golden Age, January 3, 1923, p. 214.
6 Ibid.
7 The Golden Age, January 5, 1929, p. 502.
8 Awake!, June 22, 1985, p. 27.
9 Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God, 1966, p. 342.
10 United in Worship of the Only True God, 1983, p. 155.
11 This point was made recently by Steve Devore and Steve Lagoon in their book, Blood, Medicine and the Jehovah's Witnesses published by Witness, Inc. The book is currently out of stock and is being revised.
