In your three-tape set, “I Escaped from the Watchtower,” the former Jehovahs Witness being interviewed recommended a book entitled The Finished Mystery. What is the book about, who wrote it, and why is it important?
Leonard Chretien, an ex-witness who spent 22 years as as official in the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (the Jehovah’s Witnesses), recommended The Finished Mystery because it is an example of the bizarre metamorphosis of Watchtower theology over the last hundred years and is useful in showing Witnesses the problems and contradictions in their religion. The Finished Mystery was the seventh and final volume in Studies in the Scriptures, a series of books written by the sect’s founder, Charles Taze Russell. It is a hodgepodge of false prophecies, rambling discourses on the interpretation of Scripture, and the obligatory rantings against the Catholic Church. The Finished Mystery was printed posthumously in 1917 and was touted as an unanswerable critique of “Christendom.” As the years passed, and as elements of its theology changed, the Watchtower trumpeted a series of bogus prophecies concerning the date of Christ’s return. To its embarrassment, the Watchtower was unable to reconcile e
