Is it true that Jehovah's witnesses once thought the world would end in 1975?
07.06.2025 09:09
“In Nigeria, two members of the Nigerian Branch Committee and a longtime missionary took me to see a property the Society had purchased for contracting a new Branch headquarters. On the return trip, I asked when they expected to be able to move to the new site. The reply was that, with the clearing of the land, obtaining approval of plans and getting necessary permits, and then the actual construction, it might well be in 1983 before the move was made.
But ultimately it says the world would “possibly” end. It also said “we know this will be an important year.” Was it? Well, it wasn’t the end of the world or I wouldn’t have been born. And here I am.
But did you once say this would happen in 1975?
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This is what new converts among them are told and if you look at the responses on here, you see full proof of this, those echoing this without ever doing any actual research.
Don’t imagine they’re any better today.
“I will set up a prophet for them from among their brothers like you, and I will put My words into his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. And it will be, that whoever does not hearken to My words that he speaks in My name, I will exact [it] of him. But the prophet who intentionally speaks a word in My name, which I did not command him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.
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“….but in this run for life, some of us looking forward to a change in this old system and its destruction for many years now, there are some of us who get a little weary, a little tired. And sometimes we just want to throw our hands up and say, ‘I just don’t know if I can go on any further.’..But just as a runner comes to the end and sees the goal line ahead of him, all of sudden he seems to get some reserve power from nowhere, and in he goes to make the finish line rope and win the prize.
📊 Exhibit A: An interview from BBC radio with a Watchtower representative in 1968:
They've been going to great effort to erase or rewrite fine details on what they printed in the past from their library (so they don’t come across as failed prophets).
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They also claim that if Watchtower influenced anyone to place their hope in that year it is an apostate lie.” (That means it’s slander that ex-members have made up about them just to make them look stupid and deceitful). And that these apostate people also tamper with history as well just to make Watchtower look worse than they are.
But does this one article left alive on their library truly reflect the teachings and the lifestyle of the JW organization of that time?
“Don’t leave us! Don’t give up! Keep up that preaching! Keep on building our buildings and maintaining them for us for free! You don’t want to be outside the door when Jehovah shuts it!”
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’If the end does come in 1975, will we all be dead?’
“I challenged him that the threat of a year of doom 1975 seemed to be a fairly wild and irresponsible surmise. He said:
📊 Exhibit B: A Convention Talk given in 1968, “Serving with Everlasting Life in View”
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You were supposed to not listen to the false prophets, remember? You were supposed to put them “to death.” You were warned.
Now, as Jehovah’s Witnesses, as runners, even though some of us have become a little weary, it seems Jehovah has provided meat in due season. Because He’s held up before all of us a new goal, a new year, something to reach out for and it seems it’s given all of us so much more energy and power to reach to the finish line and that’s the year 1975.”
That makes it plain. But listen to all of it. I implore you. Every damning word, he claims, came from directly from Jehovah God just at the right time.
All this is what I find shocking. And, however sincere some may be, I still find it frightening.
So stop lying and saying you don’t preach the end of the world. You definitely DO preach the end of the world!
Because of this I asked, “Do you get any questions from the local brothers as to the length of time that has passed since 1914?” There was a momentary silence, and then the Branch Coordinator said, “No, the Nigerian brothers seldom ask questions of that kind-but WE do.” Almost immediately the longtime missionary said, ‘Brother Franz, could it be that Jesus’ reference to ‘this generation’ applied only to persons back there who saw the destruction of Jerusalem? If that were the case, then everything would seem to fit.’
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📢. What they say about that today
Conclusion: YES. Watchtower did prophesy that the world as we know it would end in 1975 and it failed.
(Captain Braxton explaining the “Cycle of Causality” and the explosion of the Universe). ☺️
Watchtower and 1975
We aren’t under prophet leadership today so we don’t need a death penalty for people who cry out true or false prophesies “from God” in the streets. (Thankfully, or the lady with the crazy hair who sits outside my supermarket and says in a shout that “Haleakala wants us to free all the slaves” would be killed and that would make me sad since she makes me giggle). We also have libraries we can research for truth. Still, if Watchtower is presuming to speak for God, the precedent is, if God is really speaking through them, what they say will come true. And if it doesn’t, they’re a liar and we shouldn’t ever listen to anything they say.
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Why it matters
(Meanwhile, will you be destroyed at Armageddon if you take a break now? Is that what they really teach?
Today, the current Governing Body of Watchtower will tell you, in talks and speeches on their broadcasting program, that those among the church who believed that the world would end in 1975 were “over eager zealots,” just some poor, well-intentioned outliners who decided among themselves to believe the world would end that year and dashed their own hopes by setting a date that failed and it was never Watchtower who told them to make that year significant.
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In 1976, a year after the passing of the widely publicized date, a few members of the Governing Body began urging that some statement should be made acknowledging that the organization had been in error, had stimulated false expectations. Others said they did not think they we should, that it would just give ammunition to opposers. Milton Henschel recommended that the wise course would be simply not to bring the matter up and that in time the brothers would stop talking about it. There was clearly not enough support or a motion favoring a statement to carry. That year, an article in the July 15 Watchtower did refer to the failed expectations but the style had to conform to the prevailing sentiment within the Governing Body and no clear acknowledgement of the organization's responsibility was possible.
If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not occur and does not come about, that is the thing the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it wantonly; you shall not be afraid of him.“
Now if you say to yourself, "How will we know the word that the Lord did not speak?"
Suggested further reading:
“1975 passed-as had 1881, 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925 and the 1940s. Much publicity was given by other sources as to the failure of the organization’s expectations surrounding 1975. There was considerable talk among Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves. In my own mind, most of what was said did not touch upon the major issue of the matter.
First, let’s address why this is important. After all, why should we care what a group of strange men in New York State say about the End of the World? So what if they made up their own End Times Manifesto? Let them have fun in their own crazy world if it makes them happy, you might say. It doesn’t affect my life.
I’d like to showcase some sermons and some interviews from Governing Body or Watchtower members from before 1975 to show the truth on this. Keep in mind: JWs differ from other churches in that each Preacher giving public talks isn’t coming up with his own personal,interpretive sermon. They are given detailed outlines from the Headquarters on what to say. So, these sermons and interviews, though it is a single speaker, they are saying things that were written by the writing committees at HQ and have the stamp of approval of the current Governing Body.
To my mind, it illustrates forcefully the reason why God never purposed that men should exercise such excessive authority over fellow humans.”
📊 Exhibit C “1975 Passed” from Governing Body member Raymond Frank’ book Crisis of Conscience:
“It is instead the way that religious men in high authority can allow such supposed “organizational interests” to be counted as of such enormous importance as compared to the interests of ordinary people, people with children and homes and jobs, individuals many of whom give evidence of being every bit as conscientious in their devotion to God as any man among those men who sit as a court to decide what is and what is not within the realm of conscience for such people.
It is men in authority who, because the change of one vote reduces a majority down from 66 and 1/3 % to 62 1/2% are willing to allow this to keep in force a policy… that calls on ordinary people, men, women,and children, to face the loss of home and lands, endure beatings, torture, rape and death because of refusal to pay a legal fee for the card of the organization that is, to all intents and purposes, the ruling power of their country, while at the same time telling men in another country that it is acceptable for them to bribe military officers for a card that falsely says they fulfilled their military service and are in the first reserves of the army.
📢 What Watchtower was preaching about 1975
I felt that the real issue went far beyond that some individual’s accuracy or inaccuracy or even an organization’s reliability or its untrustworthiness or its members’ sensibleness or gullibility. It seemed to me that the really important factor is how such predictions ultimately reflect on God and His Word, when men make such forecasts and say that they are doing it on the basis of the Bible, build up arguments for those from the Bible, assert that they are God’s channel of communication, what is the effect when their forecasts prove false? Does it honor God or build up faith in Him and the reliability of His word, or is the opposite the result? Does it not give added inducement for some to feel justified in placing little importance on the Bible’s message and teachings? Those witnesses who made major changes in their lives in most cases could, and did, pick up the pieces and go on living in spite of being disillusioned, not all could. Whatever the case however, serious damage had been done in more ways than one.
Or, in other words, God never intended that our thinking and our individual consciences be determined by any other person than ourselves, especially some group of imperfect men in NY, and the 1975 failed prophesy of Watchtower and the disillusionment and heavy losses buying into their predictions caused people should not be counted as God’s fault. He gave you a mind and a conscience, he gave you reasoning ability and if you determine to follow men who have been proven wrong, again and again, then lie about what they said and blame you, gaslighting you that it was all your fault all along, and bad things happened to you, it is your own fault for giving up your rights and power to a group of men you don’t even really know and blindly listening to everything they’d say without question.
😂 So, all these people saying it’s unclear what the year 1975 mean aren’t faithful Watchtower readers. Watchtower had told you what it means in clear terms and it’s foolish of you to dismiss it. (How little did they predict how greatly this would fail and how they’d have to go scrubbing this very teaching from their own library 😂).
’What will happen to the rest of the people?’
In 2020, during Covid, we were in the “final part of the final part of the last days, the last day, even the last hour.”
Some have taken an odd approach and instead of addressing the failed prophesy of Watchtower, they say, “we don’t preach an end of the world, the world will remain forever.” Which is deceptive. Just like their leaders, deceptive. And everyone knows it. They’re still out there right now preaching the “End Times.” It’s their entire way of life. Anyone can walk up to their carts and ask and they’ll say the reason they’re out there is to “save lives” because world will be destroyed. (Though, they mean civilization on the world and not the actual planet).
Shortly after my return from Africa, in a Governing Body session on February 17, 1980, Lloyd Barry again voiced his feelings about the importance of the teaching regarding 1914 and “this generation.” Lyman Swingle said that the “Questions from Readers” material published in 1978 had not settled the matter in the brother’s minds. Albert Schroeder reported that in the Gilead School and in Branch Committee seminars, brothers brought up the fact that 1984 was now being talked about as a possible new date. 1984 being 70 years from 1914 the figure seventy evidently being looked upon as having some special import. The Body decided to discuss the matter of 1914 further in the next session.”
“Repent!…Armageddon is almost upon us!”
The thing is though, for starters, they claim to be speaking for God himself as His Spokesman, so if that’s a lie, that’s very important. In Devarim (Deuteronomy) are these words to Israel:
Did the Watchtower Society predict and preach that the world would end in 1975?
[Watchtower Rep] ‘well….we don’t, um, put it as a threat. We firmly believe that in the near future this system of things is going to perish because the Bible plainly says that all the way through it. But, uh, we want people to appreciate that it is the prelude to the kingdom of God, you see, to sweep away the old before the incoming of the new.’
They want all of the authority but take none of the responsibility.
And here we are, four years later…
Quite a number of Witnesses did just that. Some sold their houses, gave up jobs, sold homes, farms, moved with their children…”
I could not personally comprehend how grown men could fail to see inconsistency in all of this, could fail to be repelled by it, could not be deeply moved by its effect on people’s lives. In the end, it simply convinced me that “organizational loyalty” can lead people to incredible conclusions, allow them to rationalize away the grossest of inequities, relieve them from being particularly affected by any suffering their policies may cause. This insensitizing effect that organizational loyalty can induce is, of course, well documented, having been demonstrated again and again through the centuries, both in religious and political history, as in the extreme cases of the Inquisition and during the Nazi regime. But it can still produce a sickening effect when seen at close quarters in an area where one never expected it.
Thank you for asking me. I’ve read the other answers on here and I can see why you did. There’s a lot of denial, random opinion, and little actual research.
This is Watchtower mocking at its finest. And everyone knows it because everyone knows that you preach the “End of the World”.
The truth is, they want you to have a date to reach for and not give up. They need you to be out there making converts for them, to build them their buildings and send them your money. Their building work and the fact that you do it all for free is how they’ve amassed a $2 Billion dollar real estate empire. THEY’RE the ones who need you to have a date and that’s why they gave you one in 1967. It was “meat in due season” then, though, it was rotten meat and left a lot of people sick.
Take special note of how they say today, “well some people need a year to reach for so they don’t tire out…” implying truly faithful people would just serve God unquestioningly without caring about any End Date at all, but what is the truth?
It is men in authority who accord to themselves the right to be of divided opinion, but who exact uniformity from all others; men who express mistrust of others’ use of Christian freedom of conscience, but who expect such others to put implicit trust in them and their decisions, while they grant to themselves the right to exercise their conscience to condone illegal maneuvering and obvious misrepresentation of fact.
…One May, 1974 issue of Kingdom Ministry, having referred to “the time left” said:
’The rest of the people will perish.’”
’Yes, uh, Armageddon, when it comes, is going to mean a sweeping away of this system, and the system of things is built up of individuals…God’s kingdom alone is going to survive.’
This precedent makes it clear that when God speaks, we must listen. Conversely, if someone were to presume to speak for God when God was not using him, and would mislead people, this was a serious and, back then, even death-deserving offense.
‘Reports are heard of brothers selling their homes and property and planning to finish out the rest of their days in this old system in the pioneer service. Certainly this is a fitting way to spend the short time remaining the wicked world’s end.’
But even in their website you can find this article from 1968 explaining the “math,” as to why the year 1975 is an important year in human history (which, if you read it, does remind me an awful lot of all the End of the World manifestos and Captain Braxton’s Cycle of Casality, Cracker Jacks man).
This is how the Watchtower depicts Armageddon…
What is horribly amusing is that he even says, “we don’t have to wonder what the year means if we read the Watchtower. The Watchtower had been very explicit.” (03:75)
What is chilling is how much he puts fear in anyone who doesn’t take this year literally, how they’ll be burned to a crisp, how they’ll be drowned like people in Noah’s day when the door closed, even if they belong to Watchtower but simply aren’t attending all the meetings or living like 1975 isn’t the end, if they try and go to college or start a family, they’ll all be told by Jesus when 1975 comes, “I never knew you.” (20:16)
So: in 1968 he told her that in 1975 Armageddon would sweep the world clean.
I’d like to close with a quote from Raymond Franz from his book,
Quite evidently not everything did seem to fit in his mind, the way the existing teaching had it. My reply was simply that I supposed such was a possibility but that there was not much more that could be said for the idea. I repeated this conversation to the Governing Body after my return, for it gave evidence to me of the questions existing in the minds of men throughout the world, respected men in positions of considerable authority. The comments the men in Nigeria made and the way they made them indicated clearly that they had discussed the question among themselves before ever my visit took place.