Jehovah's Witnesses' Serial Apocalypse Predictions

Jehovah's Witnesses have publicly predicted the end of the world multiple times, including 1914, 1918, 1925, and 1975, and later taught that Armageddon would arrive before the generation that witnessed 1914 passed away. In the early 1920s, the booklet "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" claimed that Old Testament patriarchs such as Abraham and David would be resurrected to earthly life in 1925; when that did not happen, leaders eventually acknowledged the date as a mistake. Anticipation around 1975 as a likely time for Christ’s millennial reign fueled a surge in preaching activity and membership growth, but after the year passed without the predicted global upheaval, growth rates fell and thousands of members left or became inactive. Taken together, critics count around 20 failed end-times forecasts.

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