Three items appear below:

1.    Heaven-Bound Henschel Heads Hierarchy       Investigator 31
2.    Heart Transplants Held Cannibalism                 Detroit Free Press
3.    Henschel, M G August 1920 – March 2003      Investigator 92
 

HEAVEN-BOUND HENSCHEL
HEADS HIERARCHY

P Daniels & B Kotwall

(Investigator 31, 1993 July)


The Watch Tower Society's (WTS) Board of Directors proclaimed Milton G Henschel the new president of the JWs on December 30.

Born in New Jersey (USA), 1920, Mr Henschel, 72, is the 2nd youngest member of the JW Governing Body (GB) whose average age is 83.

Henschel started going door to door in 1929. He became a full time "minister" in 1934 – barely in time to be among the 144,000 candidates for heaven.

The cut-off point for the selection of the "remnant" of the 144,000, in JW theology, is 1935. Most JWs consider themselves members of the "great crowd" (also called "other sheep") who get eternal life on Earth after Armageddon "within our 20th century".

The gathering of this "great crowd" of JWs started in 1934/35. (The Watchtower 1982 December 15 p.19; Then is Finished The Mystery of God ,1969, pp.125, 174, 201, 205.)

In 1945 came the doctrine that GB members, then numbering seven and coinciding with the seven-member Board of Directors, had to be of the "remnant". This belief is restated in Then is Finished The Mystery of God p.199.

A former vice-president of the WTS, Hayden C Covington, elected 1942, discontinued in 1945 due to being of the "other sheep". A letter of explanation by Covington appeared in the cult's 1946 Yearbook.

In a 1968 interview (Detroit Free Press July) Henschel called tissue transplants "cannibalism", a teaching the Organization discarded in 1980. He also said the people of Sodom and Gomorrah would be resurrected, a doctrine which has U-turned at least five times:
 


"Will the men of Sodom be Resurrected?" The answer keeps changing:

1.    Yes        Watchtower July1879 p. 8
2.     No        Watchtower June 1 1952 p. 338
3.     Yes       Watchtower August 1 1965 p. 479
4.     Yes       You Can Live Forever… 1982 edition p. 179
5.     No         Watchtower June 1 1988 p. 31
6.     No         Revelation–It's Grand Climax Near! (1988) p. 273
7.     Yes       Insight On The Scriptures Volume 2 (1988) p. 985
8.     No        You Can Live Forever… (1989 edition) p. 179
 


Historian James Penton, author of Apocalypse Delayed (1985), claims the JW leadership change their doctrines more than some men change their shirts!

The GB in contrast claims that JWs: "…base everything they teach in their evangelizing work upon the Bible." (The Watchtower 1992 September 1 p.19)
 



Detroit Free Press, July 1968

Heart Transplants Held Cannibalism

By Hiley H. Ward

Transplants of hearts and other organs are a form of "cannibalism," the presiding officer of the nation's 350,000 Jehovah's Witnesses said in Detroit Sunday.

In an interview, Milton G. Henschel, 48, said there has been some developments in the teaching of the Witnesses, but bans against transfusions – and transplants, which is done with wide use of transfusion – still exist.

"Transplanting organs is really cannibalism," said the tall, 6-foot-4 pleasant man who is almost a spitting image of a thinner Bob Hope."

"In transplants, you are taking something from another body to sustain your life."

From the Scriptures he referred to Gen. 9:3, 4 "Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. As in the case of green vegetation, I do give it all to you. Only flesh with its soul – its blood – you must not eat."

AND ACTS 15:29 – "Abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood."

We are confident of the resurrection, and don't fear death," Mr. Henschel said. "If a person gains another five years, because of a transplant, what has he gained, if he loses the future?"

The future, Mr. Henschel said, includes the battle of Armageddon, in which God will defeat the devil, in a short span, possibly several months. There is no date for Armageddon (Rev. 16:16), but, said Mr. Henschel, "1975 is a year to watch."

Witnesses believe the last generation is dated from the first global war, 1914, and time is getting near to the end of that generation. World war, confusion, famine, are all signs of the final times (Matt. 24), Mr. Henschel said.

The year 1975 is the year to watch because also by adding up the generations since creation (based on length of lives of people in the Bible), they believe 6,000 years will end in 1975.

Then comes a paradise (after Armageddon) which will be ruled over by an invisible Christ. The dead – except for 144,000 spiritually elite already in the hands of a spiritual realm of God – will be resurrected.

THE HARD-CORE EVIL, who have already had a chance in their lives on earth, will not be resurrected but are blotted out from God's memory forever. There is no hell of torment. Others who now get a solid chance of accepting Christ's new jurisdiction, and do so, will be saved and live an eternity on earth which is being formed during the 1,000 years of Christ's special rule over earth.

Asked if the Witnesses, who come out a tradition of groups expecting the end of the world, and incorporated as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, ever "reform" or change, Mr. Henschel said they are always growing in new Bible understanding.

"We don't have ecumenical councils," he said, "but in our Bible study, we have come to see, for instance, that the resurrection is going to involve more people that we thought. "We had thought, for instance, those who lived in Christ's day and were rebuked by him would be lost, but now we see this refers only to the leaders."

The resurrection in the special 1,000 year period, will now include billions, he said, giving all a fair chance, and from these there will still be the sorting out finally during the 1,000 years of Christ's rule in the earthly paradise.

In the "renewed" or growing thinking of the Witnesses, Mr Henschel said, even Sodom and Gomorrah have won a reprieve, as a people, if not among their leaders. The reason, he said, is new attention on Jesus' references to Sodom and Gomorrah that some will be worse off than those destroyed in those cities (Matt. 10:15; 11:24).
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HENSCHEL, M G (August 1920 – March 2003)

(Investigator 92, 2003 September)

Milton G Henschel, fifth president of the Watchtower Society (WTS), died on March 22, 2003.

The WTS is the legal and publishing channel of Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs).

Henschel began going door to door for JWs in 1929. He moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1934 when his father, Herman George, moved there to renovate WTS buildings. The son became a full-time JW "minister" and later worked at JW Headquarters.

In 1947 Henschel became secretary to the WTS's third president N H Knorr. Later Henschel joined the seven-member Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Corporation of the WTS. He became a member of the JW Governing Body (the JW spiritual leaders) and, in December 1992, the WTS president.

In a major organizational shakeup Henschel ceased as president of the WTS in October 2000.

From 1944 to 1971 the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Corporation was the same as the Governing Body. In 1971 the Governing Body was expanded to include some non-Board members. In October 2000 the Governing Body members who had both positions resigned from the Board. This made the Governing Body and Board of Directors two separate and distinct groups.

A relatively young man, Don Adams, became WTS president.

The Detroit Free Press of July 1968 described Henschel as, "the tall, 6-foot-4 pleasant man who is almost a spitting image of a thinner Bob Hope."

In that 1968 interview Henschel called tissue transplants "cannibalism" – a teaching the JWs discontinued in 1980. He also said that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah would be resurrected. (Investigator 31)

The truth about Jehovah's Witnesses:
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Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses at:
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