Jehovah's Witnesses
Restorationist Christian denomination
Follow Jehovah's Witnesses on Notably News to receive short updates to your email — rarely!
| 2024 | Jehovah's Witnesses relaxed their dressing standards for congregation-sponsored events, allowing men to have beards and attend meetings without a suit or tie, and permitting women to wear slacks. |
| 2024 | Jehovah's Witnesses discontinued the term 'disfellowshipping' and replaced it with 'removal from the congregation' as their official terminology for disciplinary action. |
| 2024 | Jehovah's Witnesses modified their shunning policy in Norway, allowing members to offer 'simple greetings' to shunned individuals who are not considered apostates, following the loss of state funding due to psychological violence concerns. |
| 2024 | Leadership replaced 'disfellowshipping' with 'removal from the congregation' and relaxed some shunning rules, allowing brief greetings at meetings. |
| 2023 | Norway fully deregistered Jehovah's Witnesses as a religious community due to their shunning practice, resulting in the loss of 1.3 million euros in annual state subsidies and the right to perform civil marriages. |
| November 2023 | Modified their field service reporting requirements, changing from mandatory monthly hour submissions for all active members to a more flexible reporting system. |
| October 2023 | The High Court in Wellington rejected the Australasian branch of the Jehovah's Witnesses' bid to be excluded from the Royal Commission's investigation. |
| October 2023 | A bomb blast at a Jehovah's Witnesses annual convention in Kerala killed 7 people and injured 50 others. The suspect, reportedly a former member, claimed to resent the Witnesses' anti-national doctrines. |
| August 2023 | Radio New Zealand reported 11 active Jehovah's Witness members in New Zealand had child sex abuse convictions or serious allegations against them. |
| July 2023 | A circuit court in Hawaii awarded $40 million in damages to a plaintiff identified as 'N.D.', who was sexually assaulted by church elder Keneth L. Apana when she was 12 years old in 1992. |
| July 26 2023 | The Argentine Association of Victims of Jehovah's Witnesses (AAVTJ) held a 'Memorial Day' in Buenos Aires, publicly denouncing the organization's practices and commemorating victims of the Watchtower organization. |
| June 2023 | The Australasia branch of the Watch Tower Society filed legal action seeking exemption from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, arguing they were not responsible for caring for children, young people, or vulnerable people. |
| March 9 2023 | A mass shooting in Hamburg, Germany targeted Jehovah's Witnesses, resulting in six fatalities. Police had been warned about the shooter beforehand but failed to intervene. |
| 2022 | Jehovah's Witnesses were denied state subsidies in Oslo and Viken, Norway, despite previously qualifying for over thirty years. |
| October 2022 | Three Jehovah's Witnesses were sentenced to six years in prison in Sevastopol by a Moscow-imposed court, despite the denomination's activities being legal in Ukraine. |
| June 7 2022 | Jehovah's Witnesses won another case in the European Court of Human Rights in the case Taganrog LRO and Others v. Russia, further challenging religious restrictions in the country. |
| 2021 | Jehovah's Witnesses in Australia agreed to join the national redress scheme for sexual assault survivors to maintain their charitable status. |
| 2021 | 4,091 Jehovah's Witnesses members served as missionaries. |
| 2021 | A qualitative psychological research study interviewed former Jehovah's Witnesses, revealing that experiences of ostracism from family and friends can be associated with increased mental health risks. |
| 2021 | Four additional Jehovah's Witnesses members were released from imprisonment in Eritrea in early 2021. |
| May 2021 | The Watch Tower Society reported that Turkmenistan had released all Jehovah's Witnesses previously imprisoned for conscientious objection to military service. |
| May 24 2021 | Supreme Court denied Valentina Baranovskaya and her son Roman Baranovsky's appeal and added post-release restrictions. |
| February 2021 | A Russian court in the Republic of Khakassia sentenced 69-year-old Valentina Baranovskaya to two years in prison for participating in banned religious activities, marking the first imprisonment of a female Jehovah's Witness since the 2017 ban. |
| 2020 | Jehovah's Witnesses modified their doctrinal interpretation of historical events related to the 'kings of the north and south' from Daniel 11:25-26. They abandoned previous identifications of historical figures and redefined the 'king of the north' as the German Empire and the 'king of the south' as Britain. |
| 2020 | Rolf Furuli, a former lecturer who previously supported the Witnesses' chronological interpretation, leaves the denomination while maintaining the correctness of their chronological views. |
| December 4 2020 | 28 Jehovah's Witnesses members were released from imprisonment in Eritrea, according to the Watch Tower Society. |
| 2019 | The Superior Court of Quebec granted permission for the class action lawsuit to proceed, with Watchtower subsequently being granted an appeal by the Quebec Court of Appeal. |
| 2019 | Elders in New Zealand were reportedly instructed to destroy documents, raising concerns among child sex abuse survivors about potential cover-ups. The organization maintained that relevant abuse case documents would not be destroyed. |
| 2019 | The Spanish Association of Victims of Jehovah's Witnesses (AEVTJ) was officially founded in Spain by former members of the Jehovah's Witnesses denomination, registering with the National Registry of Associations of the Ministry of the Interior. |
| July 2019 | The Zurich District Court acquitted Dr. Regina Spiess, awarding her legal compensation of 20,500 francs and personal compensation of 4,000 francs in a case involving Jehovah's Witnesses. |
| February 6 2019 | Dennis Christensen was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison. |
| 2018 | Re-identified the 'king of the north' in Daniel 11:44–45 as 'Russia and its allies', after being uncertain since 1991. Redefined the temple vision in Ezekiel from a specific spiritual temple to a more general representation of God's standards for worship. |
| 2018 | South Korea enacted a religious exemption for military service, ending a long-standing period where Jehovah's Witnesses were systematically imprisoned for refusing mandatory military service due to their religious beliefs. |
| July 2018 | A jury in Thompson Falls, Montana awarded $35 million to a victim of sexual abuse, claiming the Jehovah's Witnesses church failed to protect her from abuse. |
| May 31 2018 | Supreme Court of Canada unanimously (9-0) ruled that courts have no jurisdiction to review membership questions of religious organizations, affirming religious groups' freedom to determine their own membership and rules. |
| 2017 | Declared the expression 'vindication of Jehovah's name' appropriate, reversing a 1995 change. |
| 2017 | A Calgary, Alberta law firm began investigating a potential national class action lawsuit against the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Canada regarding child sexual abuse cases. |
| 2017 | The Charity Commission for England and Wales initiated an inquiry into Jehovah's Witnesses' management of child sexual abuse allegations in the United Kingdom. |
| September 15 2017 | A class action lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of Quebec on behalf of sexual abuse victims, naming three Jehovah's Witnesses corporations as defendants. |
| July 2017 | The Supreme Court of South Ossetia ruled Jehovah's Witnesses an extreme organization, declaring a penalty of ten years' imprisonment for any religious activities including assembly and literature distribution. |
| May 2017 | Armed Federal Security Services (FSB) officers arrested Dennis Christensen, a Danish citizen, in Oryol on charges related to extremism. |
| April 20 2017 | Supreme Court of Russia issued a verdict liquidating the group's Russian headquarters in Saint Petersburg and all 395 local religious organizations, banning their activity and ordering property seizure. |
| March 2017 | Russia's Justice Ministry suspended the activities of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia due to alleged extremist activities. |
| 2016 | Reinterpreted multiple biblical passages: The 'dry bones' in Ezekiel chapter 37 changed from persecution of the 'anointed' to 'spiritual captivity' from the second century until 1919. The 'man with the inkhorn' in Ezekiel chapter 9 changed from symbolically marking people by preaching to Jesus judging individuals during the Great Tribulation. The joining of the 'two sticks' in Ezekiel chapter 37 redefined from reunification of the 'anointed' to the 'anointed' being joined by the 'great crowd'. |
| 2016 | The Delaware attorney general sued Watchtower for failing to report an unlawful sexual relationship between a 35-year-old woman and a 14-year-old boy. Watchtower settled by paying $19,500 in fines. |
| 2016 | A UK judge upheld a ruling against Jehovah's Witnesses for failing to protect a child sexual abuse victim. The Supreme Court also rejected the Watch Tower Society's attempt to block a Charity Commission inquiry into abuse allegations. |
| 2016 | Jehovah's Witnesses had the lowest average household income among surveyed religious groups in the United States, with approximately half of Witness households earning less than $30,000 per year. |
| 2015 | Changed the interpretation of the 'arrival of the bridegroom' from referring to 1919 to a future time of judgment. Reinterpreted the 'foolish virgins' from referring to Bible Students who rejected the Watch Tower Society in 1919 to hypothetical unfaithful 'anointed' individuals. |
| 2015 | The Australian Royal Commission investigated the Jehovah's Witnesses organization's handling of child sexual abuse cases, finding no clear evidence of systematic reporting to police for 1,006 alleged perpetrators since 1950. |
| 2015 | Jehovah's Witnesses in Switzerland denounced cult expert Dr. Regina Spiess for 'defamation' following a press release and an interview in Tages-Anzeiger. |
|
We are only showing the most recent entries for this topic. |
|
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Jehovah's Witnesses practices, Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jehovah's Witnesses' handling of child sexual abuse, Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses, List of Supreme Court cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses & Development of Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.