Alan Feuerbacher, a long-time observer and critic of the Watchtower, has written a scathing critique of the Watchtower’s published view of “Creation” as presented in their March 2014 issue of the Awake! magazine.
You can read or download a full copy of Alan’s document here or from Alan’s original source here.
The magazine and article in question can be read online or downloaded here for a limited time at JW.org.
The Awake! article clearly puts the Watchtower deep into the so-called “Intelligent Design” camp. Those who are familiar with the Watchtower’s Creation teachings in the past will notice subtle but significant differences being introduced with this issue of the Awake! Here are some examples:
Creative Days
While a few conservative sects like fundamentalist Baptists and Pentecostals still hold fast to the literal “24-hour day” doctrine, the Catholic Church and most Protestant denominations take a more modern view that the “creative days” were of indeterminate length, possibly even millions of years each.
For decades Watchtower has admitted that “Creation” did not take place over six literal 24-hour days. The Watchtower, however, has promoted the idea that each “Creation” day was 7000 years long and that we are still living in the “seventh day of creation.” In fact (and to the Watchtower’s everlasting embarrassment), the late Fred Franz, the organization’s vice-president and chief theologian, determined that Armageddon would occur in 1975, because that year, he suggested, would mark “the end of the 7th day of Creation.”
Watchtower publications have waffled on the “7,000 year creative days” theory for some 30 years. Sometime between the early 1980s and 1987 they switched from “definitely 7,000 years” to an unspecified “thousands of years” or “millennia.” That practice continues in this latest issue of Awake! magazine. Mr. Feuerbacher’s critique expands on this subject and points out the Watchtower’s hypocrisy.
Creation of Life
Mr. Feuerbacher’s critique also correctly points out that the Watchtower now seems to be retreating on their longstanding position that God created each and every animal and plant pretty much as we recognize them today. So to make this statement seems to be their “soft” acknowledgement that at least some of Darwin’s theories about the evolution of species might have some validity. [Note: The recently released movie “Noah” (April 2014) suggests this same theory to explain how examples of every living creature on the earth at the time could have been transported on a single vessel for nearly a year.]
You will enjoy reading Alan Feuerbacher’s excellent overview. You can see additional discussion and comment about this at http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/278660/1/Critique-of-Mar-2014-Awake-on-Creation-by-Alan-Feuerbacher.