Jehovah's Witnesses use God's name Jehovah, go door to door, and read their own translation of the Bible.
Restorationist & other movements1872arose within Seventh-day Adventist
Charles Taze Russell's Bible Student movement developed in the 1870s amid interest in biblical prophecy. Under Joseph Rutherford, the name Jehovah's Witnesses was adopted in 1931. Witnesses are known for public preaching and distinctive teachings on political neutrality and blood transfusions. Their reported active publishers are a specific measure, not interchangeable with baptised membership; see the profile for dated figures.
Jehovah's Witnesses identify as Christians and emphasize Bible study, public preaching, the divine name Jehovah, and God's kingdom. They reject the doctrine of the Trinity, a significant difference from Nicene Christianity. This page explains their teachings and those differences without judging members' sincerity or religious identity 1,3.
The movement began in Pittsburgh in the 1870s around Charles Taze Russell, a young man from a Presbyterian family who had lost confidence in the doctrine of hellfire and went looking through Scripture for what it actually taught 7,6. He drew on Adventist expectations of Christ's return, concluded that Christ's presence would be invisible rather than visible, and began publishing in 1879 the magazine that became The Watchtower. His readers, the Bible Students, were a loose association of congregations rather than a church, and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was formed to print for them 6,17.
Joseph Franklin Rutherford took over after Russell's death in 1916 and made the movement into something tighter and more organised. In 1931 he proposed the name Jehovah's Witnesses, taken from Isaiah 43:10, both to mark what the group was for and to separate it from the other Bible Student groups that had gone their own way 6,8. Under Nathan Knorr from 1942 came the training schools, the missionary programme and the New World Translation, and the work spread worldwide 9,11.
The twentieth century tested them hard, and their refusal to salute flags, take up arms or say Heil Hitler is why. In Nazi Germany about ten thousand Witnesses were imprisoned and some two thousand sent to concentration camps, where they wore the purple triangle; as many as twelve hundred died and around two hundred and fifty were executed. From 1935 the Gestapo offered them a paper to sign renouncing their faith, and during the war almost none signed it 12,15. In the United States two schoolchildren, Lillian and William Gobitas, were expelled for not saluting the flag, and the case they lost in 1940 was reversed in 1943 in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which established that the state cannot compel anyone to speak, a protection every American now has 14,13.
The name is the doctrine. Witnesses hold that God has a personal name, Jehovah, that it belongs in the Bible wherever the Hebrew has it, and that using it is part of worship. Everything else is arranged around the kingdom: a real government, already established in heaven, which will shortly replace human rule and restore the earth to what it was meant to be.
Their own statement of where they differ is worth quoting because it is briefer and plainer than any summary: they believe the Bible teaches that Jesus is the Son of God and not part of a Trinity; they do not believe that the soul is immortal, or that there is any basis in Scripture for saying that God tortures people in an everlasting hell, or that those who take the lead in religious activities should have titles that elevate them above others 3. The dead are unconscious and await a resurrection. A limited number, which they read from Revelation as 144,000, will rule with Christ in heaven; the great crowd of the faithful will live for ever on a restored earth.
Several practices follow that outsiders notice first. Witnesses do not use the cross in worship, keep no birthdays or Christmas, do not vote or serve in the military, and refuse blood transfusions, holding that Scripture forbids taking blood into the body 3,6. The Society answers most of these questions itself, at length, on its own site 2. Baptism is by immersion and follows a course of study. Members who take up a course the congregation judges seriously wrong, and who will not change it, are disfellowshipped and other Witnesses limit their association with them; the congregation understands this as protecting the flock and as an appeal to the person to return, while those who have left often describe it as the hardest thing about leaving. Both accounts come from people who have lived it 6.
Worship and practice
There is no clergy and no collection plate. Congregations meet at a Kingdom Hall twice a week; the midweek meeting alone lasts one hour and forty-five minutes 19. The weekly schedule includes a public talk and a study of a Watchtower article at the weekend, and midweek a meeting given to Bible study, reading and practice in how to teach. Elders serve unpaid, everyone in a congregation is expected to take part, and funds come from boxes at the back rather than from appeals 1,6.
The other half of the life is the ministry. Witnesses call at homes, stand with literature carts in public places and offer free Bible studies, and participation in preaching is reported to the congregation each month 18, which is how the organisation counts active publishers: a publisher is someone who takes part in the preaching work. The one annual observance is the Memorial of Christ's death, held after sunset on the date corresponding to Nisan 14, at which bread and wine are passed but taken only by those of the anointed; Memorial attendance includes visitors as well as publishers 1,6. Congregations belong to circuits and branches under a Governing Body at world headquarters in Warwick, New York 16,6.
Scripture and Bible translations
Witnesses read the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, made by the Watch Tower Society, with the New Testament published in 1950, the whole Bible in 1961 and a revision in 2013 11. Its most visible feature is that it uses the name Jehovah throughout, in the Hebrew scriptures where the divine name stands and also in the Greek scriptures where it judges the name to have been intended, which is one of the main things other translators dispute about it.
They do not use it exclusively, and say so: the Society states that Witnesses continue to use many translations in the ministry, provide the New World Translation free as part of the Bible study programme, and are happy to study with people who prefer another version 4. The verses below are given in the American Standard Version of 1901, which is the major English Bible that also renders the divine name as Jehovah, and so shows in a familiar translation what Witnesses are pointing at.
In church
The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, published by the Witnesses themselves since 1950 and now available in whole or in part in more than 300 languages, is used in all their meetings and literature.
Heritage
Before 1950 the Bible Students read and printed the King James Version and the American Standard Version, valued for rendering the divine name as Jehovah throughout the Old Testament.
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the American Standard Version (1901) and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah. The verse the movement took its name from in 1931, and the plainest statement of what it thinks it is for.
The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell therein for ever.
The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever. Eleven words carrying the hope of a restored earth rather than a departure to heaven.
how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly, and from house to house,
Publicly, and from house to house. Witnesses read Paul as describing a method, and they have organised a worldwide religion around it.
People
Charles Taze Russell1852 to 1916 A Pittsburgh businessman who lost confidence in the doctrine of hellfire, began studying Scripture with a small group, and from 1879 published the magazine that became The Watchtower.7
Joseph Franklin Rutherford1869 to 1942 A lawyer who led the movement after Russell, reorganised it under central direction, and proposed the name Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931.8
Nathan H. Knorr1905 to 1977 President from 1942, who built the missionary training school and the congregation teaching programme, and under whom the movement grew from about a hundred thousand to more than two million.9
Frederick W. Franz1893 to 1992 The principal figure behind the New World Translation and the movement's leading Bible scholar for decades, later its fourth president.10
Lillian Gobitas1923 to 2014 A twelve-year-old expelled from her Pennsylvania school in 1935 for refusing to salute the flag. Her family lost in the Supreme Court in 1940, and the reversal three years later is now a foundation of American free speech.14
August Dickmann1910 to 1939 Shot at Sachsenhausen in September 1939 in front of the assembled prisoners for refusing military service, the first conscientious objector executed in Nazi Germany.15
Today
The Watch Tower Society publishes annual figures using a defined measure of preaching participation. For the 2025 service year it reported a peak of 9,205,326 publishers in 119,652 congregations. Publishers report preaching activity and include both baptized Witnesses and qualifying unbaptized participants. Memorial attendance was 20,635,015, a separate measure that includes visitors 18,5,6.
They are present in most countries and banned in some. Russia declared the organisation extremist in 2017 and Witnesses there have been prosecuted and imprisoned since; the movement is also restricted in a number of other states 12,6. Government sits with a Governing Body at Warwick, New York, which directs teaching and organisation worldwide, and the printing operation that made the movement recognisable has largely moved from paper to jw.org, which publishes in more languages than any other website 16,1.
Words to know
canon
The list of books a community counts as Scripture. Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox canons overlap almost entirely and differ at the edges.
creed
A short statement of belief said together in worship. The Nicene Creed is shared by nearly every Christian tradition.
Trinity
The Christian teaching that God is one in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A few bodies on the tree do not hold it, and say so.
ordinance
In Baptist and many other free churches, the word used for baptism and the Lord’ Supper: acts Christ commanded his people to keep, understood as obedience and remembrance. Churches that call them sacraments understand them as means through which God gives grace.
excommunication
Being formally cut off from a church, so that one may no longer receive its sacraments. Luther was excommunicated in 1521.
prophet
In the Bible, someone who speaks God's message to the people, often calling them back to justice and faithfulness. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos were prophets.
congregational government
Church government in which the members of each local congregation decide their own affairs, including choosing their own minister, with no bishop or presbytery above them. Congregations may join associations for fellowship and shared work, but those bodies advise rather than rule.
martyr
Someone killed for refusing to give up their faith. The word means witness. The early Church honoured its martyrs and kept the days of their deaths.
Christmas
The Christian feast of the birth of Jesus on 25 December, kept since the fourth century; churches on the Julian calendar keep the same date on 7 January.
Because they read Matthew 24:14 as a task given to the whole congregation rather than to a clergy, and Acts 20:20, where Paul taught publicly and from house to house, as a description of how. Every Witness is expected to share in it, and preaching participation is reported monthly, which is how the organisation counts active publishers 18,1,6.
Are Jehovah's Witnesses Christians?
They identify as Christians and explain their distinctive teachings: that Jesus is the Son of God and not part of a Trinity, that the soul is not immortal, that there is no everlasting torment, and that religious leaders should not hold elevating titles 3. Their rejection of the Trinity differs from Nicene Christianity. This page distinguishes their Christian self-identification from disagreement over that doctrine.
Why do they refuse blood transfusions?
Because they read the command in Scripture to abstain from blood as applying to taking it into the body by any route. Witnesses accept most other medical treatment, carry documents setting out what they will and will not receive, and the hospital liaison committees they run have pushed forward techniques for surgery without transfusion that are now used on other patients too 3,6.
Why don't they salute flags or serve in the military?
Because they hold that God's kingdom is a real government to which they already owe allegiance, so they stay neutral in the affairs of nations. That refusal cost them enormously in the twentieth century, in Nazi camps and in prisons on several continents, and it also produced the American Supreme Court decision of 1943 that the state may not compel a person to speak, which protects everyone 12,13.
What is the New World Translation?
The Bible published by the Watch Tower Society, with the New Testament in 1950, the whole Bible in 1961 and a revision in 2013, best known for using the name Jehovah throughout 11. Witnesses do not use it exclusively; the Society says they continue to use many translations in the ministry and are happy to study with people who prefer another version 4.
Sources
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Jehovah's Witnesses: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/jw/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
Found something wrong? Send it through the contact page. A correction checked against two sources is made within a week and logged in this page's change history.
Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
