Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses. 2nd ed.

Description

444 pages
Contains Photos, Bibliography, Index
$22.95
ISBN 0-8020-7973-3
DDC 289.9'2

Year

1997

Contributor

Reviewed by Patricia Morley

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Review

Before he was forced to leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1980, M.
James Penton served as an evangelist for the movement in several
countries for many years. His first book, Jehovah’s Witnesses in
Canada: Champions of Freedom of Speech and Worship (1976), presented a
very favorable portrait of the Witnesses. Apocalypse Delayed is, in
Penton’s own words, “far more critical.” In this book, he
considers the movement’s intolerance toward dissenters within its own
ranks, and he challenges some of its doctrines. He attributes much of
the movement’s alienation from the world to its strange millenarian
eschatology. This is a balanced, well-documented, and fascinating study.

Citation

Penton, M. James., “Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses. 2nd ed.,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed December 3, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/3832.