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Black Skin

I’ve learned something new today about early JW doctrine. They believed that God would turn everyone’s skin white in Paradise so that they would be perfect! Something really obvious – just as a sidenote to this – is that despite its worldwide pseudo-liberationist appeal, the “Governing Body” (the “annointed”) has always been composed of white males – with the recent addition of Samuel Herd as the first (and only) person of color.

Check out these quotes from jwfacts.com

Watch Tower July 15, 1902, p.216 “Noah declared, prophetically, that Ham’s characteristics which had led him to unseemly conduct disrespectful to his father, would be found cropping out later, inherited by his son, and prophetically he foretold that this degeneracy would mark the posterity of Canaan, degrading him, making him servile. We are not able to determine to a certainty that the sons of Ham and Canaan are the negroes; but we consider that general view as probable as any other.”

Watchtower 1904 February 15 pp.52-53 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin?” “What the Ethiopian cannot do for himself God could readily do for him. The difference between the races of men and the differences between their languages have long been arguments against the solidarity of the human family. The doctrine of restitution has also raised the question. How could all men be brought to perfection and which color of skin was the original? The answer is now provided. God can change the Ethiopian’s skin in his own due time. Prof. H. A. Edwards, Supt. of Schools in Slater, Mo., has written for the public press an elaborate description of how Julius Jackson, of New Frankfurt, Mo., a negro boy of nine years, began to grow white in September, 1901, and is now fully nine-tenths white. He assures us that this is no whitish skin disease; but that the new white skin is as healthy as that of any white boy, and that the changed boy has never been sick and never has taken medicines”

Watchtower July 15 1902 The Negro Not A Beast pp. 215-216. “While it is true that the white race exhibits some qualities of superiority over any other, we are to remember that there are wide differences in the same Caucasian (Semitic and Aryan) family; and also we should remember that some of the qualities which have given this branch of the human family its preeminence in the world are not such as can be pointed to as in all respects admirable….The secret of the greater intelligence and aptitude of the Caucasian undoubtedly in great measure is to be attributed to the commingling of blood amongst its various branches; and this was evidently forced in large measure by circumstances under divine control.”

The Bible versus Evolution p.30 “(God) has specially blessed and favored certain branches of the Aryan race in Europe and America. But the fact, that the white race has been more abundantly blessed with the light of the Gospel than others, is not to be understood to signify that when members of other races heard and appreciated the Gospel, they were repulsed or rejected by the Lord. … While the elect Church will probably be composed chiefly of the highly favored white race, nevertheless, it will probably have in it representatives out of “every kindred, people and tongue.”

Ancient history, of course, and not at all uncommon in Euro-American religious groups. Still…