Watchtower Panics As It Tries To Block JWs From The Facts

Watchtower is running scared. The September 2026 JW Broadcast, hosted by governing body member Kenneth Cook, spends over half its runtime warning Jehovah's Witnesses about doubts, misinformation, and apostates. It quietly admits that witnesses don't want to go out in service anymore. And at one point, Cook shows a deepfake of himself to warn viewers that anything critical of the organization might be AI-generated and fake.

The broadcast's theme is "You Can Succeed in Coping With Tests of Faith." Watchtower would not spend this much time on the people it calls apostates — former Jehovah's Witnesses who speak out about the religion's doctrines and policies — if it weren't losing the information war. This is what fear sounds like.

A History of Failed Predictions Dressed Up as a "Test of Faith"

Cook opens by comparing today's witnesses to the Hebrew Christians of first-century Jerusalem, who had to wait roughly four years between the Roman army first surrounding the city and then returning to destroy it in 70 CE. He uses that gap to explain away modern doubt: this is just a "waiting period," he suggests, the same kind the first Christians endured.

But the comparison collapses under its own timeline. Watchtower's version of "waiting" has gone on for roughly 150 years:

The full end of the times of the Gentiles would be reached in AD 1914... that date will see the disintegration of the rule of imperfect men.

That's from Studies in the Scriptures, published in 1889. In 1920, Millions Now Living Will Never Die said:

We may expect 1925 to witness the return of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In 1968, Awake! said:

The 6,000 years will evidently finish in the autumn of the year 1975.

And in February 2017, the Watchtower said:

The governing body is neither inspired nor infallible, therefore it can err in doctrinal matters.

Those are not the same kind of statement. Jesus Christ personally gave the first-century Christians a prophecy about Jerusalem's destruction — the four-year wait was a delay in timing, not a failure of the prophecy itself. Watchtower, by contrast, has a track record of roughly 30 failed predictions by my count, made by a publishing company, not the savior of the world. Comparing the two isn't an argument. It's a diversion.

Manufacturing Doubt Into a Character Flaw

To illustrate the "doubts" test, the broadcast leans on its own drama, Walk by Faith, Not by Sight, featuring two families, Shabu and Naam, who fled Jerusalem. In the clip Cook plays, Naam is unable to let go of one question: "Why hasn't the end come?" His companion's answer amounts to: I don't have the answers, but if we stay focused and patiently wait on Jehovah, it will all become clear.

That's the same answer, translated into modern terms, that Watchtower gives Jehovah's Witnesses today: never mind that the end has been announced and failed to arrive for a century and a half — just keep waiting. Cook then adds that "following direction will not always be easy, nor will it always turn out as we expect." Turn out as who expected exactly? It was Watchtower making the prophetic claims, teaching Jehovah's Witnesses those claims would come true, and then, when they didn't, shifting the blame onto the rank and file. After the failure of 1975, the Watchtower of July 15, 1976, told disappointed members to adjust their viewpoint, "seeing that it was not the word of God that failed or deceived him and brought disappointment but that his own understanding was based on wrong premises." The organization printed the date. The member got the blame when it failed.

Cook then quotes the apostle Paul, from Hebrews:

But solid food belongs to mature people, to those who through use have their powers of discernment trained to distinguish both right and wrong. Therefore, now that we have moved beyond the primary doctrine about the Christ, let us press on to maturity.

That verse praises people trained to use discernment. Cook quotes it to discourage Jehovah's Witnesses from using discernment on Watchtower itself. He offers three remedies for lingering doubt: deepen your personal study — but only inside Watchtower's own materials, never anything outside; talk to a mature Christian friend about your concerns — except that friend is obligated to report you to the elders, and repeated doubts lead to a judicial committee and shunning unless you recant; and stay busy in spiritual activities, because a busy person has no time to ask why none of the predictions came true. The instruction is to "extinguish" doubt — not resolve it, not answer it, not reason on it. Put it out like a house fire.

This isn't new. The Watchtower of February 15, 1981 said:

Jehovah is not pleased if we receive that food as though it might contain something harmful.

The same issue added:

True, the brothers preparing these publications are not infallible.

Two years later, when members pointed out the organization had changed its teachings before, the January 15, 1983 Watchtower answered:

This is independent thinking. Why is it so dangerous? Such thinking is an evidence of pride.

A Deepfake of Himself to Warn About Deepfakes

The second test of faith the broadcast addresses is misinformation. Cook defines it plainly:

Misinformation refers to false or misleading information, including opinions presented as facts, half-truths, and outright lies.

By that definition, Watchtower has been producing misinformation for about 150 years: 1914 would see "the disintegration of the rule of imperfect men," 1925 would bring the resurrection of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 1975 would end six thousand years of human misery, the generation of 1914 would not pass away (until it did, and then it meant something else, then two overlapping generations), organ transplants were cannibalism and then a conscience matter, blood fractions were forbidden and then a conscience matter — while the same governing body that produced all of that still demands unquestioning loyalty.

Cook then does something I've never seen the organization do before: he plays a fabricated clip of himself announcing an abrupt, unexplained change to the preaching work, to demonstrate how convincing a deepfake can be. The irony is that the fake announcement — "the governing body has decided... we are not in a position to give you details as to why" — sounds exactly like how Watchtower actually announces changes. In the last five years alone it dropped hour-counting for the ministry, overhauled the dress code, and expanded the rules on higher education, each time simply announcing the change with no real explanation and demanding compliance.

"Check the Facts" — But Don't Actually Look at Any Facts

Cook tells viewers how to fight misinformation, quoting Proverbs 14:15:

The naive person believes every word, but the shrewd one ponders each step.

His advice: carefully evaluate the source, check the facts, and be especially cautious of any information about the organization that doesn't come from jw.org.

That advice cuts against Watchtower itself. Every Watchtower publication is anonymous — no author, no committee named, not even the translators of the New World Translation are identified. By Cook's own standard, you can't verify who made any of it. And the Watchtower Online Library's archive stops at 1950 for the Watchtower magazine and 1970 for Awake!, leaving out decades of material Watchtower owns and could easily publish — including the failed predictions of 1914, 1925, and 1975, statements in the 1940s telling young people not to pursue families or careers, and a 1904 publication claiming everyone in paradise would be made white. It isn't a technical limitation. It's a choice about what witnesses are allowed to see.

Cook adds that witnesses should distrust "even what appears to be our printed publications" if it isn't verifiable on jw.org — meaning that anything Watchtower has quietly removed from its own site can now be dismissed as possibly fake. Former witnesses report that elders and relatives are already calling Jeffrey Jackson's testimony before the Australian Royal Commission — a government inquiry with a transcript and webcast — "AI," despite it having nothing to do with an apostate website. If a Kingdom Hall library used to keep the old bound volumes and no longer does, that's the same policy at work: keep the embarrassing material out of reach, then cast doubt on it when someone finds it elsewhere.

The Haggai Comparison: Doubt as Spiritual Sickness

The broadcast turns to the biblical account of Haggai, where the returning Israelites let discouragement stall the rebuilding of the temple. The presenters describe the Israelites as "discouraged, distracted, and not trusting" God — framing discouragement itself as a lack of faith rather than a reasonable response to hard circumstances.

The parallel drawn is that Israelites who once lived in exile started prioritizing panelled houses over God's temple. But it's worth noting what Watchtower itself told young Jehovah's Witnesses in the Awake! of May 22, 1969:

You will never grow old in this present system of things. You will never fulfill any career that this system offers.

Those teenagers are in their 70s now, many without a career, a degree, or a pension, because they were told the end was too close for any of that to matter. The broadcast still frames putting your own financial security first as "distancing yourself from" God. Meanwhile, by conservative estimate, Watchtower itself is sitting on roughly $55 billion in cash and assets worldwide.

"We Must Reject the Teachings of Apostates"

The next segment is a morning worship talk by Paul Gillies, a director of the organization's British corporation. He describes apostates as being "like smugglers," operating "in a clandestine manner, subtly introducing harmful thinking," and reads from 1 John 4:

Beloved ones, do not believe every inspired statement, but test the inspired statements to see whether they originate with God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

This is how you know that the inspired statement is from God. Every inspired statement that acknowledges Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh originates with God. But every inspired statement that does not acknowledge Jesus does not originate with God.

They originate with the world. That is why they speak what originates with the world, and the world listens to them. We originate with God. Whoever comes to know God listens to us. Whoever does not originate with God does not listen to us. By this we distinguish the inspired statement of truth from the inspired statement of error.

There's real hypocrisy in Watchtower choosing "test the inspired statements to see whether they originate with God" as its proof text, given that Jehovah's Witnesses are forbidden from actually testing what Watchtower itself says. And Watchtower has repeatedly disclaimed being inspired: in 1883 it wrote that it did not have "the gift of prophecy"; in 1896, that it would not have its writings "reverenced or regarded as infallible"; in 1947, that it left claims of infallibility "for the pope of Vatican City"; the same disclaimer resurfaced around 1950–51, 1981, and 1985, and again in 2017. Watchtower wants the authority of a prophet without the accountability of one.

Gillies asks whether apostates "confess Jesus" — the biblical test for genuine faith — but then redefines it to mean confessing Watchtower's specific theology about Jesus, not simply believing in him. He goes on to name three "marks" of apostate propaganda: cleverness ("apostates are very clever... we shouldn't underestimate them"), lack of love, and dishonesty, citing unnamed "letters containing lies and half-truths to authorities" meant "to encourage governments to restrict our religious freedoms" — without naming a source, quoting the letters, or citing any evidence.

Gillies then quotes Romans 16:17-18:

Now I urge you, brothers, to keep your eye on those who create divisions and causes for stumbling contrary to the teaching that you have learned... [and] avoid them... By smooth talk and flattering speech they seduce the hearts of unsuspecting ones.

From there he tells witnesses to avoid "not reading their literature, examining their websites, or even being tempted to add comments to their blogs," and to avoid "refusing to watch television programs that feature them" — language drawn from the July 15, 2011 Watchtower, which instructed Jehovah's Witnesses to refuse to read apostate literature, watch programs featuring them, examine their websites, or comment on their blogs. That directly contradicts Cook's earlier instruction to "check the facts" — it's impossible to check facts you're forbidden from looking at.

Gillies closes by quoting Job 17:8 ("the innocent one is disturbed over the godless" — footnoted as "apostate" in Watchtower's own translation) and Job 13:16 ("no godless person may come in before you"), reasoning that if Jehovah won't grant an apostate an audience, witnesses shouldn't either. He adds that susceptibility to "apostate ideas" rises when a person feels "offended," "disciplined," or "overlooked for a certain privilege" — recasting every legitimate grievance against the organization as a spiritual weakness rather than a fair response to real harm.

An Anonymous Translation You're Not Allowed to Verify

The broadcast pivots to a segment on Bible printing, building to Watchtower's claim that its own translation "restored God's name to its rightful place." Three problems with that claim, based on Watchtower's own record: the New World Translation's own foreword acknowledges "Yahweh" as the more correct pronunciation but retains "Jehovah" for familiarity; the name "Jehovah" was inserted 237 times into the New Testament in places where the underlying Greek manuscripts read "Lord," not "Jehovah" — that's adding a name, not restoring one; and the translation committee itself asked to remain anonymous. Cook's own rule from earlier in the broadcast — "if you can't verify it, can you really trust it?" — applies here too, and Watchtower fails its own test.

The Ministry Numbers Watchtower Didn't Want You to See

The broadcast debuts a new segment, "Love the Ministry," featuring testimonials from witnesses admitting that since Watchtower stopped requiring reported hours in November 2023, their time in the ministry dropped off: one describes feeling "a real weight lifted off my shoulders," another admits to postponing return visits, another calls herself "a small talk machine" who stopped believing what she was saying at the door. This confirms what the numbers already show. The Watchtower of May 2024 had asked, defensively, "Do such changes make our ministry less important, less urgent than before?" and answered "absolutely not" — the kind of denial you only print when you're worried the opposite is true. Once the social pressure of hour-counting was gone, and a witness could be counted simply by checking a box, participation declined, exactly as this broadcast now documents.

A Postcard From a Shrinking Country

The month's closing "postcard" segment highlights the preaching work in South Africa, calling it home to "hundreds of congregations." According to Watchtower's own service year reports, South Africa had 256 congregations in 2019 and roughly 125 in 2025 — a loss of about 131 congregations in six years. The average publisher count rose only modestly, from about 103,000 in 2019 to about 105,000 in 2025, a 1.6% increase in a country whose population grew 7.4% over the same period — meaning Jehovah's Witnesses are losing ground relative to the population, from one witness per 568 South Africans in 2019 to one per 600 now. The only reason the growth figure is positive at all is the 2023 change in how publishers are counted. This is the second broadcast in a row to use its postcard segment to spotlight a country that is, by Watchtower's own numbers, in decline.

What the Fear Actually Means

More than half of this broadcast was spent on doubts, misinformation, and apostates. A governing body member showed a deepfake of himself to suggest that anything critical of the organization not hosted on jw.org might be fake. Viewers were told to check the facts, then told in the very next segment not to look at them at all. A skit built its entire moral around a video that turned out to be fabricated — while real former elders and former Bethelites post real testimony about the organization every day, without needing AI to do it.

If Watchtower had the truth it claims to have, it would publish its own complete archive rather than hide the decades of failed predictions and doctrinal reversals behind a curated library that starts in 1950. Truth doesn't fear scrutiny. Watchtower does. That fear, more than anything said in this broadcast, is the real message it sent this month.