The main goal of the work is to find out the reason for the success of the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses and to identify the possibilities of countering them. It is also planned to establish the harmful influence of being in this organization on the physical, mental and moral health of the members of the Society and to reveal numerous facts of fraud in the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses. We also examine the erroneous opinions of the sect's leadership and cite arguments, the use of which has a successful effect on Jehovah's Witnesses during polemics with them.

In this work, the word "sect" is repeatedly used. Strictly speaking, in the Holy Scriptures, we encounter only the term "heresy" (Greek Ai}resiw - "capture, conquest, conquest; choice, freedom of choice; aspiration, inclination, gravitation; direction, school, teaching"). The word "sect" appears in the Vulg., where the Greek Ai}resiw is translated as haeresis in Acts 5:17, 15:5, 24:14, and as secta in Acts 24:5, 2 Peter 2:1, Galatians 5:20. The Apostles called heresy any teaching that distorts the God-revealed Truths (2 Peter 2:1-2, 1 Corinthians 11:19). In the period of the Ecumenical Councils, opinions that differed from those of the Church, that is, contradicted the dogmatic definitions of the Church, were also considered heretical. The term "sect" in the modern sense of the word began to be used in the era of the Reformation, when a mass of purely religious societies appeared that fell away from the dominant Church for doctrinal reasons. Thus, the word "sect" denotes a religious community that unites people whose teaching is at variance with the divinely revealed truths of the Universal Church. Accordingly, this teaching is called heresy. Interestingly, in modern Greek, the word "Ai}resiw" means a sect.

Of the organizations currently operating in Russia engaged in proselytism, the greatest danger is posed by totalitarian sects (other names: destructive religious associations, destructive cults), that is, authoritarian hierarchical organizations of any orientation, which have a destructive effect on the spiritual, mental and physical state of a person, and are in confrontation with the established social structures, culture and society. These terms are absent in the legislative framework of our country, but are used by specialists and are found in very authoritative documents 1.

"Jehovah's Witnesses" are, without a doubt, one of the most dangerous modern totalitarian sects. Therefore, the study of various aspects of its activities is carried out in detail, with the involvement of the literature of this organization.

CHAPTER 1. THE BACKGROUND OF THE WATCHTOWER SOCIETY.

1.1. HISTORICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL PREREQUISITES FOR THE EMERGENCE OF A SECT.

Those who have been in close contact with Jehovah's Witnesses know that the greatest effect in a conversation with them can be achieved not by using quotations from the Holy Scriptures, but by referring to the history of this sect. And the wisest thing to do is to recall the many predictions about the specific dates of the Second Coming, thanks to which the Watchtower Society was a resounding success. The history of this sect testifies to the great numerical growth of the ranks of its members every time new dates of the end of the world were announced. It can be assumed that the sermon found a response, first of all, among those Christians in whom eschatological expectations were strong. Such people were among representatives of all generations who lived for many centuries. Suffice it to recall the reaction to the predictions of Bernard of Thuringia, Vincent Verve, Arnaud de Villeneuve, Stofler, Father Pierre-Louis, and others.

With the rise of many Protestant denominations, the research of their members in the field of eschatology led to the emergence of theories linking the events of the Second Coming with the doctrine of the earthly millennium. The founder of one of the new trends in chiliasm was the English biblical scholar of the XVIII century Joseph Mead. Based on a literal interpretation of the text of Revelation, he asserted that the construction of the "Kingdom of God" would be completed within the framework of earthly history. The Revelation of the Holy Apostle John described, from the point of view of this theologian, the progress of mankind. At first glance, this theory resembled the teaching of some of the early Church Fathers, but the similarity here is apparent. The chiliasm of the first centuries implied the Second Coming of the Savior for the judgment of sinners and for the salvation of the righteous in a world mired in sin. Mead's doctrine of "progressive chiliasm" is essentially the opposite, since humanity itself must cope with the task of building the "Kingdom of God." By the 18th century, the theory of "progressive chiliasm" had become dominant in many Protestant denominations. It was shared by the Anglican polemicist and commentator on the New Testament Daniel Whitby (1638-1726), who corrected his Translation and Commentary of the New Testament (1703) from the point of view of this teaching. In America, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) became very famous, developing this concept in detail in his unfinished work "The History of the Work of Salvation". The author expected the opening of the Kingdom of Christ in America in the 20th century. The role of the United States, in the construction of the Kingdom of God, was assigned by theologians of the 19th century very significant. This is a characteristic paradigm of Protestant theology of that time. A typical speech delivered in 1840 by the Presbyterian pastor Samuel Koch to an English audience was: "in America, the state of society is without parallel in universal history. . . . I really believe that God has got America within anchorage, and that upon that arena, He intends to display his prodigies for the millennium" 7.

Modern Western civilization, even in a completely secularized form, is still the heir to Christian culture. Therefore, it is difficult for secular Western scholars to completely abandon the way of thinking that has been developed over a long period of time in the church environment. In this regard, it is not surprising that many social-reformist ideologies, trying to scientifically develop concepts of the future ideal order of life, bear traces of consciously or unconsciously perceived Christian influence. The various projects for the movement of mankind towards an ideal state, which appeared in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, contained nothing new. The idea of a messianic millennial kingdom left its mark on them. The German philosopher of the 18th century, Immanuel Kant, when discussing the possibility of building an eternal world and an ideal state, described his concept as "philosophical chiliasm." Tribute to the ideas of the millennial kingdom was paid by such utopian thinkers as Saint-Simon, Owen, Fourier. Karl Marx and Engels, in their Communist Manifesto of 1848, contemptuously referred to the social theories of these philosophers as the twentieth edition of the New Jerusalem, although it should be noted that Marx's Communist doctrine itself, in spite of its militant atheism and dogmatic materialism, has obvious features of "progressive chiliasm."