16 Facts About James Penton

Marvin James Penton was a Canadian historian and author.

James Penton was baptized in June 1948 and was sent by his parents to Arizona because of ill health.

James Penton married Marilyn Mae Kling when they were both 19.

James Penton gave examples of what he claimed were distortions of New Testament texts to support Watch Tower Society teachings on house-to-house preaching, criticized the appointment of elders chiefly on the basis of field service records and described circuit overseer visits as "military inspections".

The letter, which was distributed among some Witnesses in Lethbridge, prompted accusations from within the organization's hierarchy that James Penton was denigrating and opposed to the preaching work and resulted in pointed talks by the circuit and district overseers in Lethbridge warning that anyone who suggested the religion's Governing Body had made "lots of mistakes" about the issue was lying, "blaspheming the organization" and trying to destroy it.

James Penton resigned as an elder in December 1979, but a day later withdrew the resignation.

James Penton received a one-page reply to his letter from the society's headquarters in January 1980 that urged him to adjust his viewpoint or remain silent.

James Penton subsequently appeared on a national current affairs television program in Canada defending the religion's doctrines and denying its leaders were guilty of false prophecy.

The book gained brief mentions in the society's magazine The Watchtower and three years later in a Yearbook article about the Witnesses' history in Canada, although James Penton later wrote that he found it curious that the society refused to quote directly from it or otherwise mention it in publications or conventions.

James Penton began work on Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses soon afterwards, but halted his research and writing in 1979 after developing concerns over what he viewed as a growing punitive response of the religion's leadership to doctrinal dissent from within its ranks.

James Penton resumed work on the book after his expulsion and it was published in 1985.

James Penton describes that the Witnesses have attempted to rewrite their previous history under the Nazi government by concealing early overtures to Adolf Hitler and sidelining the group's antisemitism.

The failure of those efforts and the persecution by the government, James Penton states resulted in the Witnesses in 1933 going back to their earlier position of opposing the Nazis.

Garbe suggested James Penton's interpretation reflected a "deep-seated aversion" against his former religion and that "from a historiographic viewpoint James Penton's writings perhaps show a lack of scientific objectivity".

Scholar Kevin P Spicer states that Penton considers statements by leader Joseph Rutherford and the Witnesses as important toward understanding their attempts at dealing with the Nazi government by distancing the group from Jews and altering their pro-Jewish position.

James Penton edited two journals, wrote five articles about Jehovah's Witnesses, and wrote the Canadian Encyclopedias entry about the religion.