Transcripts: Enjoy Life Forever!

Transcript: How Christianity Was Corrupted
[Colour sketches of Jesus and his Disciples]
Presenter: All who truly followed Jesus reflected the light he radiated. But Jesus foretold that after the death of his apostles, there would be a falling away from pure worship.
[Artwork: People with arms up in protest]
That apostasy would be so extensive that genuine disciples would practically disappear until “the conclusion of the system of things.”
[Text: Matthew 13:40]
At the same time, a counterfeit form of Christianity would flourish.
[Christendom’s religious leaders stand over a large crowd]
And so, it happened.
[A huge cross cast its shadow on the crowd. Portrait of Pope Innocent X]
So-called Christian churches deviated from Christ’s teachings.
[Trinity image 3 heads in one]
The result was the abuse of power and untold suffering.
[A man tortured on a breaking wheel. Another man’s arms chained and stretched]
This was a period of deep darkness.
[A priest with arms outstretched and head held high. Geoffrey W. Jackson. Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses]
Geoffrey: In the centuries after the establishment of the Christian congregation, we see how many of those who were taking the lead in the Christian church (or, the Christian congregation) likewise started to love worldly wisdom. These ideas that came from Plato and other Greek philosophers started to infiltrate the so-called Christian thinking.
[David H. Splane. Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses]
David: And so, the apostates wished to blend Christian teaching and Christian tradition with pagan religious ideas. The idea was to make these things more acceptable to other pagans so that pagans could be drawn into the Christian religion.
Presenter: As the centuries passed, apostate religious leaders obscured the light even further by keeping the Bible in Latin, a language no longer understood by most people.
[A copyist writes in Latin]
Yet, at certain points during this darkness, there were still individuals who felt keenly the need to read and understand God’s Word.
[Bearded man reads the Bible]
For example, in the 1100’s, a French merchant known as Vaudès commissioned a translation of Bible books into the language of the common people.
[He writes with a feather pen]
Two centuries later Catholic priest John Wycliffe wrote powerfully against unbiblical practices of the church.
[In front of clerics, he points to the Bible]
By 1382, Wycliffe’s team released the first translation of the Bible into English.
[Tyndale with Bible meditates]
His students, known as Lollards, preached the Bible’s message to anyone who would listen.
[Sketches of Lollards preaching]
By 1495, the invention of movable type made it possible to print all or part of the Bible in 12 languages.
[Older man reads the Bible to a young lady]
Man: Our Father which art in heaven, . . .
Presenter: Soon, people were reading it for themselves. And some who did began to discern that the church had gone off course. In the 1500’s, such men as Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Luther, and John Calvin preached the need to return to the original principles of Christianity. These men and others tried to expose hypocritical practices and uphold Bible teachings even though this put them at odds with powerful religious authorities.
Geoffrey: You can see ones that were willing to stand out as being different even though they didn’t have a full knowledge of the truth.
[Sketch of a woman being stabbed in the heart]
Presenter: But standing out led to persecution,
[Burnings at the stake]
and persecution often led to compromise,
[A soldier with a sword holds a man down]
especially when it came to preaching.
[A civic hanging]
Nevertheless, in many lands, the 16 and 1700’s were marked by a strong upsurge in Bible study.
[A man with Bible in hand preaching to an assembly]
In England, many learned men refuted the Trinity doctrine as unscriptural. Among them, scientist Sir Isaac Newton, poet John Milton, and chemist Joseph Priestley. Besides rejecting the Trinity doctrine, Priestley declared that the teaching of the inherent immortality of the soul was false.
[He writes]
He held that the first-century Christians had the true faith and that any change to that pattern of belief was a corruption.
[He sets his pen down and nods with satisfaction]
(Logo: Black capital letters JW.ORG inside a white box. Copyright 2010 Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania)