Hello, all.

[Tonus]

Thanks for the clarification. I ran into a lot of JWs while I was on a Mormon Mission in Poland, so I only heard bits and pieces of what they believed. Is it true that they believe the 2nd Coming of Christ already happened?

Yes, that is their belief. If you are a present-day JW and you avoid any message but that of the Watchtower Society, you believe that Jesus began his heavenly reign in 1914 and that this was the start of the end times (last days, final hour, etc). You believe that this was what Charles Russell (founder of the group that became the Jehovah's Witnesses) believed and taught and that it hasn't changed since it was revealed to him.

If you happen to go elsewhere for your information, you will learn that the date of that second coming varied significantly throughout Russell's lifetime, and his belief was that the end times would officially end in 1914 with the battle of Armageddon. He died in 1916, figuring that the end was still pretty close, even if he'd missed the mark.

I once told another JW on a different forum that there's a reason the Watchtower Society doesn't release Commemorative Editions of their older literature, even though they often quoted from it in their current publications. Russell's writings varied from being odd to being outright bizarre, and the WTS has abandoned nearly everything that he taught, and revised their history to keep the membership from knowing that.