As much as we would like to believe that our record has been free of such things, the fact is that schisms, scandals, conflicts and controversies have been present within the Organization since its founding. While many of these events have gotten spun as "sifting," "gleaning," and "refining," of Jehovah's organization, and many scandals have been brushed off as the work of apostates or persecution from Satan or others, we Christian Jehovah's Witnesses cannot deny the truth about our own history and must recognize that we err when we choose to ignore the significance of these events.
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.--George Santayana (1863 - 1952), The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
