Books like Crisis of Conscience by Raymond Franz

"'...And the word was a god.' This mistranslation of John 1:1 by Jehovah's Witnesses has been vigorously refuted by Christians, and rightly so. Now, because the JWs have changed their line of reasoning in defending this key text, past refutations are obsolete. The new JW arguments are more sophisticated and their line of reasoning is far more subtle. To meet these new and dangerous misconceptions, this book focuses on the implications of the mistranslation of John 1:1 and John 8:58. Fallacies are exposed and dismissed in precise language that can be easily misunderstood by laypersons who have no knowledge of Greek. The misconceptions and mistranslations so enthusiastically propounded by JWs no longer need to be intimidating. Christians can intelligently and easily counterattack, using the clear and convincing evaluations given in this book" -- BACK COVER.

Jehovah's Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement is the first major ethnographic study of this enigmatic religious society. Through rigorously investigated case histories based upon the real-life experiences of converts, believers and defectors, it describes how the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society seek to achieve conformity in devotees, and to construct meaningful religious identities in a world whose excesses it vehemently reviles.Examining the Jehovah's Witnesses' dramatic expansion over the last 130 years, Andrew Holden reveals the dependency of this quasi-totalitarian movement on the very physical and cultural resources which have brought about the privatisation of religion, the erosion of community and the separation of 'fact' from supernatural faith. Asking vital questions about the ambivalent relationship of spiritual meaning to modern secular materialism, Jehova's Witnesses reconsiders the Witnesses' ascetic faith at once as an inverted form of pseudo-corporate 'branding', and as an anti-modern quest for certainty in a hostile world of relativism and risk.