Defending and Legally Establishing the Good News - Know Your History! – Hayden C. Covington

[Bible Speaks]

Hayden C. Covington

1978 Hayden Covington Interviewed By Jerry MurrayInterview with Hayden C. Covington, former Watchtower Attorney on November 19, 1978. 

Covington represented Jehovah's Witnesses in several Supreme Court cases dealing with freedom of religion and freedom of press in the 1940s. He was also Vice President of the Watchtower Society from 1942 to 1945. Covington died two days after giving this interview.

- ‘Defending and Legally Establishing the Good News’, WTB&TS How the Governing Body Differs From a Legal Corporation 

ANNUAL meetings of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania have been held since January of 1885. When the ingathering of anointed Christians was underway in the late 19th century, the directors and officers of this corporation had the heavenly hope. In fact, this has almost always been the case. There was one exception. In 1940, 

Hayden C. Covington—then the Society’s legal counsel and one of the “other sheep,” with the earthly hope—was elected a director of the Society. (John 10:16) He served as the Society’s vice president from 1942 to 1945. 

At that time, Brother Covington stepped aside as a director to comply with what then seemed to be Jehovah’s will—that all directors and officers of the Pennsylvania corporation be anointed Christians. Lyman A. Swingle replaced Hayden C. Covington on the board of directors, and Frederick W. Franz was elected vice president. 

Why did Jehovah’s servants believe that all the directors and officers of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania should be anointed Christians? Because at the time, the board of directors and officers of the Pennsylvania corporation were closely identified with the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which has always been made up entirely of spirit-anointed men.