WT decision makers = hopelessly out of touch

by watch the tower 15 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  watch the tower

  I worked at the HQ for a few years in the 90's and I've personally known and met several influential bethelites during my time there. These are brothers that have been there 20-30-40+ years and hold various degrees of authority within the org. Looking back and thinking about these ppl, I can't help but comment how out of touch these people were. Of course, I didn't realize it at the time because I was out of touch myself.

  I remember Russ Kurzin (single old bro. has been there for 60+ yrs at the time) telling me that the holocaust happened because Satan wanted to get rid of JW. According to him, JWs were the main reason for that. I also remember a talk given by Br. Abrahamson where he elaborated on why Jehovah's modern day org. HAD to be in the U.S. and HAD to be in Brooklyn. He went on about the fact that only an org. HQed in an an economic dominant country could financially support the worldwide work and that it had to be located in a port city for shipping purposes, blah blah blah. Of course I believed it and was fascinated at the time.

  I've been living a "normal" life for some time now, thinking back, I can clearly see how detached from reality these ppl were by living that kind of institutionalized life for such a long time. You really live in your little bethel universe. They really have no idea what life is like on the "outside". Spending time with the cong. on the weekends doesn't give you a clue. Especially when most of that time is spent at the KH or in service anyways.

  To think that these clueless individuals are the people that are dictating how 6 million people on the "outside" should live their lives based on misapplication of scripture is really frightening. The recent anti-education propaganda being promoted (among other things) is a direct reflection on how out of touch with the real world these ppl really are. It kind of explains how they come up with all these self centered prophecies in the Revelation book too.

  I hope this self-centered, compartmentalized ideology will eventually lead to their downfall. Maybe it already has??!!

  Can you feel the gap getting wider between their reality and ours?
• 

  TopHat

  Yep! They are distroying the org. from within and don't even have a clue they doing it.
• 

  willyloman

  I also remember a talk given by Br. Abrahamson where he elaborated on why...

  I heard him give a fascinating talk about the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the British in 1588, linking it to end-time prophecies in the Bible. He had all sorts of dates attached to prophetic verses (so many days "equal" such and such a year)... He was the mad scientist, thoroughly convinced he had a secret to share. As I recall, we just ate it up. Afterwards, there was major buzz about how brilliant this guy was and how much there was to learn about "real" world history. We all looked forward to the new system when such secrets would at least be revealed. Of course, none of these revelations were ever put down in writing. Thinking back, I am just amazed at how gullible we were. We really WANTED to believe.
• 

  Emma

  I remember listening to the counsel and knowing how it was nearly impossible to live like they wanted us to, and how they couldn't possibly understand, and yet feeling guilty for feeling that way. They're really aliens, aren't they.
• 

  Black Man

  Hello WTT,

  I so agree with you. I was at the house around the same time you were and it was very telling how detached from reality many of the old timers were. While I enjoyed my convos with them and had a good rapport with many of them, they were delusional. The ones who weren't just grinned and beared it, because they realized that it was too late to leave and start over again on the outside.

  When I found out who authored various articles on education, prophecy, and other things that directly impact the everyday lives of witnesses, I actually lost my feeling of awe towards the org, because I realized how sheltered and unbalanced a lot of these men were.
• 

  AK - Jeff

  Never went to Bethel [thank God for that], but wifey and I used to get angry at the constancy with which the Wt articles would repeat that if you followed thier 'formula' for raising childen they would turn out good and stay in the 'truth'. We knew that most of these guys never had children or lived in the 'real world'.

  They never got the reality of how hard it was to accomplish - or course now that we have left I see they did us a favor. Our daughter did not stay in the 'truth' and now that we are out that is great. But it sure pissed us off every time one of those articles came out purporting the 'correct way to raise kids'.

  Out of touch is right on.

  Jeff
• 

  Emma

  if you followed thier 'formula' for raising childen they would turn out good

  And what followed is that if your kids had problems (acted like normal kids) you were judged as somehow deficient for not following Jehovah's (aka gb's) instructions. They were so clueless and yet, we judged ourselves.
• 

  sweet tee

  Wassup black man? I feel you on this:

  When I found out who authored various articles on education, prophecy, and other things that directly impact the everyday lives of witnesses, I actually lost my feeling of awe towards the org, because I realized how sheltered and unbalanced a lot of these men were.

  That's how I felt after reading COC. The curtain had been lifted and the wizard was a wacko!!!
• 

  95stormfront

  I tried pushing this point with my wife some time ago, about how out of touch with reality some of the WT articles were, but with the orgs constant admoniton that this is "food at the proper time" from jehovah himself, it's hard to cut through the borg interference.

  My wife had plans all lined up to go back to school, finish her degree, but after that summer drama, scuttled the whole thing in favor of more study and meeting attendance, but through it all, it seemed to not have diminished her lust for a brand new house twice as big as the one we're in now in a new neighborhood.

  She hasn't had to work in the last 10 years thanks to my wholly ignoring this same type of educational counsel from the elders in our home some years ago and although now I can afford it, she's as "out of touch" with what it has taken and continue to take to gain and maintain something like that as the WT leaders are in the so-called bible-based advice they give.
• 

  metatron

  Yep, you have guys at Bethel who view the whole world thru the fearmongering deception of the

  Awake magazine. Many of the Watchtower's disasters happened because of their extremist and

  isolated viewpoint - such as having elders investigate married couple having oral sex, the loss of

  voluntary contributions, and pushing young people out of the organization by things like having

  TWO CHAPTERS in the "Your Youth" book on masturbation!

  It also explains their jaw-dropping response to child molestation scandals by claiming that they

  were unaware that it was such a big deal in the world.

  metatron