How do you anticipate the Watchtower's fall?

JH

Slowly and progressively, or rapidly after a specific date?

I think they're in decline now, and they'll slowly disappear. Most people won't even notice. Aside from the JWs themselves we're probably the only ones who care one way or the other. It will be a complete non-event.

W

Alligator Wisdom

A good possibility is that it may eventually splinter off into factions.

Alligator Wisdom (aka Brother NOT Exerting Vigorously by WTS standards)

Legolas

I think that 'new light' will keep them going...for awhile anyway!

lovelylil

I think they will come down pretty fast and not in the far off future. And I believe it will be the blood issue that does it. Lets face it, they are power hungry and money hungry - and like Danny Haszard says "a little physchopathic too". Since so many are leaving and they are not happy - to appease the JWs and keep those in the rank and file in, they will attempt to "tweek" this policy. Not completely reverse but "tweek" it and when they do they will not anticipate the backlash they will get. Many will NOT be happy and leave.

To support this view - I point out the new Awake on blood being an organ. They are going in that direction and by putting it in the Awake - they are "testing the waters". Mark my words, I said it here first, Lilly

Star Moore

Hi there:

Unfortunately, I think, it will only happen when Jesus comes and judges and establishes pure religion.. Yes, I think it will take that, to bring them down..

jayhawk1

I anticipate the fall of Watchtower to happen when they rejoin the UN (I think they will or already have under a different name) and Jehovah desides that is the perfect time to destroy the UN and all its supporters.

BabaYaga

...how do I anticipate it? With a happy tear in my eye, a smile on my face, and a lilt in my heart.

Seriously, I think Lil is right. They are going to try to slowly re-invent themselves... that is the plan of action of any corporation in trouble. We know about their falling numbers (good thing they can still baptize kids or imagine what their numbers would be) and of course, they are first and formost, a corporation. With a sticking point as huge as the blood issue, they have to be careful... they may lose more witnesses (who are broken-hearted about losing loved ones) than they keep by becoming more leniant.

The Catholic church re-invented itself. It went from being the huge dictatorship to being pretty ding-danged lax, liberal, and leniant. I don't know about you folks, but I have had lots of friends and aquaintances becoming Catholic by their own volition lately!

undercover

I don't anticipate it at all.

They'll continue to exist, in form or another. Look at the early Watchtower Society...they survived the death of their founder and leader, they survived all the doomsday predictions. They survived Rutherford's era which was just as wacky. They survived the frenzy surrounding WWII that resulted in real persecution to the followers in many areas.

They have evolved over the years in order to keep the corporation going. Looking at it from the outside now, I realize they've made big changes in the last 20 years or so...but most JWs don't realize that and keep on going thinking that the religion today is the same as it was 50 years ago.

The JWs are benign enough to the casual observer that they can continue to exist in the fringe of society, trying to trap the unwary into their belief system. There are all kinds of wacko religions and belief systems out there and people keep joining them. I mean, if a "religion" like the Scientologists can exist, then why can't the JWs?

OnTheWayOut

Money issues. After discontinueing the AWAKE magazine, and going once-monthly with Watchtower (with the OKM on pages 27-30), and only releasing tracts (no books) at the conventions (encouraging the friends to copy them at Kinkos for their preaching placements), it will be announced that all Brooklyn properties have been sold, so HQ is moving to Patterson, NY. Kingdom Halls will get crowded, because most of them are sold off, and the remainder will have to absorb the numbers, thus making it seem like there are still plenty of witnesses. A letter will go out asking for donations to cover a law-suit.

They will start having conventions at the assembly hall, because they are so small. One year, a standard donation will be collected at the door to the convention, so people will hardly show up. The Governing body will then make sweeping changes, but it would really be like trying to bail water out of a sinking ship.

That's my dream.