Long Time Current Bethelite's Take On the Young, New Gov. Body Members

by Seeker4 46 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  onacruse

  jgnat, you've been very kind to put up with what might otherwise seem like me "digging" at you...and you know me well enough to know I'm not! That's not my agenda, either with you or any other poster on JWD.

  As for as your observation:

  The succeeding generations have not managed to maintain the vitality of the old.

  I agree. But I would attribute this more to a demographic, than an essential, aspect of human nature. Thus my statement that the WTS of the 50s has never been recaptured (words to that effect). But why? Was it because there was a fundamental shift in the human psyche? No; imho, it was, and continues to be, simply a result of the post-WW2 babyboom, the effects of which are observable across the entire spectrum of world society, and which are looming upon us to this day in other non-religious ways (immigration, emmigration, currency exchanges, etc.).

  Interesting that you mention the Quakers. They have, indeed, "suffered" from their tenets...and yet there is an interplay between the Quakers and Mennonites that ensures the perpetuation of both.

  As someone famous once said: "You can take the man out of the religion, but you can't take the religion out of the man."
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  jgnat

  Onacruse, I think we know each other well enough to understand that this is a war of ideas. Nothing personal, nothing personal at all in this exchange. On the other hand, be nice, or I'll change your avatar again!

  As a side-note, I've been updating my family tree, staunch Scots who settled around Renfrew, Ontario. Now, THOSE generations stuck to their own "kind". I finally tracked down one great-uncle who apparently broke the mold. He married an English and switched from Presbyterian to . Oh, the to-do.
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  onacruse

  On the other hand, be nice, or I'll change your avatar again!

  LOL!!! And I thought I looked pretty darned good as Burtie. Wifie thought different.

  I dug out a book from my library: What Mennonites Are Thinking...with my two-fingered typist skills, it will take me a bit to transcribe it, but it's very pertinent to what we are talking about here.

  Craigster
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  onacruse

  Sorry for the delay...got FIOS installed, and various and sundry other "honey-do" tasks, LOL.

  From What Mennonites Are Thinking (1999), in the chapter entitled Three Shifts and Five Dilemmas (pp. 82-87)(by Merle Good)(I'll have to do this in parts)(bold added):

  For readers less acquainted with our various Mennonite peoples, it may be helpful to mention three major shifts which have been taking place during the past two decades.

  Remember that all of our Mennonite-related churches in the world today total only about one million members. That seems like a mere drop in the bucket of humankind. It means that out of every 6,000 persons in the whole world, one person is related to one of the dozens of groups in our faith family around the world. (It's likely that God never gets around to thinking about us until at least five-o-clock in the afternoon!).

  So are there any observable trends among our peoples, insignificant as we are?

  THREE SHIFTS

  1. The majority of membership worldwide has shifted south, outside of North America and Europe, probably never to be reversed. Congo, Ethiopia, India, and Indonesia now join the United States and Canada as the six countries with the largest Mennonite membership.

  2. In North America, the membership in the Old Order and conservative groups will surpass that of the more modern "mainstream" groups by the year 2005, according to our best estimates. Contrary to popular perception, the groups with the more intentional boundaries are growing faster and retaining more of their young people than those with less defined identity. (A side note--a big factor in the mainstream groups having been able to maintain their membership numbers in the past years has been the decision of numerous large charismatic congregations to maintain their Mennonite affiliation; the irony is that these congregations are placed within a 'politically incorrect' status by the main church bureacracy).

  3. The major shift among the two largest "mainstream" groups in North America has been a merging of those groups, simultaneous with a re-dividing along national lines into a U.S. church and a Canadian church. Political issues needed to overcome polity differences for this to happen, and the membership in the two resultant groups is already less than the two original groups started with.

  Even this far, I daresay that similarities between the Mennonites and the JWs are blatantly obvious.

  It gets better.
• 

  Mulan

  revived for Seeker4
• 

  Gordy

  I seem to recall that when the two 50 yr olds joined the GB there was surprise. It was thought maybe "young blood" would make a difference. But those whose knew the two remarked how Watchtower minded they were.

  Like many other organisations who hit a bad patch, changes at the top often result not in looking at why they are having problem, but in tightening the existing system, rule and regulatons up.

  Its always a case of "The fault is not with us , but with you."
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  stevenyc

  As the GB have no official control of the corporations, it will be interesting to see who has the larger stick on certain policies of the Watchtower.
  
  As molestation cases and the like appear, it is the corporations who dig deep in their pockets to pay for the gag money, not the GB.
  
  Just a thought.
  
  steve