High speed fighters sometimes employ a technique called ‘terrain masking’, a form of aerial maneuver intended to prevent anti-aircraft weaponry from focus and destruction of the airplane. Basically the pilot keeps the plane very low in altitude and shapes his flight, hugging hills and dales, with the hope that the enemy is not able to focus for long enough on the target to destroy it. Planes flying at operational altitudes are in the sights of the enemy for a long time, relatively speaking, but those flying close-to-ground altitudes reduce the effective sighting to but a fraction of that time.
In my view, and looking back, this is what the Watchtower society did following it’s colossal failure with the 1975 predictions. In trying to answer the question; Why did you stay after THAT? I have determined that clever maneuvers lead those of us who witnessed the matter to stick with the organization, even defend it, in the years after.
1976 became a point of critical mass for many. I saw only one person leave our little congregation in the immediate aftermath of 1975. But the larger picture was clearer to those looking. I never knew why, but looking back, I think she left over realization of the false-prophecy. The rest of us stuck around. We were in a bit of a quandary as to what it all meant I suppose. But the overriding concept that this was ’God’s organization’ held us within.
The Watchtower began to issue disclaimers to it’s past predictions even before the date it had lead us to believe would mark Armageddon. In the January 1, 1975 article entitled “Will You Live to See Christ’s Coming?” they began to set up protection to the charges that would come if they were wrong with comments like this:
But nobody should get the idea that, simply by chronology, he can calculate the time of that “coming” of Christ for executing judgment. Christ himself told his apostles: “Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father.”—Matt. 24:36.
Of course, no individual Witnesses were doing so. No individual Witness would ever dare and take on the task of calculating that time. It was in reality the Watchtower Society who had done all the speculation. For years they had made both verbal comments, and comments in print, that evoked powerful emotions, and held us in anticipation of 1975, like this one in the August 15, 1968 Watchtower;
30 Are we to assume from this study that the battle of Armageddon will be all over by the autumn of 1975, and the long-looked-for thousand-year reign of Christ will begin by then? Possibly, but we wait to see how closely the seventh thousand-year period of man’s existence coincides with the sabbathlike thousand-year reign of Christ. If these two periods run parallel with each other as to the calendar year, it will not be by mere chance or accident but will be according to Jehovah’s loving and timely purposes. Our chronology, however, which is reasonably accurate (but admittedly not infallible), at the best only points to the autumn of 1975 as the end of 6,000 years of man’s existence on earth. It does not necessarily mean that 1975 marks the end of the first 6,000 years of Jehovah’s seventh creative “day.” Why not? Because after his creation Adam lived some time during the “sixth day,” which unknown amount of time would need to be subtracted from Adam’s 930 years, to determine when the sixth seven-thousand-year period or “day” ended, and how long Adam lived into the “seventh day.” And yet the end of that sixth creative “day” could end within the same Gregorian calendar year of Adam’s creation. It may involve only a difference of weeks or months, not years.
Powerful sentiments like that, played a significant emotional role in bringing me into the organization. Without such constant reference to the end, and pointing to every event of a negative nature to ‘prove’ it as fact, I likely would have not become such a quick convert in my late teens, perhaps I never would have. But the groundswell of interest in the Society as the place of salvation grew in the years leading to 1975, with more than one year recording in the area of 300,000 new baptisms. Mine had been among them. But by 1978 the tide began to turn. Less than 100,000 new Witnesses came to the step of baptism.
Those powerful emotions remained however, and prevented us from clear focus on the failure of the organization. Our indoctrination has destroyed a healthy view of any other religion. We had labeled it ‘false religion’ for so long, and fought so diligently against it’s doctrines in our door to door ministry, that rejection of the Witness faith was all but inconceivable to me.
Several catch phrases dominated my thinking in those days;
“Wait on Jehovah”
“Where would we go”
“The false doctrines of Babylon the Great”
“Surviving the end”
Those of us already ‘hooked’ did not leave so readily due to the ‘loaded language‘ that seemed to put us still in an enviable position. By now we had learned not to think, and to believe we were thinking at the same time. And those that did leave were labeled as ‘pursuing worldly pleasures’ or ‘turning their backs on Jehovah’. Those evil labels worked to keep us around, to dare not question that this was still ‘Jehovah’s organization’. Still, for my part, the ministry cooled a bit in those following years. I maintained my responsibilities, and I preached above the ‘national average’ each month. But the responsibilities of adult life were taking more and more of my time.
During the late 70’s my wife began to press to begin a family. I agreed. But we were disappointed to discover that we could not conceive. I recall sitting in a specialist’s office as he explained various methods that would allow my wife to have a natural child. One of them was artificial insemination. We rejected that option outright, due to the Society’s position on the matter at the time. We chose instead to pursue the adoption of a child. As with all independent decisions, it was not looked upon as particularly favorable, and I perceived that we were being gossiped about for our decision.
A new chapter of our lives was about to begin. It should have been filled with total joy, and there was some of that of course. But the ’brotherhood’ was about to show it’s true colors over the next few years. Those colors would aid us to eventually see the ’Truth’ for what it was. But our realization of that fact was still many years away.