Will the JW's become mainstream?

by Save My Soul 28 Replies latest jw friends

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  Arthur

  Someone told my wife how sad she was because her daughter went to college. How pathetic can you get.

  I've always found it strange that university educations are so vigorously discouraged in Watchtower publications and talks, yet Bethel is more than happy to use the services of a JW who went to college to become an attorney, doctor, or engineer. If every Witness had actually followed the counsel of "the slave" and not gone to college, there wouldn't have been any loyal JW lawyers to fight those child abuse lawsuits. I guess the Society should be a little grateful for occasional disobedience.
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  barry

  garybus I dont think it would be necessary forthe WT to change its many doctrines to be mainsream. I think doctrines like Arianism, soul sleep could be retained. What would be necessary is to change the blood policy, shunning disfellowshiping and preventing people from getting an education.

  Of course without accepting the trinity doctrine they would be on the fringes of christianity and it would be hard for them to be included into fellowship with other christian churches.
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  neverendingjourney

  They will have to change the way the operate soon or they will become extinct. In my opinion, they are in a static intermediate position right now. They're able to maintain the status quo, but this will not last long. There will come a point in time when they won't be able to either scare their members into remaining in the fold or recruit sufficient amounts of new members to prevent a shrinking of their total numbers. In the next ten to fifteen years they will have to decide whether they want to mainstream their religion to retain their members or tighten the reigns, have a great purge, and continue as a smaller, cultish religion. Time will tell.
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  Farkel

  : Will the JW's become mainstream?

  No. Their whole reason for existence is to be anything but mainstream. To be mainstream would invalidate everything they stand for. They have set themselves up for the last 120 years to be nothing more than an apocalyptic cult which survives by selling books and mags.. Once they abandon that, they are history and their members will flee like cockroaches when the lights are turned on in the kitchen at night.

  Talk about painting oneself in the corner!

  Farkel
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  Gopher

  Farkel -- Good to see you again. I still have the link to dubsticks saved !!

  Neverendingjourney: Here's the option I'd bet on:

  tighten the reigns, have a great purge, and continue as a smaller, cultish religion
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  itsallgoodnow

  I don't know. If the membership wants to do what it wants and they don't want to lose that membership, then maybe. But if they want to maintain that high control, they'll need to keep demanding a huge commitment from the membership, as they have always done. So who knows? There could be "old school" membership hanging onto the way it is, alongside
  "say one thing, do another" more laid back membership, which could cause friction, but I don't know what that might result in. I'll be interested to see what changes over the course of my lifetime, if anything.
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  garybuss

  Hi Barry, You wrote: garybus I dont think it would be necessary forthe WT to change its many doctrines to be mainsream.
  
  You're probably right, I might not know what mainstream means. I might be thinking of fundamentalist. So are Mormons mainstream? I think of Mormons as a fringe group similar to the Witnesses and Scientology.
  
  Thanks for the wake up call. I need to rethink my assumptions and I think this topic is one of those.
  
  
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  5go

  The foundation of their religion has always been "be no part of this world". If they were to become mainstream, they wouldn't be "Jehovah's Witnesses" any more.

  Arguably, no the don't have trinity a plus to some and they have paradise on earth not really a plus but diffrent. Also no hell to go if you are bad.
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  lrkr

  It wouldn't take much for it to become a main stream conservative evangelist org. They already believe in being separate from the world, no college, etc.

  Drop the blood and 1914 and less service (happening on its own) and you will have something like a born again conservative christianity.
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  garybuss

  I always thought the reason Witnesses don't go to Hell when they die is because they have already been through hell working for the Watch Tower.