by Gill 9 Replies latest jw friends
'Advertise, Advertise, Advertise the Kingdom!' was the rallying cry for generations of JWs who readily SOLD the wares of the WTBTS.
Tax laws changed and the Slaves had to give their mags away freely or for a voluntary donation but still had to PAY for the Watchtower Wares.
So, are Jehovah's Witnesses simply 'peddlars of the word'?
What with the regular 'sales meetings', and the NECESSITY of recording and reporting sales made, I would suggest that they are.
What do you think?
Here's the definition of peddler from Merriam-Websters online:
: one who peddles: as a : one who offers merchandise (as fresh produce) for sale along the street or from door to door b : one who deals in or promotes something intangible (as a personal asset or an idea) peddlers>
I believe they fulfill both definitions, but one could quibble with the idea that they sell any 'fresh' ideas.
Thanks, Gopher!
My experience since leaving the WT Society has been that I have never met any other 'Christians' who have tried to SELL me something in the same way that the WT members do. Even with the donation arrangement, clawing money back for their own initial outlay, (for those who do pay for the mags) is important to dubs, and understandably so with generally having a low income.
But the WT's obsession with money.......well that is second to none!!
I have never met any other 'Christians' who have tried to SELL me something in the same way that the WT members do.
Yet when I was a JW, I didn't think of it so much as selling. Now I see that I was a pawn of the WT Society, being cynically used as free labor from a very young age to promote their dubious teachings.
Back in the 60's it seemed that way.
Jaguarbass - Perhaps the only thing that has really changed is that it is the WTBTS that is selling its wares to its members rather than the members asking outright for money from householders.
The enormous profit that the WT makes ie I read that at one point it cost 2 C to produce and distribute each mag to the congs. whereas the R and F were selling them for 25 C each! That is an enormous mark up for a 'non profit making' organization!!
Hi Gill
The Watch Tower Corporation has done something I think is incredibly clever (and profitable). They have labeled everything from medical treatment to employment as "religious". It took multiple trips to the United States Supreme Court to establish direct door to door sales as a religious practice, but they did it.
The Watch Tower Society began it's life as a business involved in commerce. Later they added manufacturing, then paid direct sales, and then a sub culture evolved and meetings were autonomously organized to read the predictions for the end of the world.
The Bible Students had three huge losses all within the three years between 1914 and 1917. They lost their 40 year expectation to see the end of the world in 1914, their leader died in 1916, and they lost their corporation and all their assets in 1917 when their attorney stole the company with the help of inside dissenters.
The Society went from a religious end time Second Adventist group to a lobbying political action organization. Rutherford actually set his sights on overthrowing the United States government next and he was thrown in prison for his political activity along with the other directors of the Society.
After he got out of prison is when Rutherford realized his original mistake and he set about to make everything imaginable into a religious activity until today there is nothing in a human's life that is not seen as a part of religion by the Society.
Today the Society has enough paying members to be able to afford to focus on the Witness people as it's customer base as well as it's unpaid labor pool. The Society has done a good job of diversifying it's income streams. Literature is not a current income stream. The income is member donations, invoicing the congregations (taxation), solicited direct donations at conventions, convention hall rental fees, construction of branches, manufacturing buildings, convention arenas, and kingdom halls.
Now the Society has found a way to rent the Witness people their own Kingdom Halls. The whole scam is incredibly clever.
Good thread, thanks for starting it.
Watchtower May 1, 2002, p. 12, par. 14 Meeting Divine Requirements Magnifies Jehovah
It is voluntary; we never charge for any part of our ministry [even though we did do so for over 75 years]. No, “we are not peddlers of the word of God” [anymore]. (2 Corinthians 2:17)
Brackets? What brackets? I didn't stick different dates in than Grayson used, did I? OHHH! You mean where I corrected what seemed to be a deceptive self-aggrandizement about the nature of the organization into a more closely factual representation of it? I figured the factual candor would make the organization much more appealing to honest-hearted ones.
Yes, they are and always have been peddlers of the word of God. So is everyone who is trying to sell an idea about the way the Bible should be understood.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
I remember as a witness when we were out peddling our magazines and someone would accuse of trying to make money off of the Bible we would show them the scripture "we are not peddlers of the word" as if somehow showing them that scripture proved we weren't. It seems kind of funny now when I look back on it.
Ironically the French NWT translated "peddlers" as "colporteurs," which was precisely the former title (copied from the terminology of late 19th-century Bible societies I guess) for the WT "pioneers".
This sometimes led to strange situations, such as using this text (and even showing it to the "householder") as an excuse to trespass "interdit aux colporteurs" signs -- "see, we are not colporteurs!" But at the same time, in areas where the police would interfere with the door-to-door activity, COs would encourage local JWs to declare their activity by filling an official "déclaration de colportage" form, and then some would "conscientiously object" because of this verse... (far memories from the early 70s).
As a side note, the Greek verb (which occurs only once in the NT) was a classic term of polemics among popular philosophers, accusing each other to "sell their stuff" for personal benefits and complying with the audience's demand. Paul uses it against Jewish-Christian "missionaries," just as he boasts of not living off his audience as they did (e.g. 1 Corinthians 9, where he seems to acknowledge that their stance rested on a "Lord" tradition, v. 14), relying instead on the support of wealthy private sponsors. These different ways of funding "Christian missions" of course influenced the contents of the "Gospels" they preached and the resulting church structures. The Jewish-Christian missionaries and their message had to be accepted by communities, whereas the Pauline mission had to please its "stockholders"first (cf. the charges against the "rich" in the blatantly anti-Pauline epistle of James). The WT system actually corresponds to neither, inasmuch as both "communities" and "wealthy supporters" have lost their control to an impersonal "organisation," which authoritatively rules everything.
