by Witness 007 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Since Russells time to now, how many Apostates are there in the world??
Take one example: Figures for 1995-2005 Publishers UP 1,413,934
Baptized UP- 3,306,223
Missing Publishers- 1,892,289 ???
If you factor in those that died in the 10 year period that is still alot of missing publishers compared to baptizms! In my Congregation 35% are inactive publishers including me. Even in Russell's time his own wife and stepdaughter Rose Ball turned Apostate. So, the total figure would be in the millions.
Figuring approximately 1% mortality for those years, it would be about 60,000 deaths per year times 10 years = 600,000 deaths.
But that still leaves over a million "disappearances".
Of course, you need to take into account (1) "new publishers" does not have an exact correspondency to "newly baptized" - usually a unbaptized publisher becomes baptized after several months or a year, but in the case of children, they may continue on as "unbaptized publishers" for many years, and
(2) Not all of those 1 million or so have become "apostate". I would venture that the vast majority have simply become "inactive", stopped turning in field service reports. Many of them are still tied to the congregations, attending meetings & assemblies, etc. Probably a great many of them still believe it is the "truth", they just can't keep up on the hamster wheel any more.
But it is still a significant number!
These same figures apear in other decades especially after 1975 major decline in pubs.