A gradual decline or sudden collapse for the WTS?

by DT 34 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Locutus of Borg

  A man named P.T. Barnum put it very succinctly . .
• 

  jwfacts

  Gradual decline.

  Look at the history of similar religions like Worldwide Church of God. Despite changing almost all their beliefs in one hit, the religion just fragmented and continues as several smaller groups. People will follow any nutty religion because they are gullible, hence the now more than 30000 christian sects.
• 

  Maddie

  Sadly I think it will continue in one form or another, as has already been suggested on this forum. Karl Marx said "Religion is the opiate of the masses"

  "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people"

  I am not an advocate of Karl Marx by any stretch of the imagination. I have a Christian faith but religious organisations, especially cults like the JW's are evil and exploit vulnerable people for their own ends. IMO this will always be a fact while the world is like it is.

  Maddie

  
  
• 

  BurnTheShips

  On the other hand, I believe it is a very intense and dynamic organisation that may be vulnerable to catastrophic collapse if it faces the right combination of challenges.

  I do too. The majority of the growth is children. The rest is non-english language. As immigrants become more sophisticated, these will drop off as well. I've already seen it happen in Spanish language in some areas. Apathy is rampant. They are shedding 100,000 a year. They still have tricks up their sleeves such as the tract campaigns. They will try new tactics. The change in routine keeps the rank and file from getting bored. The new insiders only WT and the changes in the public talk are examples.

  Right now the Tower is like a load bearing wood beam that looks sound. Inside it is being eaten by termites. When it fails, it will be ugly.

  Burn
• 

  blondie

  There will always be a WTS. It is evolving though with the doctrine change making 1935 no longer a cutoff date for the calling of jws to heaven (anointed) and saying that some of the anointed are the generation that will be on earth when the end comes. That way there will always be a younger generation of jws coming in every year making the end still future. If all the anointed were dead and the end didn't come, their prophecy would be exposed as false. Last year 8758 partook as anointed and 9105 this year, an increase of 347 following an increase of 234 from the previous year. I wonder how many will partake next spring?

  The WTS definition of "scripturally-based" really means "we are the FDS and because of Matthew 24:45-47 anything we say is as good as a scripture."

  Blondie
• 

  besty

  I'm always conscious that just because I've left the Borg doesn't make its demise any more likely in the near term.
  
  Its always tempting to believe that 'your' times are somehow more significant in the grand scheme than actually is the case.
  
  Thinking about events in Brooklyn in the late '70's/early '80's it must have difficult not to speculate on the end of the WTS - 1975 just failed, apostasy in the GB etc etc and yet it has doubled in size from there...
  
  I think there is a natural level for the WTS in each country and in the Western countries that level has been reached. We are seeing global population migrations and that is affecting growth figures in the West (2007 3% figure - most thriving congs seem to be Spanish in America or Eastern European in Western Europe) Overall there may be indefinite modest global growth, bus as JWFacts points out +200,000 JW's against +100,000,000 is insignificant. They are just_another_American_cult who are a lot less important that they think. Like a small horn speaking grandiose things...wait a minute...:-)
  
  In business terms one source of revenue (JW's) has peaked and is levelling off and another has to be found to take its place. Sale of Brooklyn assets, property development and stocks investment can be just as or more profitable - hence IMHO JWs are a 'front' for the real business of the WTS. Possibly a loss-making or earnings-neutral front at that. RBC's are one example of sweating the assets in the field for long term gain, ultimately transferring assets to HQ and keeping cash assets and cashflow optimal.
  
  In this scenario Jaracz and his goons can get increasingly hardline as perversely the most demanding religions are the most attractive/fast growing and the WTS is not dependent on the membership for revenue. Recent examples - don't do external research, don't do oral sex, don't do higher education etc etc - not new restrictions but trending more conservative - almost certainly some new bizarre ideas on the way in the WT Kool-Aid edition, probably the Internet and suitable recreation for starters?
  
  The other possible outcome is a 'black swan' event.
  
  In Nassim Nicholas Taleb's definition, a black swan is a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. Taleb regards many scientific discoveries as black swans—"undirected" and unpredicted. The September 11, 2001 attacks are often referred to as a Black Swan event. The term black swan comes from the ancient Western conception that all swans were white. In that context, a black swan was a metaphor for something that could not exist. Google was a black swan - everybody else was looking at content and Google focused on search against all received wisdom.
  
  For the WTS a black swan may either destroy them, defang them or catapult their growth. Things I can think of are:
  
  1 - Religion gets banned. End of story. Destroyed.
  2 - Shunning made illegal and equal rights for all (gays, women etc)mandated. Blood using lesbian Elders take over.Defanged.
  3 - Localised nuclear war in Middle East. Oil goes $300. Global recession. Environmental meltdown. WTS predict Armageddon in 2014. Membership rockets.
  
  <marks post for review in 5 years> <grin>
  3 -
• 

  BurnTheShips

  3 - Localised nuclear war in Middle East. Oil goes $300. Global recession. Environmental meltdown. WTS predict Armageddon in 2014. Membership rockets.

  Something along these lines is quite likely IMHO. Apocalyptic cults would skyrocket.

  Burn
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  The WTS has proven to be resilient and resourceful and they have a powerful hold on most of their members. They try to hide disturbing news from their members and many are unimpressed even when we tell them about what is happening. The fact that so many of them are willing to overlook things like the UN involvement and the pedophilia issue is a powerful testimony to the power of the WTS.
  

  I'm not trying to be discouraging, but I believe it is unlikely that the WTS will slowly decline into oblivion. It has the resources to weather its current difficulties and many future troubles. It has perfected certain forms of mind control and is good at adapting to at least some kinds of changing circumstances.

  Don't give these guys too much credit. The men at the top making decisions at WTS are
  not reallly rocket scientists of business. They are still riding on the successes of the
  WTS of the 70's and 80's. Knorr built up the printing corp. and expanded the business.
  Since then, the literature production has been able to squeeze the dollars further, and
  because of the growth back then, the books and mags always sold well (with millions of
  JW's guaranteed to buy them and try to sell them).

  Since those days, things haven't gone so well. It's just that the WTS was such a success
  that it would take some really BAD decisions to screw it up. Given enough time, they
  will have enough BAD decisions.

  I believe there is still some profit in the literature, otherwise they would stop printing it.
  They have much fairly new printing equipment. They will keep using it, but try to stretch out
  it's use by reducing printing. The reduction shows that they are working on the bottom line-
  making sure that a profit margin is watched. Expect Kingdom Ministry to be sent to congs.
  via internet. Expect the calendars to go away. Expect WT and Awake to become one mag.
  
  Garybuss, on another thread, suggests that doctrinal changes gives a reason for printing
  new literature, and millions of JW's gives it a guaranteed audience. That will continue for
  awhile. That will continue giving JW's a reason to go to District Conventions- new light from
  new literature. Figure that, in the future, the first run of a new book will be the only run, so
  get one at the DC or you might not get it.

  My point- the WTS is slowly declining. The growth is in foreign-language congs. in lands
  like the U.S. and growth is in developing countries. Other growth is from children or
  inflated numbers from barely-active publishers. All these members keeping it growing will
  get tired of it. Many will stop publishing (selling literature). Slow decline is already in
  progress.

  Pioneers have learned to fully build up "time" with less productivity. Their product will get
  cheaper and their "time" will continue to become more and more fictional. More and more
  teens will go to work or college instead of pioneering. Maybe WTS will eventually drop the
  field circus, as profit gets too thin. Most non-pioneers only get out for less than an
  hour on Saturday, then go to the break meetup, make one or two return visits- and count
  3 hours for that Saturday. They would welcome the end of field circus.

  OH- eventually, they will be out of buildings in Brooklyn to sell. They will start dissolving
  congregations faster if they need money, stuffing more congs. in a single hall. But that's a way off.
• 

  Gayle

  I can only hope for gradual decline,,hoping that people outside of WTdom would get more informed (via Internet) before going in JW world or that their youth would re-check/re-evaluate their upbringing somehow thru Internet or seeing their tiring parents & grandparents & would by their nature want a better life. Once people are 'in',,giving up the elitism of believing one has all the wisdom & righteousness of God after all their sacrifice is unthinkable. The GB have already shown their unwillingness to change even when one of them tried for reconsideration but then was booted.
• 

  WTWizard

  They are behaving just like Enron did a couple of years before they went belly up. Fake time slips and inflated service reports are going to do them in, and quite abruptly at that. My guess is that, when they run out of money and assets, they are as good as down, and that could happen within a few days or weeks after the money runs out.

  I hope that the money runs out sooner than later. If enough people stop donating to the organization and they keep having problems with embarrassment, they are not going to collect enough money to make expenses. And the lawsuits are going to hit them. Without the money, they will not be able to expand into Africa. Also, the hush money's being gone is going to result in a flood of embarrassing blabbermouths blabbing about what they have done.