73% of JW's leave "The Truth." Jehovah's Witnesses 2008 statistics revisted

by Spook 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Spook

  I participated in several discussions on this forum regarding the self reported statistics of Jehovah's Witnesses and the deep fundamental flaws in their methods. After arguing with my JW family about these issues, I encountered today a new independant religious survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. This survey was huge in scope of test group when compared with other similar surveys, including more than 35,000 U.S. adults. The findings can be read summarized at msnbc.com http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23337807/

  Noteworthy points in this survey show the presence of massive affiliation swapping in all American religions. As I have argued many times, JW's typically have success based on the presence of previous Christian ministry work and are largely unskilled in debating major religions such as Islam and Hinduism. In other words, they are riding the coat-tails of traditional missionary activity which came before them. The trend from leaving orthodox faiths to smaller groups extends to all denominations. There is more discussion to be had on this about the lack of success in Muslim nations and the real means of comparision for the efficacy of preaching would be to study first generation conversions from non-christian belief systems.

  The most delightful statistic in this survey, however, was the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses have the worst retention rate of all American religions with only37% of those raised in the sect remaining as members. The flipside of that is that 63% of Jehovah's Witnesses leave the religion!!! This was interesting to me. I've long predicted that the true decline will begin as the proselytizing runs up against necessary boundaries that can be analyzed in terms of marketing niches.

  My specific prediction is that the missionary work of orthodox religions has mostly come and is soon to have reached it's limits. The conversion from orthodoxy to other charasmatic and unaffiliated sects will then take over. The retention rate problem of Jehovah's Witnesses will then catch up since no new niches of preaching are available. I also predict from these arguments a change in the ethnic makeup of the organization and the self announcing of so-called "anointed ones" who want their ethnic group to be represented in the governing body. I anticipate the society will publish an excuse for the delay of the end such that "Jehovah wanted members of all nations to be included in the heavenly slave class." This will be followed by delocalization of white american leadership and will gradually undermine the centralized authority of the governing body. Just predictions, but stay tuned for a more detailed argument!
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  cognac

  I noticed a lot of topics with the societys stats... Anyone know where I can find stats by year? And does practicing members = highest average publishers?
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  WTWizard

  I like that people are walking out of the Watchtower Society. I hope they have a miserable time trying to bring in new members from field circus as people are looking up the subject on the Internet before committing, and seeing what a scam it is.
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  Spook

  You can google "Jehovah's Witness statistics." There is a whole site dedicated to that. There is some ambiguity between "average peak publishers" and "peak average publishers." It's clear to me, and I intend to document, that the increase in the united states is the result of changing the policy on time keeping and a fervent push to show an increase in any way possible.

  You can look at "memorial attendance" as an indicator of casually associated members, including bible studies and previous members not in good standing. Another excellent indicator is the relationship between total hours and total baptized in a given year. An interesting metric of the preaching work is whether or not it is taking more or less time per each conversion. From JW statistics it appears that approximately 61% of those baptized are unaccounted for. This self report gives the number as 73% and is inclusive of active JW's who do not believe. One could compromise and say approximately 2/3 of all JW's leave the organization. For that trend to continue, each member of the 1/3rd remaining must in their lifetime convert or give birth to at least 2 other members to maintain membership. If you account for the average stable birthrate, things are not looking good for them.
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  bluesapphire

  I think the new trend is to HAVE BABIES!!!

  My sister who has been waiting "until the New System" and pioneering for years has recently announced that they are thinking about having babies and she hopes to have twins.

  This is so "untheocratic" of her. Another long-time pioneer is on her second baby already in the past couple of years.

  Seems like the trend will spread.
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  sacolton

  DOES IT NOT WARM YOUR HEART?
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  serendipity

  The Dallas Morning News (print edition) reported on the PEW survey, but didn't mention this (or JWs) in the article. There was a graph though that listed JW's. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/022608dnmetreligion.351d0cc.html
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  MeneMene

  the increase in the united states is the result of changing the policy on time keeping

  Spook, I believe you are correct in this assumption. Also remember they removed Alaska from the list. I assume they added those Alaska numbers to the U.S. numbers which would account for part of the % increase.

  Last night I was looking at the numbers on the 2006 & 2007 Service Reports. They are showing an increase in congregations also for the U.S.

  My father still has a magazine delivery route and also has a "bible" study with an older invalid man. The man can not leave his home so there is no hope he will ever become an active witness. It's nice for the man to have someone visit him but all that time is being reported monthly adding to the statistics. My mom no longer goes door to door but I have noticed she keeps a field circus slip on the dining table and every time she can preach to someone that comes to their house she writes it down and turns in her time.

  My elderly aunt has 2 or 3 JWs come to her home every week for a study. She will never be an active witness again and goes to no meetings but she enjoys the company and the 2 or 3 wits that come see her get to report a couple hours each for each visit.
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  Spook

  Last night I was looking at the numbers on the 2006 & 2007 Service Reports. They are showing an increase in congregations also for the U.S.

  As I see it, the rise in congregations is best explained in terms of the foreign language groups. As I understand it (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) if one "Kingdom Hall" has multiple congregations meeting there, then these are counted in duplicate. I see a tremendous conservatism of scare financial resources in the form of having multiple congregations meet in the same location.

  On the point of adding Alaska: That is interesting and I hadn't considered it.

  On the change in standards of reporting: Consider a few facts.

  1. In most traditional Jehovah's Witness congregations the elderly and infirm constitute a sizable portion of the population. In a typical congregation of 100 witnesses, there may have been 10% to 20% at least of witnesses who were elderly and infirm.

  2. If even 1-2 persons per congregation on average became reactivated as a publisher in response to the new standards of minimum reporting then the actual rate of increase of Jehovah's Witnesses is negative with respect to population increase. If any more than that per 100 publishers have become reactivated then Jehovah's Witnesses are experiencing a net decrease.

  I know particularly in the rural U.S. the amount of elderly and infirm ones in English congregations is often greater than 20%. If you discount youths who do not report time then the amount of elderly ones as a percentage of possible adult publishers rises considerably.
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  pseattle2

  Slight correction to your math: It should be 63% of JW's leaving the truth. 100 minus 37 is 63.