The WTS will go more mainstream re 1914 in the decade after 2014

by yadda yadda 2 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • yadda yadda 2
    yadda yadda 2

    With the deaths of Theodore Jaracz and John Barr imminent and likely to coincide with the fast approaching 100 year 'anniversary' of Jesus "invisible presence" as King since 1914, there will be some broad-sweeping changes to the Society's 1914 creed. In the last decade or so we seen a fairly consistent trend of the Society being prepared to fiddle with and drop certain date-based interpretations. This has been the result of the march of time simply painting them into a corner and revealing more of these old esoteric date-based prophecies to be false or in need of major adjustment. This trend shows that the Watchtower writers and GB are prepared to rethink these dates from time to time - and no doubt they have been thinking about what further changes may be needed if the end of this system doesn't come soon. They are aware that they are rapidly getting painted into a smaller and smaller corner with each passing year from 1914 and more changes will be needed. So when can we expect more changes and to what extent?

    Big changes will likely happen in the decade following 2014, which many JW's are no doubt secretly looking to as some kind of terminus ad quem of this old system. It will be increasingly hard for the WTS to insist that a period of time of 100 years and more is a "short period of time" per Rev 12:12. Already the strain is showing. More and more elders and MS's are resigning their positions and duties, meeting attendance is dropping quickly, and general apathy and atrophy is setting in. This downward trend is going to force them to re-think the whole 1914 creed in the years ahead.

    Here's what they will do:

    They will NEVER let 1914 go entirely, just as the 7DA's have never entirely let go of 1843. But what will happen at some point in the future is they will make Christ's kindly reign commensurate with the great tribulation and the one-thousand year reign but no sooner. They will admit that Jesus was never 'enthroned' as king in 1914 and will move anything to do with Jesus reign and kingship to the future, as they damn well should have done a long time ago.

    Revelation 12 will also be moved to having a starting point of when the "great tribulation" breaks out. The "short period of time" the devil and his demons have after being ousted from heaven will be parallel with the GT. Yes, the Kingdom will no longer have begun reigning in 1914, rather the start of its reign will be shifted forward to the start of the GT.

    Similarly, the four horseman of the apocalypse in Rev 6 will be moved forward to begin their ride when the great tribulation starts. This will tie in better with Revelation 7 and when the "four winds of the earth" begin to blow.

    BUT they will stick with the teaching that the 'last days' and the 'composite sign' began in 1914 because of the WW1 factor. They will never dump 1914 entirely because of WW1 starting then. So they will retain their faulty 607bce to 1914 chronology. The 2520 years landing on 1914 will be a chronology that pinpoints the beginning of the "last days" only. Some new interpretation of what "gentile times" means will also be made, most likely being: that the "gentile times" has a similar meaning to "Babylonish captivity", in other words, the "Gentile times" will be changed to only mean the power that the beastly gentile nations held over the anointed class until around 1919.

    They will also admit that there was no "arriving" in 1914 or 1919 by the master per Matt 24: 46. This is a glaring and outrageous contradiction with their own "new light" on Matt 25: 31, where they have taught (correctly) since 1995 that Jesus "arrives" in THE FUTURE to sit down on his glorious throne (something all other Christians have had right all along). So they will be forced to eventually go more mainstream by correcting this and moving Matt 24: 46 & 47 to the future, making them admit that the master has not yet appointed anyone "over all his belongings".

    So, in effect, they will separate the "appointment" in Matt 24: 45 to be from Pentecost 33CE onward to apply to JW's only, and they will move the "arriving" in v.46 to the future. Nevertheless....

    ....despite all that, they will continue to insist that only those Christians associated with the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society in 1919 have been uniquely feeding the domestics their "food at the proper time" per Matt 24:45 under Jesus' direction. They will restate that around 1919 a clearly identifiable "faithful and discreet slave" class was released from Babylonish spiritual captivity and has preached primitive Christian truth free from false Babylonish dogma.

    JW's will buy all this, because they will believe nearly anything the GB tell them and because these changes make a lot more sense scripturally anyway. Yes, they will finally go more mainstream with this, which will appeal to more people. But it will be done in such a way so that the Watchtower Society retains it's power and unquestioning authority over the majority of the rank and file. A fair number will probably stumble with such big changes to the 1914 creed but the WTS will survive the fall-out largely intact.

    yadda

  • WTWizard
    WTWizard

    I wonder about that. Even with Jaracz gone, Losch still has a few good years of destroying value ahead, and there is some tyrant that will take his place when the time comes. It's all about keeping absolute power, the cult ahead of its members.

    Of course, if I were to take that position, there would be sweeping changes effective immediately. I would open the floodgates to the public about any pedophilia or other foul play I can find, and disclose the full extent of it. I would also start fully integrating the Bible with real life, meaning it wouldn't be long before it became an atheist or antitheist organization with people totally free to do outside research. The goal I would have would be to create an Age of Enlightenment, instead of the Second Dark Ages they are trying to start now.

  • Alpaca
    Alpaca

    YY,

    As I was reading your comments it occurred to me that BORG is really just playing one of the biggest shell games in history.

    Sooner or later large numbers of Dubs will wise up to it (IMHO).

    The one ingredient they are missing that they need to survive is some charismatic leadership. There was a very interesting post a few days ago (I looked for it but couldn't find it) about the evolution of bureaucracies, whether they be governments or other organizations. The poster compared the evolution of the BORG's leadership from the days of Russell down to the present with the leadership of the Soviet Union and China. I have to say that the comparisons were compelling and if they are accurate the BORG will disintigrate.

    Cheers,

    Alex

  • OnTheWayOut
    OnTheWayOut

    They have totally rewritten their doctrine so many times, I would not be surprised
    by some drastic changes.

    The problem comes in their putting so much into 1914, and hanging on for so long.
    They have too much "no doubt" and "obviously" in their literature.

    Their tactics have been more along the lines, lately, of planting little seeds for
    doctrinal changes- seeing the reaction of the dubs, then softening the change to
    settle the nerves of the ones who were upset by the seeds. Another recent
    tactic was to directly ignore their own writings and never refer to them again.
    They would offer new stuff that doesn't contradict it, but leads everyone in a
    different direction.

    They never abandoned their 1976 apology for the 1975 prediction failure. They just
    stopped saying that a creative day was 7000 years. They added new teachings that
    did not contradict the old, but eventually just abandoned the old, hoping the members
    would do the same.

    The new "Generation" teaching, while 180 degrees out of phase with the last change,
    it doesn't really change anything. It just plants a seed for what they will write next.
    They see the reaction and decide how fast or slow to make further changes.

    1914 has too much depending on it. They will have to ignore it for awhile, just
    slowly offering "interesting possibilities" that can change it. Ultimately, I am confident
    that they will simply add more confusing doctrine on top of it, hoping everyone forgets
    the old stuff and moves on to the confusing doctrine.

  • Confucious
    Confucious

    Paint yourself into a corner. Wait till it dries. Walk over it. Paint some more.

  • Awakened at Gilead
    Awakened at Gilead
    OTWO: They never abandoned their 1976 apology for the 1975 prediction failure. They just
    stopped saying that a creative day was 7000 years. They added new teachings that
    did not contradict the old, but eventually just abandoned the old, hoping the members
    would do the same.

    Interestingly, when I was in Gilead, Liverance made reference to the 7,000 year day as if it were the current understanding. This threw me for a loop, since recent pubs don't mention it. But as you say it has never been officially overturned. So a Witness can still publicly believe it, although it doesn't seem to match current witness teaching. So not all members have abandoned that old idea.

    Liverance's point was that we don't know the difference in time between Adam's creation and Eve's creation. But he felt that the end would come 6,000 years from Eve's creation, not Adam's (which ran out in 1975). Strangely enough, he's not a Gilead anymore... maybe someone tattletaled his wierd ideas...

  • Tyrannus@sbcglobal.net
    [email protected]

    I deleted this post because I incorrectly formatted the carriage returns. I posted again below. Sorry for the double-post.

  • Tyrannus@sbcglobal.net
    [email protected]

    The Watchtower Society claims that Adam was created in 4,026 B.C. Who is to say that their understanding is correct? Some others teach that Adam was created around 4,004 B.C., and still others claim that it isn't possible to date the year of Adam's creation by using the Bible (because of contradictory genealogical listings). So, it seems premature for anyone to claim that they know the exact 6,000-year anniversary of Adam's creation. The very fact that the Watchtower Society has put any effort at all into trying to predict the year of the Lord's coming Scripturally proves them to be unwise.

    Mt 24:48-51 (Holman Christian Standard Bible) == "But if that wicked slave says in his heart, 'My master is delayed,' and starts to beat his fellow slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards, that slave's master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites."
    • One could only conclude that the Master is delayed if that one has presumed to know when the Master is coming.

    Luke 21:8 (HCSB) == "Then He said, "Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am He,' and, 'The time is near.' Don't follow them."
    • How many years has the Watchtower Society claimed that the time is near, or projected even the year that the end would likely come? How long have they claimed to represent the Lord on earth? How many people have been deceived by these claims?

    Mattew 24:42 (HCSB) == "Therefore be alert, since you don't know what day your Lord is coming."
    • Jesus Christ, the Word of God, makes it perfectly clear that it is not possible to figure out when he is coming.

    Acts 1:6,7 (HCSB) == "So when they had come together, they asked Him, "Lord, at this time are You restoring the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority."
    • It is not a Christian's place to attempt to have knowledge of things that God has decided to not share with humans. Or it's just the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge all over again (taking something for oneself that belongs only to God).

  • steve2
    steve2

    The recovery-ability of end-times religions never ceases to bring a smile to my lips. With older generations dying off, and a gradual shift away from doctrinal purity, there's huge scope for ditching beliefs that once were central to the religion's thinking.

    We ought never forget that it is not mere "reasoning" that keeps people tied to a religion. The other tie that binds many people to religion is the need for "special" meaning and purpose in life.

    Even if the "good ship" Watchtower goes belly-up and begins to slide beneath the dark, stormy waters, people will still cling to it, shouting above the surging din, "Where else can we go?" Um, to the nearest life boat. Duh!

  • SirNose586
    SirNose586

    I think they'll have to make whatever changes they have to so that Jesus doesn't look like he sat around and did nothing for 100 years. They'll continue to play games with the scriptures...the funniest thing they do is to change timings of events from one verse to the next!

    Also, the blood issue will probably be made into a conscience issue.

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