The WTB&TS best defense against apostates

by Gregor 22 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Quentin

  had to be able to answer questions. We all had our bibles heavily annotated so we could start at the first scripture and work our way through a whole sermon. Now it seems as though JWs aren't prepared. Of course it was all garbage, but we took it seriously...Hortensia

  Missed this on the first read through....exactly....that's what most jw's did....

  You know the wts has always been a high control cultic publishing company...even in the good old Freddy Franz, Nathan Knorr days people were df'd, put on reproof and other whacky things went on...but, seems to me jw's of 30, 40 years ago were well versed in wt ideaology and didn't run from a housholders door...even if the householder admitted to being an ex-jw....

  Dimly, I can remember quick demenstrations of how to effectivly do door to door work...mini tms, if you will...before we even hit the streets...

  Not that it's a bad thing, but it appears the 1975 debacle along with the bethel purges dimmed the wt light...Terry and Hortensia are right....we went door to door prepared and did not take no for an answer....
• 

  barry

  In the old days the witnesses had a reputation for putting their foot in the door so the householder couldnt close the door.

  Ive never seen anyone writing about that here but with many non JWs it was well known.
• 

  Quentin

  In the old days the witnesses had a reputation for putting their foot in the door...Barry

  I never worked with anyone who did that, but you did hear stories...fifties to late sixties ther were still a lot of "old time jw's" around...ones that came up under Rutherford...these "old timers" inspired many next generation jw's to "work" those doors...hang tuff...as Hortensia said give a full blown sermon...if need be.

  These "old hard core jw's" inspired young ones like me, Terry, Terry's childhood friend Johnny and others to always be ready to witness. Saturday was "magazine day"....place as many watchtower and awake's as you could, at 10 cents a pop. If they didn't take the mags give them a tract, or older mags...never leave the door without leaving something behind. Our book bags were crammed with so much it's a wonder we could carry them.

  I remember Joe Tosti...little Italin guy...He started every presentation with: "You want to die, or live forever?" Then he went into the rest of the spell...someone said to him once " you people were here two weeks ago", Joe didn't skip a beat, "That's right and I'll be back in another two weeks till you take these" magazines, books, or whatever we were hawking that day...You can bet your bottom dollar that most, not all, but most of these folks if they reported 10-15 hours of "field service" a month that's the time they spent knocking doors.

  Don't get me wrong folks. wt message then was just as much crap as it is today. I'm not glorifying any of it. But these rank & file "publishers" were fearless and collected so many dimes and quarters that poured money into the coffers of the wts it kept those presses running full time.

  For the true beliver those were exciting times. Then 1975 blew up in their face, Bethel was purged, The old guard died off and the wt was changed forever.

  When I come to JWD and read the threads. Hear of all the changes and read, especialy, the boe stories it truly baffles me. I'm befuddled, what in hell keeps this animal alive? I don't get it. I really don't. The wtbts should have crashed and burned ten years ago. Ah well, so much for the walk down memory lane.