by Terry 65 Replies latest watchtower scandals
(Matthew 24:44) 44 On this account YOU too prove yourselves ready, because at an hour that YOU do not think to be it, the Son of man is coming.
(Luke 12:39-40) . . .. 40 YOU also, keep ready, because at an hour that YOU do not think likely the Son of man is coming."
I never bought into the 1975 date because of these 2 scriptures. If everyone thought it was coming in 1975, then it wasn't.
Great Post, Terry.....!!!
I was sitting in a bank waiting room, when I first learned about the event of 1975. There was a magazine laying on a table, it had an article in it about JWs and the end of the world prediction. I am pretty sure it was a "Time" mag.
I had spoken to witnesses at the door a couple times, so knew who they were. A couple years later when they managed to start a study with me, I remembered the article and asked about it, they just blew it off, as you stated....
By then, the article was fuzzy in my mind, and as gullible as I was, I went along with it....
Cas
Excellent read! Your explanation of what happened regarding 1975 is so well written and true.
Was it just a marketing strategy I think so
It kind of quantifies the stupidity the the organization though didn't it, or perhaps its corruption !
Men will derive power and money in the most insidious of ways...........yes
hi terry -- just to let you know i really enjoy yours posts. i remember being at the assembly in 1968 (either Yankee Stadium or Jersey City - somewhere near NYC) and my Bethelite fiance came excitedly with the new red "Life Everlasting" release and said, "Armageddon is coming in 1975." There was an insistent buzz throughout the whole stadium, like a game of telephone but everyone saying the same thing. it will happen in '75. subsequent days in my cong. saw wayward offspring suddenly returning, preaching insistently. everyone kept talking about it tho my father expressed his doubts to my immediate family. later on when wts started to backpedal, i remember the faithful playing recordings of various speakers definitely saying it was coming. we all waited with anticipation. of course, you know, i left it all in '76 - husband, friends, religion, me a former pioneer with no education and no money and no friends and no frame of reference. somehow i managed and nothing was ever the same for me again.
Others went into a mind spin and pretended nothing had actually been said.
My mother is one of those "WE" expected-too-much-from-1975 people. "WE"
went beyond what was said. She still expects Armageddon within her lifetime.
Always, always, always, always include the money and power factors in any
such schemes. What was the end result?
The numbers-crunchers at Brooklyn had some modernization to pay for.
The members were selling (actually selling for a set price) literature like crazy.
The number of new members was going up pretty fast. Those new presses and
computers would get paid for. Encouraging Freddy Franz made him the scapegoat.
It was easier to take away his total dictatorial power after such a big blunder that
they encouraged, but HE started and blew out of proportion. The Governing Body
was pretty much established out of the ashes of the failed doomsday. The number
of members was larger after failed doomsday than it would have been if they never
encouraged such a doomsday attitude. WIN-WIN for the numbers-crunchers, and old
man Freddy really enjoyed the ride. Sure, he crashed and burned afterward, but it
wasn't so bad. He still had 3 squares and a nice room, a nice office, fancy trips.
I would say that in the last couple of years, the Governing Body has been dropping
hints that doomsday is imminent. (I know they always do that, but MORE SO recently)
I think they are hoping to whip the flock up into a frenzy, but they are hoping the flock
takes the ball and runs with it, instead of using the Governing Body as their whip. I think
they hoped to have the C.O.'s and elders get the ball rolling, reading into articles past what
they say. Nobody on the GB wants to be the scapegoat, but they just don't have the
willing members to go beyond what the GB writes. Their weeklong elders schools probably
are intended to tell the elders how the GB is so sure this time, that the elders really need
to talk up the imminence of the time we live in.
I bet they choose to whip the frenzy up on their own if the members don't start it up. They
see the rats abandoning the sinking ship. The money flow is in the wrong direction. They
will long for those pre-1975 days and figure they can get the cash-flow and the excitement
back. I imagine it will happen between now and a few years before 2014. It won't match the
1975 frenzy because many on the GB won't want to apologize for this failure. They will hedge
their bets from the start. They will, once again, keep trying to goad the members into taking
it past what they write, but this time they will be the ones disappointed. It will be such a
mini-frenzy and a vast state of confusion. "Is the end coming or not? We aren't supposed to
speculate and date-set." The biggest enemy of the frenzy will be too much obedience from
the members. And without one charismatic leader out there to take the fall, it will cause
a bigger loss in membership than any gain hoped by it. Of course, they might just find that
one charismatic leader. They might dupe a GB member (or a new potential GB member) into
taking the reigns of the next doomsday proclaimation.
I could see them do something they have already done at Sign Language Conventions to kick
it off. An important announcement is shown on large screens with pre-recorded video at their
conventions. Imagine getting a new leader (puppet) to make a video of some huge proclaimation
of some new understanding from the Bible. They could play it at every convention through one
year. All the members would see one man willing to proclaim the imminence of the end. Maybe
they will resurrect the 1976 excuse- we don't know how many years passed from Adam's creation
to that of Eve. "Well, now we know that time is running out." That one man would whip up a
new frenzy, and be the scapegoat after it doesn't happen. JW's would be in the news. That one
man would be in the limelight for a few years. He would believe his own BS. The rest of the GB
can work on articles to explain what went wrong, even before it goes wrong.
Hell, I am already thinking of writing a novel based on the idea above. Problem though- If my
novel is successful, then it will influence the GB to never actually do it. I will have to meditate on
this. Thanks for your exciting report on 1975, Terry.
My dad was baptized during the 75 rush, I think either 70 or 71. Just before they completely outlawed smoking.... (OOPS! Sorry dad) Dad was to absorbed in his own problems to be too disappointed, but I know he was throubled enough that he read a bit about the borg back in the 70's. (I Was a WT Slave was a book he said he read all those years ago.) I can't help but think that was because of 1975.
Good summary Terry. I would never let JW's off the hook for 1975. And things were never the same. Consider after that, the GB coup during 75 that resulted in the GB Committees of 76, followed by the purge of Bethelites, including Dunlap and R Franz in 1980.
It's easy to see once you leave, but you can't see it when you are up to your armpits in GB manure. JW's are the morphed, ugly red headed stepchildren of Adventism, pure and simple.
Great assesment of '75...nothing to add except it was a wild ride from mid-sxties through 1975 for everybody...1968 being the year the frenzy really cut loose....
Very well written! Even though I was 5 when 1975 came, I remember it. I wrote this a few days ago. http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/161232/1.ashx
I actually remember some of the 1975 true believers trying to explain away Blondie's "not know the day nor the hour" scripture with the incredible statement - "but it does not say that we will not know the year!!!"
I also remember hearing some say (after October 75 had come and gone with nothing more than another worldly Halloween) - "well, maybe Jehovah just wanted to see how many would lose faith after October, and he may be bringing it in December, or maybe early in 1976" Right - I loved that aspect of Jehovah trying to "trick" his witness faithful.
And then, some years later, came "tacking into the wind", and the arrogant suggestion that the witness rank and file had merely thought up 1975 all on their own. But those of us who were actually there (I was 26 at the time) in 1975 should never let the public forget how ecstatically this 1975 teacing was given on the stage of the assemblies, at the hall, and in various places in the actual literature.
Witnees rank and file could NOT have made this up on their own - if it were not WTS policy, and they had tried to make it up, they would have been immediately disfellowshipped for teaching it.
