Let's predict the next 10 years of "noolite"

by Awakened at Gilead 70 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  OUTLAW

  Mary..ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!............................OUTLAW
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  besty

  Gilead can be extended to include private schools, homeschool, and a university.

  would it be madrasah style religious school, or a university like BYU?
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  Awakened at Gilead

  LOL @ Mary!
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  willyloman

  I will submit this short list of two changes I recommended, whch I wrote in 2004:

  1. The book study will be eliminated in favor of "family night" and the friends should be encouraged to turn off the TV and devote that night to study and family activity. The school and service meetings should combined into as single one-hour meeting.

  Oh, wait, they just did that. Oh well, there was one more:

  2. Broaden "service hours" to include a choice of alternatives to preaching, including acts of mercy and other good deeds. What if the entire congregation met at the Kingdom Hall on specific Saturdays and volunteered for whatever aspect of service they felt like doing? Some would go evangelizing, others could be given a list of publishers in need of some support, such as chores, meals, companion care, and so forth, and friends could go and tend to those needs. Still others would care for maintenance needs at the Hall, such as cleaning or landscaping. Other options could be determined as well. The operating philosophy would be, everyone has different gifts. That way, everyone in the congregation would be involved in some form of "service" and it would serve to unite. Everyone would get equal credit for these hours on their monthly reports, or the reports could be done away with.

  I wrote the above as part of a long letter to a member of the governing body who was a former CO of ours and someone we once had a good relationship with. I decided not to send the letter because we had only just stopped going to the KH and still had family immersed in the religion. When the news came a few months ago about the decision to blend the bookstudy into another meeting and free up a night a week, I pulled up the letter and reread it.

  In time, the society will move more mainstream, doing the above as well as readjusting the whole disfellowshipping process to eliminate judicial hearings and shunning. The JW position on the celebration of holidays and birthdays will be modified somewhat, perhaps made a "conscience matter" much like pinatas are now.

  The society will give in on higher education, but probably not until they start their own university - as many churches have done (think BYU for Mormons). Paterson in upstate NY could be the model for this (it's no great leap from Watchtower Educational Center to Watchtower University, or New World U).
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  Mickey mouse

  144,000 figurative number.

  I don't think they'll mainstream. Just the opposite; I think they will tighten the cult screws.
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  ninja

  I say just kick jaracz hard in the balls to bring him to his senses and bring this madness to an end
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  willyloman

  I don't think they'll mainstream. Just the opposite; I think they will tighten the cult screws.

  They already are mainstreaming. It's not a straight line. There is a reaction to every action, so the chart will show peaks and valleys. There are, and have been for a couple of decades, people running the WTS who are divided on the direction to take. This internal civil war has to play itself out. But the chart will head into mainstream territory over the next five decades. Survival is a powerful instinct!
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  yknot

  would it be madrasah style religious school, or a university like BYU?

  In theory they could do a BYU (or any other private theological driven campus)......why not, think about how many homeschooling JWs already use BYU for college basics with their teenagers. Mandatory theology classes and FS clinics could easily be instituted as well.

  Here is the relgious breakdown of BYU students 2001-2007 http://yfacts.byu.edu/viewarticle.aspx?id=97

  The LDS are a great model for expansion and 'mainstreaming'........and the JWs have the advantage of being less kooky, and already preconditioned to individual preaching activity. If the lower the hours and create a total lifestyle package versus stripped down servitude they could see growth, revival and retention........simple supply and demand.
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  Jeremy C

  I forgot to mention one more development. I don't see why the Watchtower can't sponsor it's own NASCAR team. What an advertisement to the King and His Kingdom! If Rutherford was alive, he would do it. The thing is, the car would probably routinely run out of gas because of the team thinking that the end of the race is just around the corner.
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  halcyon

  Wasn't there some sort of "Witness school" tried somewhere a few decades back? Late seventies, something like that? I think it was a high school. But they ran into difficulty when "worldly people" were required by law to have access, which obviously threatens "cleanliness" inside the school (you can't hold worldly people to the same standards or fear disfellowshipping), so the whole thing crumbled. I think they'd have the same difficulty with any WT-run university.
  
  Besides, they couldn't come up with enough sterilized material to fulfill a sixty-credit degree. Absolutely no outside source material would be allowed, so they'd have to write and print their own. On all the core subjects! JW math? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! (Here's how to calculate numbers/years to get the results you want...) JW English and composition? okay, they've got a start on that. JW history that covers world events OUTSIDE the focus of JW? Nope. Philosophy and critical thinking? NO WAY!!!!
  
  AND, the startup costs would be staggering. Where would they get enough approved witness professors?
  
  
  Nope, not seein' a WTU ....
  
  
  That could only happen if the other standards relaxed enough to allow open discussion in the ranks.