Do Bethelites dream of climbing the Bethel ladder and one day becoming a gb member? is it even possible? do parents who send their kids there secretely fantasize about it?
Do Bethelites dream of climbing the ladder?
by carla 9 Replies latest watchtower bible
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leavingwt
In regards to getting onto the GB, the answer would be 'No'.
GB members are likely to be non-Bethelites that are brought into Bethel to be observed and then asked to be on the GB.
Remember that all GB members must be of the anointed class. Very few Bethelites are anointed.
However, many Bethelites are climbing the organizational ladder. They aspire to become "Bethel speakers", being sent to Special Assembly Days and the like.
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carla
Thank you. One more question though, two of the newer gb members are not of the annointed correct? At some point in the future couldn't one realistically work their way up if they were very 'talented' in speaking or elder type duties or if they became a favorite of the elite boys club?
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undercover
Never having been a Bethelite, I can't say for sure...but having known some, I can share what I've observed;
Some Bethelites are a lot like employees of a prestigious firm of some kind. Some come in looking to climb that corporate ladder and be someone, even to the point of having their name on the building. They'll proclaim that they're just interested in helping further the work, but the pride and arrogance was evident. They were ass-kissers and brown nosers. But from the ones that I knew, it seemed that the ass-kissing attitude usually just kept them mired in some dirty work, taking them a long time to be promoted to something more prestigious.
Others just felt priviliged to be accepted in the "family". They were humble about it and wanted to please Jehovah and do their small part in distributing the "good news". Admittedly, I knew more of the "humble" vairety than the other, but it took only one or two experiences of dealing with the bragging types to cause some people to think negative of Bethelites, never realizing that most were good guys.
Interestingly, out of all the guys that I knew that went to Bethel, the ones that didn't handle it well were the ones who were fairly humble about the whole thing. They became disilluisioned and came back home fairly quickly.
Looking back, in all fairness, I think that some of the guys who allowed it to go to their heads were pushed into thinking this way by all the people around them. A lot of people all but worshipped Bethelites. Throw an 18 year old into that kind of admiration and its got to go to his head somewhat.
Some Bethel parents were worse than bragging parents who had a star sports player in the family. Some parents just kept bragging about how all their sons were at Bethel and would drop names of GB members or other heavy hitters that their precious darlings had daily contact with.
Not all were like that however. There were some who took it all in stride. One of my best freinds growing up went to Bethel and his family hardly ever mentioned it. They were proud, yea...but they never talked about it. If you didn't know that their son was at Bethel already, you'd never learn it from them. I actually heard them say one time when asked about their children, one was married, one is pioneering locally and one lived in New York.
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leavingwt
Being anointed is a requirement. All members of the GB are anointed.
(There are brothers serving on the various GB Committees that are not anointed. They do not vote, however.)
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hillbilly
yea... that first Bethel promotion... you get the cleaner handle on the garbage can.
Those Bethel speakers do well with the green handshakes when they get out to the fleet.
Hill
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keyser soze
Being anointed is a requirement. All members of the GB are anointed.
Yes, this is the real reason for their change in teaching that the heavens were no longer sealed up in 1935. Being of the anointed gives them a special claim to god-given authority they wouldn't otherwise have.
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OnTheWayOut
I imagine the average applicant is naive and hopes to escape the
worldly rat race, thinking it's so wonderful at Bethel, or they want their
JW family to be proud of them, or they don't want to wash windows for
a living and think it's like joining the military to learn a trade. Some
might be nerdy men who want to catch a good sister for a wife and
think this is like being captain of the football team to catch the head
cheerleader (and it is).Very few probably are thinking about climbing the ladder until they get
there. Once there, they realize how military it is, and want to be the
sargent instead of the private. Others leave disillusioned. Those are
the ones I have met, disillusioned. -
Awakened at Gilead
GB - No!
Climb the Bethel ladder? - yes!
Move on to be a CO or DO? yes for many
Ugly Bethelite getting to marry a hot sista he wouldn't normally have a chance at? - Definitely!
Getting green handshakes cuz you're a bethelite? - On most Bethelites' priority lists
"Making ________" [insert Bethel title here, i.e. group leader, coordinator, overseer, elder, table foot, table head,] - yep! (Note that the word is not "getting appointed to____", but rather 'Making elder' or 'making coordinator', as if it were a privilege to be grabbed)
And all the GB's have to be anointed.... but methinks that if you're on one of the special GB helper committees, the holy spirit can work in wondrous ways... a few months of power tasting, and voila!
{GB Helper wakes up in the morning and tells wife, "honey, I was just anointed last night! Do you think Jehovah wants me to be on the GB?"
Wife: "Honey, are you having wet dreams again? I guess we should be doing it more than once a month..."}
A@G
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
carla,
Looks like you already have the answers for most of your questions.
Personally, I guess I was doomed to fail in Bethel because of my misplaced motives... to serve Jehovah the best way possible. I had no visions of becoming a "heavy". I just wanted to contribute as much as I could to Jehovah, his Kingdom, and the brotherhood before the big A. I would've liked to have an enjoyable, satisfying job, but not an "easy" job... I'm a worker, not a loafer. I wasn't motivated to try to snag a hot sister, since I really wasn't interested in someone that only was attracted to me to get herself into Bethel. Green handshakes weren't a motive since I could have easily made plenty of money by not being in Beth-hell.
I'm still not free to express too much, but I was moving up the ladder. I got more responsibility because I was reasonably good to do my best at whatever was asked of me... this made other Bethelites jealous. Others would comment on it, but I'd try to downplay it and ignore it. It can work the same way in a congregation. Quiet workers earn respect, the self-righteous try to demand respect through self-promotion and eliminating 'rivals'.
That's my two cents... which is all it's worth now.
B the X