by superman 29 Replies latest jw friends
With a whimper. I think a point of "critical mass" will be reached at some time in the next 10-20 years when the baby boomers are dying off and there are no ways left for them to massage the statistics.
I expect there will still be some dubs around in 50 years time but the organization will be a shadow of it's former self.
Look at what has happened to the Plymouth Brethren.
Ever declining membership, they got more punitive and more left or were pushed.
As the Dubs get more panicky about obedience in thinking they will exclude more and more who dare to express a different opinion.
The doctrines will contiue to change as History embarrasses them. Fewer and fewer will go along as time goes by...
HB
That's a good question and one I've thought about over the years. I don't think it's going to end any time soon, but it could become a shadow of it's former self, at least in modern Western societies.
It seems to me the WT has to decide if it wants to be a mainstream, or even slightly odd fundamentalist religion, or remain a cult. Either way, it's going to have to start coming up with some new light and excuses pretty quick with 2014 on the horizon and no Armageddon in sight.
If it wants to mainstream, it might need to brace for a lot of defections. An earlier poster mentioned the Worldwide Church of God. They mainstreamed within a short amount of time, 10 or so years if I remember correctly. They ended up losing over half their members in the process. Of course, if the statistics are right, the WT loses over 60% of their membership anyway, so who knows how it would actually work out for them.
There's an interesting aspect to the WCG story. It turns out that there are some former members who want to go back to the old, nutty ideas about the end of the world, even predicting actual dates. They have advertized for former members, trying to pick up those who left the group. I don't know how successful they have been. I do find it interesting that there seems to be a market for this stuff among certain segments of the population.
If the WT wants to remain a cult, I think there are some natural limits for them. To try to maintain that kind of control over an organization and it's followers has to have its challenges. And while cults manage to attract some people, they will never become more than a fringe group that's easliy dismissed.
I would be surprised if they tried to pull a Jonestown. They are just too big and have been around too long to make that seem plausible to me. I also see no way in which that would be to their advantage, and at this stage of the game, everything the WT does is for its perceived advantage. Jonestown, and other similar situations, happen when there is a deranged leader that followers worship like a god. (I know what you're thinking, but the GB is still a group of mostly faceless men that the average JW wouldn't recognize if they passed on the street.) IMO if they were going to do something like that, they would have done it when Russell or Rutherford ran the show.
While the WT is similar to other odd groups and predatory religions, they also have their own unique situation. I guess we'll just have to watch and see what happens.
It won't end. It will continue much as it has for the past 20 years or so.
Jehovah's Witnesses were never anything more than an odd fringe group. That will continue.
They will not end. They will morph and merge.
Many "christian" churches no longer fit the WT criticisms of the past.
Many have taken down their icons and have begun to teach the "truth" about religious holidays like christmas and easter.
One thing I find very striking is that 'christian" churches which used to teach "the rapture" have now changed their tune and are teaching WT doctrine of a Paradise Earth.
All these changes will make it easier for WT to begin to accept them as "brothers and sisters" because they have repented and changed their ways, just as the WT warned them to do!
I think in the near future, as religions begin to focus on their similarities and their common origin of Abraham, they will all be able to blend.
Taking it a step further....once they begin to mainstream and blend, the common origin will take them into Abraham aka "a brahmin" and into Esoteric Buddhism.
I believe the basis of the one world religion will be grounded in occult Buddhist theosophy.
i think the WTS will not be able to continue to attract a base that will be intelligent or organized enough - awakening is happening. people now are becoming open to leaving religion all together i feel - maybe that just my wishful thinking. "non-believer" is a word that i am watching break into the collective conciousness - have you noticed too? it's validated, there really are a LOT of us
so i say whimper. but i sure would enjoy watching it end with a big nasty bang! =) i'll admit to that.
It's not going to end during any of our lifetimes. In fact, I think we'll see the WTS reach 10 million publishers. We may even see China open up (now that will be a feeding frenzy for lots of religions--pentecostals, mormons, JWs, etc.).
Of course, there will continue to be a steady decline among non-immigrant communities in the U.S. and western Europe. But I don't see the WTS going anywhere any time soon. If 1914, 1925, 1975, and the "generation" wasn't enough to wake people up, then I don't think anything will be.
If 1914, 1925, 1975, and the "generation" wasn't enough to wake people up, then I don't think anything will be.
As poster Metatron has written more than once, "You could have Governing Body members sodomizing young boys on a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, and most JWs would say 'But it's still the truth!' "
Neither...there are always willing buyers to be found. I agree with Olin Moyles Ghost...there is still lots of "fresh territory" out there to farm.
It will end and I think will end sooner rather than later, at least as a major organized religion. I think it will be a combination. I think the whimpering will go on for some time and then as donations get down to the no longer making money mark that one or two shadowy hands that have already taken control of LOTS of assets will step up and BAM BAM BAM sell off about 90% of the properties (including local halls) in a space of about a month. People will show up at halls and they will be locked the signs taken down. They will call bethel in a panic and there will be no answer cause those building have been sold and closed up too... Some sort of home groups will be organized for a while but I think it will be the end of 'centralized strength' and with no weekly brainwashing people will start studying the bible again and that will kill them deader than shit...
Is it 100% going to happen that way? Maybe maybe not but I think that's a very likely scenario...
As to baptism being contracts? PLEASE! When they wanted to Df me I simply denied that I had ever been baptized and they couldn't find any way to prove that I ever was! Did you sign something? Witnessed and notarized was it? lol...
