by Joker10 59 Replies latest jw friends
Isn't this statistic based on US census-based data (i.e., self-reported religious affiliation).
It is not unusual for the number of nominal members who report affiliation with a religion to outstrip numbers who are actively involved. Hence, the discrepancy between the Watchtower's annual figures of publishers (1.1 million?) and census data (1.9 million). It is the same in NW: Watchtower says just over 14,000 peak publishers for 2008 but census data says just over 17,000.
Leo, where were you when I needed help with my math homework...
leolaia,
My number takes joker's 43% figure and his 1991 and 2008 comparison dates and divided by 17, instead of 7. I used HIS number and therefore his assertion.
"There are lies, damnable lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Farkel
"After years of seeing poor spelling from Witnesses on this board and elsewhere, I'm not terribly surprised to see basic math skills are the same."
Yes... but according to another thread that was about 'spellinge' - it doesn't matter if they cain't spell worth a durn - as long as you can understand the gist of what they are saying (typing) - poor spelling - grammer, (and now math) - then it's an acceptable trait these days.
Go figure.
All I know is that since this forum is mostly comprised of words - grammer (and math) that one gets an impression of another through their typed words.
Regards,
Jim TX
That's true. It is very easy to come to false conclusions with demographic data because of all the complexities involved. Joker10's 43% figure was, to coin a phrase, a joke; at the same time, he is correct that the increase was over the past 7 years, not the past 17. What he doesn't mention is that the same figures show that adult self-identifying JWs decreased between 1990 and 2001.
Do we know how many new Spanish congregations have arisen in the past decade?
I don't know how many in the past decade, but a Bethel rep told a group of us 2 years ago that there were 250,000 JWs in the US who belonged to Spanish-language congregations.
In my experience in the area where I live, which has a large Hispanic (not just Mexican) population, baptisms at Spanish-language conventions and assemblies outnumber baptisms for English-language groups by about 2 or 3 to 1. Spanish language pioneers typically have 5 to 10 bible studies per month, compared to a typical 2 or 3 (or less) for English-language pioneers.
Anecdotal, of course, but at least it can give a feel for what is happening. Over a decade, you can see that most of the growth, outside of born-in children to English-speaking parents, is from the Hispanic group.
We have a fairly large hispanic community yet the local spanish congregation has not grown much in the last 20 years. I wonder how much some congregations "grow" by nonhispanic jws going where the "need is great" or escaping the cold congregation.
I sometimes think that many witnesses might have left the WTS to follow Obama in 2008 and in coming years we will see a decline.
