Welcome! And best results with your children! I've posted the information shown below on a couple of other threads (sorry 'bout the repetition for those of you who've already read it...) but perhaps reading this book would help:
Here's a quote from a book I'm reading right now, about the WTBTS dependence (kind of sounds like a drug addiction, doesn't it?) on second- and third-generation JWs [aka: impressionable young children] to increase their membership rolls. This is from the book, "Jehovah's Witnesses - Portrait of a contemporary religious movement" by Andrew Holden, published in 2002 by Routledge, of London and New York. (This is a sociological study of the religion - no underlying bias or religious agenda.) In the chapter titled "Honour thy father and thy mother" under the subheading "The ones who say 'no'", starting on page #140:
"Continued membership of a totalitarian organization is never unconditional.... Communities like this are dependent on those born into them for long-term survival. The movement owes much of its success to horizontal and vertical recruitment. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, in-laws, grandparents and grandchildren are all prime candidates for baptism - a rite of passage that boosts the Society's membership. Were it not for the significance of kinship, the Witnesses would not have had nearly the amount of success they have either in recruitment or in sustaining high levels of commitment..." End Quote
[The following paragraph contains my comments - Zid] [Obviously the WTBTS is FULLY AWARE of this factor in their membership increases. Yet another reason for the Society to continue the 'shunning' aka 'disfellowshipment' practices as they are in place now. I heard some rumor about the WTBTS re-naming it?? But the practice serves to hold families as spiritual hostages in order to ensure compliance of critics, dissenters and potential deserters presently on the edges of the Society, and to bring many back into the spiritual fold who would otherwise be unwilling to continue membership in the organization - witness the number of posts about the Memorial in which people attend in order to avoid being cut off from or disrupting families.]
[From the book, "Jehovah's Witnesses - Portrait of a contemporary religious movement"] The author continues: "In a world in which people are allegedly free to choose from a whole range of options, children's acquiescence matters to the Society as never before... Beckford, J.A. (1975a; The Trumpet of Prophecy: a Sociological Study of Jehovah's Witnesses, Oxford: Basil Blackwell) discovered that around two-thirds of second-generation Witnesses over sixteen remained active members. This was also borne out in the General Social Survey of 1994 that showed a retention rate of around 70 percent.... At the macro level, the Governing Body has a responsibility to ensure that parents in every congregation are supported to the nth degree...because it must consider long-term survival. So long as children toe the line, all will be well; but those who break away from the movement do damage to its membership statistics. Children are the movement's bread and butter." End Quote. Highlights mine - Zid
To any Jehovah's Witness [active, inactive, fading] who may be hesitant to read so-called 'apostate' literature, let me point out this personal illustration of mine:
"I've always compared the WTBTS's fear of so-called 'apostate' - in many cases, secular - studies of their religion - to a submarine cruising the Great Barrier Reef off of the Australian coast with its sonar turned off....
If the WTBTS - or any of its individual members - can't hear the 'pinging' from the coral mountain in front - at full speed - guess where they're going to end up?? Negative feedback is every bit as crucial as positive feedback in setting a CORRECT course. Anyone who is afraid of negative feedback is deliberately blinding themselves as to where they are going!!"
Sure hope this helps... Zid
