Here in the west/central/north part of Europe JW have facing general declining in bout number of publishers and baptises during the last 10 years or so. A lot of congregations are down to 40-50 persons (with 100-150 sitting places) and the publics service are without any kind of result. If someone gets a bible study with someone new this person is close to brain-dead. When a bible study is started with a normal person with just average abilities of thinking this study will soon stop. The person will reject the JW doctrines and claim of a sole role as true Christians after 2-3 month. That’s my experience.
In normal the JWs start as children of JW parents so the life is planned from the beginning. It’s not a question of making some kind of decisions - only follow the normal and expected rote.
So most JW a facing a non-result effect of the preaching works and times go on and still no end as promised so many times. We stop thinking of the reason of this. Just like the lemmings we went on to the cliff edge. Most have stop thinking long ago. But life has to be filed with something. Maybe just to forget and prove that we are together. There are ”we” and ”they”. So we stick to each other and look at others with a little bit of anger and mistrust. Building enemy pictures are what make identities and prove we are the chosen ones.
This kind of “stick together” became the social life and identity of many. The social life is the light way of living and small talks. The purpose of being a Christians are long time gone. A lot of JW are filling the life with this “party line” to full fill the lost of real meaning of Christianity.
So I expect that the “party line” will grown and many JW stick to the BORG only by social reasons not religious. JW will by that be able to survive religions crises and scandals. That’s why an UN case doesn’t move anything in general. People have no other place to go and don’t want either. They want to stay with the social JW club. The religious aspect will play a smaller role in the future.
The social role of jws does play a huge role in their lives. They won't socialize with anyone but JWs usually, so they get all of their needs met thru the congregation.
I know my son does. He associates with Spanish and they use him a lot and look up to him, imo. So he's very content with that.
The religious aspects aren't the fiery "truth' that it was in the past.
I find it interesting that you point out this kind of social club that the jw organize. Here in Quebec, it is pretty much the samething, while I was a jw, we had a lot of activities together (skating during the winter, baseball in the summer) and the life of the youngs jw was almost like the life of a normal person despite the party with beer and the holiday like Christmas. However, I was always told to not associate with the big bad worldly peoples and that's why the ex-jw find it hard to have a new life whitout the WBTS because they are rejected in a world that is supposed to be evil and bad.
I agree..JWs will stick in it as long as things go well socially. We know a couple who said that it was OK for us to leave as our kids would follow us. Their kids would reject them..so they are sticking with it. It is not all bad. They have some friends and you can have some respect/position within this community...
This kind of “stick together” became the social life and identity of many. The social life is the light way of living and small talks. The purpose of being a Christians are long time gone. A lot of JW are filling the life with this “party line” to full fill the lost of real meaning of Christianity.
So I expect that the “party line” will grown and many JW stick to the BORG only by social reasons not religious. JW will by that be able to survive religions crises and scandals. That’s why an UN case doesn’t move anything in general. People have no other place to go and don’t want either. They want to stay with the social JW club. The religious aspect will play a smaller role in the future.
AMEN! You are so right. And it stands to reason when one is cut off from anyone on the outside the seque into the world may be problematic. Fortunately, we had it pretty good...we both left together and our one daughter who could never stomach the life and as soon as she was of age bugged out and who we basically disfellowshipped even though she was never baptised for her attitude has now been enjoying a real relationship with her parents. She will be 34 in February .. we've been out 3 yrs...after nearly 30 yrs of life as Witnesses. We have lost the association with our other daughter, grandchild and my brother and his family but it is all temporary..this too shall pass. There will be something that clicks and they too will become fed up with the silliness of the facade.
Social clubs aside at one time or another the truth of life faces you and it is usually when you approach retirement age with no retirement because you had spent your entire life expecting the end to come before you got this old...
Boy! The flip side of all of this is the poor JWs who don't fit into the 'socially elite' of the congregation. Now that large gatherings are discouraged, all of the socializing for the past few years seems to be of the formal dinner-at-our-house sort of thing. Pity the ones who don't fit in. They are completely isolated and left in the cold. I know, it happened to me in certain congregations.
There are many who aren't able to have much socialization in the JWs: the single parents with children, the shy, the elderly, the poorer ones, ones with non-JW mates.
So, they have no social life either in or out of the borg.
