If y'all can stand one more DC thread, I thought I'd post some miscellaneous rumbling ramblings about this year's edition.
To protect my privacy, I'd prefer not to disclose the location - PM me if interested.
***** Attendance, as in all other years I can remember, was much lower on Friday than the other days. In fact, the attendance was 22% lower on Friday than on Sunday. So, as usual, they hammered home the point about the importance of attending all 3 days....on Friday! Ahem...DUH!
***** Number of baptisms was up 25% over the prior year. Then again, there were probably 10 or so additional congregations assigned to this year's DC, so some of that difference is to be expected. There were numerous pre-teens getting baptized, and a bunch more teens, but there were also several adults, including one couple in their 60's.
***** One of the most surprising things, to me anyway, was the lack of a concrete item that was demonized. In previous conventions, it seems there was always something that was hammered home as being of the devil. Some years it was higher education, other years apostate web sites & "false stories", other years pornography, other years drunkenness....nothing really stood out this year. Higher education was mentioned in passing just once in all 3 days.
***** The drama was a masterpiece of emotional manipulation - but it was well-written for its purpose. The "worldly" characters were of course extremely broad caricatures of greedy sex-starved drunken louts, but the "good" JW (fleshly) brother was unusual - he was the "good son", yet he really came off as sanctimonious and holier-than-thou. I found it quite unusual to present someone on the "right side" as such an unflattering character.
***** This was mentioned at least twice, in 2 different talks. It seems to be a new "twist" on WTS false prophecies. Here is the general gist of what they were trying to say:
"Some" Jehovah's Witnesses have entertained wrong ideas about dates in the past. This however is not a bad thing. Instead, it is a good thing. The coming and going of 1914 (when "some" expected to go to heaven), 1975, etc. did NOT prove that JWs were "wrong" - instead it proved that they were "expectant". It proves they were "watchful", as Jesus said they should be.
This was some really convoluted "logic", but nothing compared to the next point:
***** In the talk "Know That The End Is Near", there were presented 4 "lines of evidence" that the Great Tribulation is coming "soon" (by far the most used word in the whole DC). The first 3 were the usual claptrap about wars, earthquakes (yes, they said "seismic activity is increasing"), love cooling off, etc., but the final point was just jaw-droppingly stupid:
He said that the new understanding of "this generation" proves that the GT is close. This "generation" is NOT all anointed Christians since 33 CE, but instead all anointed Christians since 1914. When the GT comes, there will still be members of that "generation" on the earth.
OK, try to follow this - cuz I sure couldn't. "Remember when we used to look excitedly at the January 15 Watchtower, to see how many had partaken of the emblems in the previous Memorial? We were always so expectant & excited to see the number going down. Well, guess what - with this new understanding, the number of partakers completely doesn't matter! There will still be some anointed on the earth when the GT comes! So we have to be ready now."
Ummm...didn't we excitedly check the 1/15 WTs to see the "dwindling" partaker count, because we knew there would have to be some left at the GT? And if the number got to be very small, well, the GT had to be close, right? It had to come before the number dropped to 0, right? I.e., no change from from the current understanding - there would still be anointed ones on earth when the GT came.
Well, now that the number of partakers is growing at a double-digit percentage increase year over year, how is it that the "number doesn't matter any more"? I still can't figure it out.
***** Out of the 6 prayers, 2 began this way (not an exact quote, but the general idea): "We thank you Jehovah, that you have given us our marvelous hope, and we are not as blinded a the rest of the world, wandering about in darkness and ignorance..."
It was just so striking, how the language almost exactly paralleled Luke 18:10-14, you know, the one where the Pharisee prays "O God I thank you that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even as this tax collector..."
That's enough, I guess. If anybody has any questions on anything, let me know.