1975 for Deniers
Most of today's JWs were not members in 1975 or in the 9 years prior to 1975, so they were not eyewitnesses to what really went on during that period. I was a pioneer in that period, and I was an eyewitness to what went on.
Those JWs who are still active today and who were around in that period will typically say it was the "brothers" who "ran ahead of Jehovah" and "read more into" the 1975 prediction than what was actually stated. In fact, due to help from their religious masters they have even coined a pejorative stop-think phrase about it: "serving for a date." This phrase is a masterpiece of WTS deception. It implies greediness and selfishness on the part of those members who later left the religion, but who truly believed that was to be the start of Armageddon and the gateway to the Paradise Earth.long promised by their religious leaders.
The main excuse given is that the society never stated "for sure" that Armageddon would happen then. What excuse do they have then when District Overseer Charles Sunutko in 1967 got the assembly audiences all whipped up with his "Stay Alive 'Til '75!" slogan in his speech here:
Why did not the WTS clamp down on him or correct his "running ahead of Jehovah" comments and allow him to give several speeches on this theme to large JW audiences?
I'm not going to dwell on what the WTS did or didn't say about 1975 in this article. That's been done many times before. I'm going to present a significant piece of empirical evidence however, and let the readers draw their own conclusions.
I was at the 1968 Pomona, California District assembly and we were told something really BIG was going to happen there. It did. It was the release of the book "The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life." It was a very small book and not at all like the typical book released at conventions. It was topically arranged and designed specifically as a teaching book for our Bible studies.
Not that much later an even bigger bombshell was dropped. We were told in no uncertain terms that if our Bible studies had not progressed into going to meetings and going in field service within 6 months after the study was started we were to drop them. What was the reason? "The time is too short for dilly-dallying around." This was unprecedented in WT history.
"Six months and dump them" was our local slogan. "Go to hell in 6 months if you are not one of us, because you will die shortly at Armageddon" is what many of us thought.
I'm sure that "policy" was dumped not that long after the 1975 failure showed our massive urgency was just a pile of horse dung. It's now 35 years and a full generation later and even the 1975 date has been carefully removed from the WTS Time Lines of Significant World Events in their history and reference books.
So, this begs the question, is not the "6 month-and-drop-them" policy solid empirical evidence that the WTS wanted members to be deadly serious about 1975 and give their lives, treasures and souls to the service of the WTS to that end?
Sure it is. Those who bought into it and became disillusioned when the lie was exposed later were called evil ones who were "serving for a date." But the WTS got very rich in those years because of the huge growth in membership comprised of people who believed that what they were promised came from God.
To say that the Governing Body is a bunch of cynical old assholes is being way too kind to them, in my not so humble opinion.
Farkel