If I had the time I'd design a very eyeball friendly chart that, at a glance, would demonstrate crazy ideas from the Watchtower fairyland over the years and the font would go RED when they got really loopy about Armageddon or had to backtrack and change a doctrine. That would be fun.
Unchanging TRUTH changes from 1939--thru--2000
by Terry 15 Replies latest jw friends
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carla
marking, thank you!
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thetrueone
The only fathomable Truth about the WTS. and the JWS is they are only channeled inwardly to themselves.
Changing doctrines when necessary to make the organization seem viable to the public is their operational
strategy, perhaps not too surprising since there are people living off of the organization's funds.
Thanks impart to the inter-net the public can now view for themselves these decisively dishonest changes
and make up their own minds on " The Truth "
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Heaven
A couple of websites I find useful regarding the JW doctrinal 'flip-flops' and changes ares:
http://www.bible.ca/Jw-changes.htm
Changed Teachings at : http://www.jwfacts.com/
As a kid, I was completely unaware of any of this. It is only recently that I have discovered just how much the average JW has been basically lied to by their precious FDS. It really is an eye-opening, jaw-dropping experience to read such an extensive list. The size of the list along with the content of the changes is quite shocking.
I really have a difficult time understanding how anyone who has been in for years can swallow this stuff. I feel badly for these people because of the conflict going on within their souls. It is a sad thing indeed.
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AnnOMaly
1938 - Communion bread and wine identified as symbols of the body and blood of the 144,000
Can you clarify this Terry. Are you saying the Society taught that the bread and wine DID NOT reprsent Jesus body and blood, but instead the 144,000 only? If so, any references?
That caught my eye too! Before I scrolled down and saw your and Terry's subsequent posts I had a look through the 1938 WTs. Here are some key statements from the March 1 edition, p. 71-73:
"Let it be carefully noted that "Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it", and gave the broken bread to his disciples and commanded them to eat. The breaking is of very great importance and cannot be ignored or passed over. The breaking is of vital significance to all who participate with Christ Jesus in his kingdom. It means that they must become members of the body of Christ and be broken with him and therefore die with him in order to share with him in his kingdom glory. ...
"... The words of Jesus addressed to his disciples concerning the breaking of bread mean an entirely different thing. Jesus took the loaf of unleavened bread and broke it and said to his followers : "This is my body." Then his words, in substance, were these: 'You must eat, that is to say, you must partake with me and thereby become my partners or fellow-sufferers, and as this bread you see me break represents the body of Christ, or the members, all of such must be broken together. ' Such breaking of the bread or body, and the drinking of the blood, must take place after those partaking are justified and spirit-begotten, and therefore only such properly partake of the emblems. ...
"... The words of the apostle in 1 Corinthians 10: 15-17 certainly mean the same thing. There the apostle uses the word "communion", which word means " partnership ", that is, sharing together. The text according to another version reads: 'The cup that we bless, is it not a sharing together of the blood of THE CHRIST? The loaf which we break, is it not the sharing together of the body of THE CHRIST? Because one loaf, one body, we, the many are, for we all of the one loaf partake.'-Rotherham. ...
"... [after discussing 'taking the cup'] That is the only way to be taken into THE CHRIST, and only those who are taken into and become members of THE CHRIST are broken with Christ Jesus and pour out their life with him. ...
"... That the Memorial emblems picture the suffering and death of Christ in which the body members alone have a part, and which they must gladly endure, is further shown by the apostle's words: [Phil. 3:8-14]"
So the Society DID teach that the emblems represented Jesus' body and blood, but also that the emblems represented the composite 'Christ's' body and blood which were also to be sacrificed - i.e. the older Russellite idea that the composite 'Christ' had to give up their humanity and together with Jesus would redeem the rest of mankind (RR, that's correct, isn't it?).
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Terry
You would have had to have been in the local Kingdom Halls in the late 50's to remember the really silly changes.
The publications were always depicting Jesus as a clean-shaven man (who seems to have been modeled on the bodybuilder Steve Reeves!).
Public talks would sneak in mentions of Jesus having NO BEARD, too!
Further, the publications were steeped in DISPENSATIONALISM. Everything prophetic had a Type and an Ante-type. The "Shadow" and the "Fulfillment". All that simply dried up and blew away in a few decades.
This is a religion that keeps reinventing itself.
It can get away with it, basically, because so many people LEAVE there are only Newbies replacing them totally unaware of the radical doctrinal
flux over the years!
The die hard golden era remnant of faithful Kingdom Hall attendees grumble, moan and resent every bit of "new light" that comes down the pike but are bulldog stubborn about ever leaving the fold.
What a group of people we were once part of!!!