by eric356 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
| Thanks for the feedback. Of course, the WT could change something big and make this all irrelevant, but I think the general path I've outlined is quite probable. | |
| eric356 |
Eric,
You might want to come back with a new, updated rejoinder based latest events, changes in WTS doctrines, etc. I think, five to ten years are fine as long you keep around. We will see
Scott77
I think this essay is a worthy effort but it fails to deeply analyze the Society's critical weakness: money.
So, they go digital and save money and still have publisher growth and can revel in the fact that they rule over 7 million cultists who won't open their wallets ???? !!!! Really? What's the point?
metatron
It doesn't really have to have a point. It's like a organism, it just wants to survive and spread.
You've made a fine effort of encapsulating a large subject. A few observations to consider:
WTS recruitment efforts tend not to target electronic-media-savvy individuals. In fact, the type of personna attracted to the WTS is one that yearns for the simpler life and that is more inclined to toe the line on doctrine. For these people, an attractively printed, colourful tract is comfortable and even comforting. There is a reason the WTS has just spent tens of millions on a brand new, hugely productive, German engineered printing facility at its Georgetown, Ontario bethel, and that is to meet expanding demand. This when pressrooms all over North America are shutting down by the score.
I believe the internet revolution will play into the hand of the WTS rather than detract from it, if only from the standpoint that the Society has always, always sought to differentiate itself from the mainstream Christian sects. The stake, rather than the cross. No trinity. The blood doctrine. Door to door work. No Christmas, birthdays etc. The list of unique beliefs and practices is considerable. If the WTS remains one of the few religious organisations using the printed word, it will only differentiate itself further. All those tracts and books are not going to go away any time soon.
There is a dynamic at work from within the WTS that is becoming apparent. Dissention. The blood doctrine is being challenged, sometimes discreetly and sometimes more overtly. I cite the AJWRB, the Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood, which counts in its membership former as well as active Jehovah's Witnesses, the latter operating anonymously. Others have just quietly chosen to ignore the doctrine altogether while staying quiet about it. The Society itself knows it's in a bind on blood doctrine and is struggling to find a way to extricate itself, as evidenced by its most recent internal memo, already discussed elsewhere in this forum. More importantly, the WTS has through its disfellowshipping and shunning practices entrapped individuals who would otherwise leave its ranks if not for the loss of friends, family, jobs and inheritance. The number may be larger than you might think and the result is an element within the Society that is Jehovah's Witness in name only. These people, when they go door to door, are not going to be enthusiastic salesmen and they will not be inclined to bring up their children with the same degree of zeal as did their parents and grandparents before them. While the WTS becomes more strident in its demands for obedience and more heavy handed in its application of disfellowshipping policy (witness the new elder's manual).
Interesting times ahead.
