In 25 Years Will The WT.Organization Still Be Around?

by minimus 51 Replies latest jw friends

  • trevorbv
    trevorbv

    I think JWs will face serious problems as the world becomes more technologically advanced. People search for reviews on the internet for all sorts of stuff, event when they buy meaningless things. If they are going to make a move that import as to become a witness surely they will make some research. So people who will be aproached by JWs at their door, I think they will check them out. Of course the existing members are mostly doomed, their crisis must begin within, since the GB equivals reading criticism of the organization to having connections with the Devil. This remainds me of a briliant quote from 1984, mandatory reading for all here: "Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." (George Orwell). So the target for the JWs will be the uninformed and the credulous (since forever).

    So I think, our duty, the ones who are "free" is to make that information available. I plan to start a blog in my native language (not english, as you probablly figured out) in which to write what made me reach this conclusion (I've searched on Google and I can find very few negative articles about JWs and they are written by other religious freaks who defend they're religion, rather by ex-JWs).

    Also their doctrin will create them problems, it will need "improvement": they will change again their generation explanation in about 30 years, the 144.000 will not be sufficient for all annointed ones so it will become symbolic, a change in world power may occur and a change in their Daniel prophecy explanation is very probable. And now they can't hide their history since lots of info is available on the WT CD. Here it comes to mind another 1984 quote : " Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past". They will not be longer controlling the past, at least not to that extend and thus the future.

    I belive that "science will win" and everyone of us can help it.

  • Bungi Bill
    Bungi Bill

    As a general rule of thumb, it would seem that the more unpleasant something is, the less likely it is to disappear:

    - just like the rats and cockroaches that survive a nuclear explosion, when everything else has been exterminated.

    Unfortunately, there is a certain percentage of the population that automatically gravitates towards the cults. As long as that minority is around for them to draw on, the likes of the JWs will remain.

    Their membership may well turn over:

    - that certainly happened in the wake of past upheavals

    eg. The death of CT Russell, and JF Rutherford's seizure of power. Then, the failure of prophecy in 1925 , and the subsequent loss of 75% of their membership. Not to mention failure of prophecy regarding 1975, and the upheaval that followed! Also, more recently, the revision(s) of "The Generation" thing.

    Membership comes, membership goes - but the WTS always manages a Houdini act each time, and seems to somehow escape.

    Then, like that proverbial old penny, "keeps turning up."

    Bill.

  • DagothUr
    DagothUr

    Under normal circumstances, the WT will still exist in 2035. But if something extraordinary occurs, anything can happend: China sends it's nukes on the USA and one of them hits the WT headquarters, the aliens invade Earth and destroy all the religious organizations, a mysterious and deadly plague infests only those who do not smoke, etc.

  • moshe
    moshe

    As long as we have people who want to believe that they can cheat death and live forever on a Paradise Earth, we will have JWs.

  • flipper
    flipper

    I think it will still be around but sometime in the next 25 years there will be some kind of scandal that will make the media drawing attention to the Witnesses in some form or fashion. I can see that happening. It won't destroy the organization but will give lots more people access to the shenanigans going on behind the scenes. With Wikileaks and being in the age of the Internet with access to much more information than in the 1900's - I could see this eventually happening

  • LongHairGal
    LongHairGal

    MINIMUS: If the world is still here and civilization hasn't fallen apart and if the governments don't decide to step in and crush religion once and for all - I expect the JW religion will be around in some form. If they have reinvented themselves over the past century or so, what difference would another quarter century mean? Not much. I could be wrong though. I agree with you about certain people hoping to have success in ending the religion. While I don't blame these people for being angry and hating the religion for all the damage it has done, I don't expect they can do it. It is more likely that the government can accomplish this. While it is possible a religion can destroy itself with schisms, I tend to doubt this about the JWs. They have a strong sense of self-preservation and there are some very strong egos there. I suppose the best we can hope for is that they be seriously EXPOSED. The world needs to know what really goes on there.

  • koolaid-man
    koolaid-man

    Toast in 5 years...... To many people are finding out what the Watchtower Org. is hiding behind... The monkey died the show is over.

  • shamus100
    shamus100

    HEY!

    I'm alive and kicking. ;D

  • just n from bethel
    just n from bethel

    Love the 1984 quotes:

    "We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instance of death we cannot permit any deviation . . . we make the brain perfect before we blow it out."

    There's an interesting conflict going on when trying to look out at the WT a few decades from now. On the one hand, you have an organization that thrives on its power and self proclaimed authority. And as has been pointed out - a lot of people love that authoritarian (cultish) environment - they need it. Let me give you an example. I have a relative that became dismayed when the blood policy started changing to allow certain fractions and cell saver etc. She didn't like that she would have to think it out and use her conscience - she asked 'Why don't they just tell us what is and is not ok to take?' Yep -there are people who don't want to think, and sad to say it may very well include ones we love.

    Therefore, the Watchtower will probably continue to thrive. I've seen the current young ones at Bethel bask in the authority they get. Someday, they'll be a 'given one' or a GB member. I remember when I was at bethel a young job overseer, only a few years older than me, gave me a warning lecture as part of my training. The whole theme was on Korah rejecting God's appointed men and basically, how it applied to him and my other overseers. i.e. he was telling me that to question him and other bethel work overseers was the same as Korah rejecting Moses. This guy was like 24. Go out 25 years from now, and he will be in his 60s - if still at bethel - will be part of the new GB 3.0.

    Now on the other hand. I know very few people of the younger generation of Witnesses (those few that are actually still in) who study, much less think very deeply. Even the elders, very few people I know could explain any difficult teaching using just the Bible. They are in it for the social experience, and the power. But 25 years from now, you're going to have a severe old age crisis on your hands. The org will have 70% 60+ maybe even 65+ 70+ years old and more. Very few of their children will be in the org. If the org thinks there is a severe crisis of lack of young people today - just wait 25 years from now.

    Instead of printeries and educational centers, Patterson and WT Farms will be converted into retirement / nursing centers. Same with assembly halls and other properties. Of course, there will be few JWs that will have proper educational training in the medical field, so they'll have to adjust their stance on education so they can get JWs qualified to work at these centers.

    So Watchtower will likely be around - but it certainly won't be like it is today. Just remember - the growth phase JWs experienced in the 80s, even in industrial/western nations - those days are gone. Now the only growth is from developing lands and immigrants in the developed nations. As these immigrants and developing nations get more and more access to education and open information, the growth will slow. Look at Japan.

    The best the watchtower could hope for would be for something to happen in the middle east, like all the sudden muslim countries start allowing freedom of religion and open missionaries. If something like that happened, the Witnesses would be the first to pounce and of course you'd see growth there, etc.

    Doctrinally, I think the 144,000 will be forced to change. Just too many partakers - and in 25 years, with the # of partakers growing at the current rate - it'll be between 30,000 and 50,000 - or at the very least it won't have dropped much at all despite all the annointed today being dead in 25 years.

    Communism will probably be limited to N Korea, if even them. China, Russia, and so forth, even the UN will look really different. NATO, WTO, and other organizations will probably have been completely rearranged. What this means for JWs ... two new Revelation books. The problem, though - who will write them? None of today's generation even had a clue or even care about the Prophecy books. Every single JW of this generation dreaded studying these books. 25 years from now, will a new JW visionary emerge from the twitter generation of JWs? Will a 21st century Fred Franz be discovered from among the few remaining 20 and 30 year-old JWs today?

    Finally there will still be the bi-polar WT articles - you know one month telling the JWs, especially the older ones how much they are loved and should be appreciated and taken care of for all their faithful years of service. And how the most important thing JWs should be doing are acts of love, which of course will still include the ministry. Then, the next month - will be an article berating the JWs who got carried away with determining the length of of a generation and trying to worry about who it overlaps with and that they should never have been in such a hurry to play with words. Anyone that was disappointed because of the end not coming within the overlapping generation was just jumping ahead and should never have placed such an emphasis on time frames - this was never the governing body's intentions and anybody that made an issue over it has nobody to blame but themselves for disappointment.

  • just n from bethel
    just n from bethel

    I've seen the future for the watchtower, here is what it looks like:

    25 years from now at the annual one day combined district/circuit convention, You can expect a talk to say something like this:

    Brothers and Sisters, we are deep deep deep deep deep into the time of the end! Do not quit the race now! Jehovah has given us so many provisions these last few years. The simplified meeting arrangement where we meet one Sunday a month for 30 minutes. This provision has helped the friends free up time to take care of their many aged relatives.

    One 90 year old sister wrote the following: "When I heard we were going from two meetings a month to one I started crying tears of joy. It goes to show how Jah is using the FDS to help the millions of Witnesses facing serious old age issues that we never expected. Thank you Jehovah. Thank you GB."

    Yes friends, we have had four hours of amazing spiritual refreshment today - all right here at our annual special district circuit convention. There was a time many years ago when these were several days long, multiple times a year. Thankfully Jehovah's organization has kept up with the needs of the many friends who have suffered from ADD for quite some time. It used to be that we had to listen to many 20, 30, even 60 minute discourses over the course of several days. But today - we have heard 30 different talks -none longer than 5 minutes each.

    Also, are we not grateful that all these talks were delivered via video conference directly from the world hq? In many parts of the world there are a lack of speakers, well actually, there is a lack of brothers in general who are qualified and in good enough health to give talks. This provision to video conference all the convention talks, has been a huge blessing, has it not?

    Finally - Isn't it great that we were able to relocate world hq to Geneva. The worldly authorities have come down hard in their taxes on religions and they just don't see us as the philanthropic charity that we are - Oh how Satan blinds them. Thankfully, Jehovah directed us to shift our headquarters to a country more favorable to Witnesses and the God-given right to be free from oppressive taxes. Truly the FDS takes care of Jehovah's assets.

    Well - it wouldn't be a convention without a new release. But the GB has arranged something very special for everyone - not one new release but two. The first is a new 8 page digital brochure: Revelation, Daniel, and Ezekiel - Prophesies in Action Today! You will find these simple and easy to act out in your weekly family drama night.

    The next release is a video. Over the years many opposers have claimed we've done little to promote taking care of aged widows and orphans. This video will prove that claim fruitless as it takes 20 minutes to highlight all our facilities around the world that have been converted to retirement centers for JWs and orphanages for displaced disaster survivors who want to become a JW. (pause for applause)

    Now as we've been doing for the last 7 years, the brochure will be available to download and print at home at your own cost. No releases are distributed at conventions any longer to help you dear friends save on resources in these hard times. The video is being hosted on our secure streaming video servers and can be accessed with a password that the elders will be provided. It's important to remember, that we want only active JWs to have access to these videos. Thank you for your cooperation in these matters.

    Now, if you will, please, stand and lets sing a song from our new song book released just last year. The song that has been selected is the last song in the book, that hopefully you've memorized, and that would be song # 3, Praise Jehovah's Slave Class!

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit