by davidl7 99 Replies latest jw friends
"Ranked 20th in size, the Jehovah's Witnesses denomination reported a 4.37 percent gain in membership, ..."
That would be a world-wide growth rate, right??
I suspect that the Watchtower Society supplied that particular "fact" to the NCC...
Also, most of this "growth" is probably taking place in Third World countries...
Zid
I keep hearing the Mormons are...from Mormons.
The success or failure of the JW religion has nothing to do with my personal success. If they actually are the fastest growing religion, or if they wither and die, it means nothing to me.
The Hispanic population in the US as a whole has been increasing dramatically. So from that perspective it should not be surprising that Spanish congregations are where the increase is happening among JWs, it merely reflects the wider demographic change in the US. You may be right that the number of Witnesses in English speaking congregations is flat or is actually going down. I would not be surprised. But you could probably say the same for other churches, only more so. Pentecostals and Mormons in particular possibly benefit even more from the influx of Hispanics than JWs as those churches have a strong presence in Mexico.
None of that contradicts the main point of the article which is simply that JWs are growing at a faster rate than other churches in the US.
Here's another thought....
Let's look at the way the Watchtower Society has played fast and loose with numbers in the past...
"Armageddon" was supposed to come in: 1914, 1918, 1925, 1940, 1975, 2000, [and more...], etc, etc, etc...
The way these dates were determined was via: the measurements of the Great Pyramid, the distance from Brooklyn to Pennsylvania [or some variation thereof...] specifically via a ferry boat, the false date of 607 B.C., and most recently, pulling some new "overlapping" number out of their own collective arses...
I don't put any faith in their "Doomsday" numbers; why should I put any credence in their membership numbers??? They've already shown that their superstitious fascination with "end-of-the-world" numerology is inaccurate as hell; I doubt very much that their membership numbers are any more accurate...
Zid
Baptisms per Bible Studies Reported going down though:
Worldwide: U.S.:
2007 = 4.5% 6.8%
2008 = 4.0% 5.9%
2009 - 3.6% 5.2%
2010 - 3.6% 5.1%
If true about the Hispanics in U.S. causing the increases of JWs in U.S, so much is still perplexing.
Mexico's Report of percentage of baptisms per Bible Studies shows decreasing also:
2007 = 3.2%
2008 = 3.1%
2009 = 2.6%
2010 = 2.9%
Gayle- Thank you for the interesting comparisons!
It seems it is taking longer for bible studies to progress to publishers, of course too, most studies do not become publishers.
It is interesting to note that Brazil and Mexico have more BS than the US does.
Brazil: 799,207
Mexico: 946,920 (amazing)
USA: 683,090
But more got baptized in the US-
USA: 35,120
Brazil: 28,979
Mexico:27,861
Yes, I remember hearing too, that in Mexico, Spain and Italy, JWS are the largest religous group after the catholic church and are #3 in
Poland.
But even if the growth in the US is coming from the spanish population- it is still growth!
I agree with you Gayle, the English speaking US congs have seen little or no increase and maybe decreases, the past 10 years or more.
Here in the KH I attended there are 2 English and 1 Spanish congs. Two shrank over the years and 1 grew. Can you guess which it was?!
The spanish one is the largest!
And an increase of 25,000 is not that great. But if you examine the US report for about the last decade or so the increase in 2009 was the biggest in some time. So for the US branch an increase of almost 4% was as big thing!
But this year it was back to normal: 2%.
Oh I agree - growth is growth. I never said otherwise. Who knows how much they're helping other religions - not me. I don't care. I didn't look up all the dynamics of the survey. Like what about independent non-denom Christian churches? How is growth for those churches tabulated? If one of those doubles in size - does its growth rate surpass the JWs? - Or these independent mega churches - are they affiliated with a denomination? Some of those pop up out of nowhere and suddenly have thousands.
Anyway - my point was mainly with David who kept making insinuations that educated people are driving the growth of JWs. This is just not true. The evidence says otherwise. Not knockng the majority of the net plus 25,000 hispanic JWs - but let's get real: here's the snapshot of the growth: A hispanic family of 7 who landed in the US 10-15 years ago, with teenage children barely able to read that well, all baptized at the same time (yes I 've seen it happen at every assembly I went to in Spanish in the last decade). Along that line - guess why the spanish elders are not criticized that often about their kids going to college vs the English. Anyone? Anyone? David? You there?
But hey - at least these spanish kids get the best education in the world - right at the kingdom hall.
Now something else I found might help prove an interesting point. Despite the high growth of hispanic population in the US - it is not the greatest (at least legally). When I recently went to a citizenship ceremony for a friend, I was expecting Mexico to be the biggest group. It was third. After China and India. And while JWs have had some ok growth in Chinese and Punjabi in the US - it's nothing to compare to the hispanic growth.
But - notice what the census department said a few years back "The fastest growing race groups will continue to be the Asian and Pacific Islander population with annual growth rates that may exceed 4 percent during the 1990's. By the turn of the century, the Asian and Pacific Islander population would expand to over 12 million, double its current size by 2010, triple by 2020, and increase to more than 5 times its current size, to 41 million by 2050."
The immigrants from Asia are often highly educated - yet they may add some, but really insignificant growth to the JWs. So again, there are some interesting dynamics going on in the numbers. I think it's good to add some perspective.
Here, I'll just say it like it is. JWs can only grow as long as the focus of their recruiting is strong with the uneducated. That's what they've done. A lot of shitty products have great sales by doing the same thing. Yep it's growth - but nothing to brag about.
