100% agree. "Us or Them" mentality at it's most blatant. Which leads me to my next question in this thread.....
What are your thoughts on this Matthew 24:14? As much as I disagree with many of the WTBS's doctrine, there is a pretty large preaching campaign carried out by them. How do you guys interpret this "sign"?
"This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."
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Good question, there's a couple thoughts that come to mine, and I have to say thank you to Terry for getting me on the right track. He asked the question in a thread, If there always was a faithful and discreet slave on the earth, why didn't Russell join up with them? That hit me like a bullet when I read that. An argument can be made that the WT is probably the most visible with a large preaching campaign, however, how'd they get the message? From the Adventists!! Where'd the Adventist's get the message? From the Millerites! Where'd the Millerites get the message? From the Baptists! So on, so on, so on...... All of these groups according to WT doctrine make up Babylon the Great, however all of them were instrumental to the WT's birth! Not to mention, the WT isn't the only group preaching today. There's Mennonites, Mormons, heck even Nation of Islam members sell bean pies and The Final Call magazine near the closest liquor store in any black neighborhood. Christianity wouldn't exist in foreign countries today if not for the efforts of missionaries from Catholic and Protestant denominations. JWs wouldn't be able to preach the good news and have some kind of repoire with other denominations if someone from some denomination other than JWs hadn't already taught them about Jesus.
The other thing too is, while its true that preaching the good news of the kingdom is a feature of the last days, Jesus didn't say that the door to door ministry was specifically nor exclusively how that prophetic feature was to be fulfilled. Just because JWs knock on doors like ONE ACCOUNT states in the scriptures, doesn't invalidate the efforts of TV Ministers, pew leaders who wait on the sincere ones to enter their church doors, religious messages on billboards, or even the random Jesus freak you run into at the supermarket or at the bus station. Considering the WT states that the door to door work is pretty much the only accepted way of preaching the good news, and they base that upon ONE ACCOUNT in the scriptures, then how come they don't preach in synogogues and Pagan temples like the apostle Paul, Peter, and John did?