Has anyone got the 2012 Yeabook yet?
Partaker Number To Be Eliminated?
by LostGeneration 46 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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straightshooter
Ones use to refer to the number of Memorial partakers as proof that the end was near. But when the number started to increase, it placed the GB in an awkward position. It would be very logical for them to stop if the number continues to rise.
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james_woods
Publishing the number was just another of ol' Freddy Franz's tricks to whip up a sense of urgency in decades past: "See Martha? The number of anointed dropped another 200 between 1969 and 1970 - surely the time left is reduced!"
Since the 2007 article re-opening heaven's gate, and with the advent of the overlapping generations, publishing that number serves no useful purpose and, as noted above, will eventually become an obvious anomaly.
Hence, I fully expect them to stop publishing it, perhaps as soon as the 2012 Yearbook.
Ones use to refer to the number of Memorial partakers as proof that the end was near. But when the number started to increase, it placed the GB in an awkward position. It would be very logical for them to stop if the number continues to rise.
Ed Dunlap, his brother Marion, and I once speculated back in the early 80s that this increase in the annointed would eventually happen.
Ed made the dry comment (he had a rather dry sense of humor) that it might just be easier for them to say the new light had come that the remnant welcomed the great crowd to join them in partaking so that nobody would be able to count the number any more. Ed partook of the emblems AFTER he left the WT, but before he was kicked out he felt that it was hypocritical to do so in the witness memorial because of the false superstition surrounding it.
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slimboyfat
Ed partook of the emblems AFTER he left the WT, but before he was kicked out he felt that it was hypocritical to do so in the witness memorial because of the false superstition surrounding it.
If he had such a dim view of JWs and their doctrines even before leaving it makes you wonder why he chose to be a part of it at all.
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designs
This deserves a triple everything depended on the 144,000 leaving this planet ahead of the BIG A. It was an annual Ritual to see the numbers get smaller each year. How dare they!!
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james_woods
If he had such a dim view of JWs and their doctrines even before leaving it makes you wonder why he chose to be a part of it at all.
Well, you have to understand that from before 1975 and all the way up until he and Franz were kicked out of Bethel, Ed was what I would call a sincere reformer. He actually thought that with Ray on the governing body, (and there were a dozen or so other reformers like them in Bethel), the realization that nothing happened in 1975 would make them back down on a lot of wrong teaching. Ed told me that doing research for the Aid to Bible Understanding book (and later writing the James book) was what got him to realize that a lot of traditional witness doctrine (607 bce was a big point) was just pure bunkum from back in the days of Russell/Rutherford. But he still thought at the time that they could be reformed.
He had privately told us that everyone should be partaking of the emblems way back in the 1970s - about 1976 was the first I heard of it. Many of us were just hanging on to see when the big reform would come. I was younger and being impatient - I gave up on reform and left quite a while before Marion or Ed did.
What we all eventually got instead of reform, of course, was the big crackdown on apostacy.
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agonus
It's MOST appropriate to partake at the Memorial if there is "false superstition" surrounding the practice. Doing so shows submission to Christ and obedience to Him rather than men and will hopefully dispel said superstition.
The comment has been made that folks in The Org are hungering and thirsting for Jesus (no pun intended) and the more the WT continues to clamp down the more will partake as they desire to be closer to He who - even the GB must admit - is the true Lord and Saviour.
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agonus
If Jehovah doesn't care about numbers, could an "organization" be of such crucial importance to Him?
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Band on the Run
Jesus is a ramshackle Lord and Savior in Witness doctrine! In my day, the thought of anyone partaking, aside from the very elderly, was unthinkable. The whole KH would be riveted on the emblems so fearful that a new person might partake. I am glad the numbers are up. People want Jesus and they want Jesus now. Partaking is a bold move. Evidently, they did not study the lit or behave enough if they partake. The wheel just keeps spinning.
Mentally disturbance destroys intent. You need not only partake but have an internal mind frame that you are worthy. No one ever seems worthy in the Witnesses. Nothing was ever satisfactory. Strangely, people are finding themselves worthy. Very gutsy. Partake and then get out.
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james_woods
It's MOST appropriate to partake at the Memorial if there is "false superstition" surrounding the practice. Doing so shows submission to Christ and obedience to Him rather than men and will hopefully dispel said superstition.
I agree - as a matter of fact, I partook of the emblems at the last memorial I attended - and, believe it or not, I was the presiding speaker at that memorial. It is another thread topic, but let me just say that I deviated seriously from the outline. I resigned as an elder about a month later.
Ed Dunlap made the personal decision not to partake under what he felt were "false expectations" - that is, he did not want the observers to think that he was going along with the elitist notion that a select chosen few could partake. He was waiting for a reform to take place saying everyone in the congregation should partake.
Of course, it never happened.