"Theocratic Warfare" and the Annual Report

by Billy the Ex-Bethelite 141 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Billy the Ex-Bethelite
    Billy the Ex-Bethelite

    Vidiot: Since the WT financials aren't open for public review, there's no way for anyone to know exactly what goes on. But we are sure left to speculate.

    In my bethel experience, I didn't see evidence of fraud, with someone pocketing money. However, I did see a lot of terrible decisions that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Since bethel would put people in responsible positions based on "spiritual qualifications" (or their ability to kiss the right as$es), inexperienced and uneducated people became responsible for important and expensive decisions. For temporary workers up to bethelites that only last a couple of years, they often don't see this. But when you stick around much longer like I did, you see the trend often repeated of expensive mistakes having to be corrected and covered up at "God's House."

  • Julia Orwell
    Julia Orwell

    Hey Billy, I was scrupulously honest in counting my hours. If I did 1:15 one day, I counted the 1 and kept the 15 minutes for the next month seeing as we could only report in whole hours. I always erred on the side of caution with my counting, and rounded down rather than up, unless I'd spoken to my brother that month about JW religion for 15 or more minutes. I guess I was an odd one out! I do think also that the JW men had more pressure to make up hours to keep their jobs in the congregation. We non-pioneer women had no status to uphold so maybe many of us were more honest.

    Not so some pioneer women- I recall one who would go do all her personal errands and doctors' appointments etc, place a tract here and there or leave a mag in the waiting room, and count all the personal time. I also remember some sitting in the coffee shop for an hour, leaving a tract on the table and telling me to count the whole hour. I never did. I didn't even count 20 minute tea breaks! Almost everyone else did, and it never sat right with me.

    Others would also count time if they took a study to an assembly or meeting. They'd count the assembly time. I used to ferry a teenage born-in unbaptised publisher to and from the meetings, and apparently I could have counted the time because she was unbaptised and we'd talk JW religion. I never did, because I figured she'd been in it longer than me even though I'd been dunked.

    I wasn't a born in and was very conscientious about trying to do right by 'Jehovah'. Blind fool I was.

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