Are Jehovah's Witnesses a hierarchical religion? And does it matter?

by cedars 45 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cedars

  Hi everyone

  This is the title of my latest article, which is available on the link below...

  http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/are-jehovahs-witnesses-a-hierarchical-religion-and-does-it-matter

  

  Inspired by the illustration in the April 15th Watchtower (above), I thought it would be worthwhile to further explore this facet of the Society for two reasons...

  1. Because the Society has spent decades criticizing the Catholic Church for being hierarchical, and
  2. Because the Society has recently become more open about its hierarchical nature than ever before.

  Below is a diagram I have prepared which shows the organizational similarities that Watch Tower Society now shares with the Catholic Church...

  

  Until recently, the Governing Body could place the "Faithful Slave" above it at the top of the pyramid, but as of October 5th this fuzzy doctrine was scrapped - thus removing the final distinguishing factor between the Governing Body and Popedom.

  As always, I would be interested in your thoughts...

  Cedars
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  designs

  The GB functions very much like the College of Cardinals and similar to the Presbyterian's General Assembly.
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  Christ Alone

  Very interesting! Only the WT can use a chart like they did above and in the same breath deny any sort of clergy/laity distinctions.

  I suppose if they wanted to be more sneaky about it, they should not have listed the entities top to bottom. Perhpas if they had publishers at the top, GB in the # 3 position, etc, they could have claimed that they were just listing the types of people and groups that exist in the WT.
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  tec

  Looks the same to me. They are just not as big. Might be one of the reasons that they hate on the Catholics so much... (jealousy)... and also the Mormons (who are bigger as well, then the jws). The mormon 'hate' might just have been in one of the women who studied with me though. I don't know if any of you had the same experience or feelings while in.

  Peace,

  tammy
• 

  zed is dead

  Great minds think alike this morning. I started a thread about this a little while ago.

  zed
• 

  wasblind

  If you ask me they got the slave part wrong Just like they do when it comes to explainin' what a generation is

  from the way I see it. The Slaves are out in the " FIELD " servin' the WTS

  And it ain't a darn thing discreet about it, botherin' folk

  on the only day they have to sleep in.

  When I was out in the " Field Service " we were lucky

  if anybody answered the door.

  Sorry for the rant Cedars BTTT, I'll post on topic when I calm down

  .
• 

  tornapart

  Excellent Cedars. Your 'pyramids' are very telling and the allusion to Animal Farm is spot on!

  The picture is sickening as is the hypocrisy. The leaving out of Christ from the picture is hard to take. Not sure how much more I can stomach, family or no family.
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  jgnat

  A heirarchy of some sort is pretty well a given for a large organization, though the top-down model is getting antiquated. It seems rather hypoctrical considering the WTS makes such a big deal about the Catholic organization.
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  00DAD

  If it walks like a duck and if it quacks like a duck then, guess what? It's a duck!
• 

  moshe

  My WT pyramid looks like this--

  

  A publishing company can make a lot of money when they have unpaid sales people. Feudalism is what JWs have in the KH.