OLD SCHOOL vs NEW SCHOOL style of JW preaching

by Terry 10 Replies latest watchtower scandals

Terry

MY HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED!
Between 1938 and 1946 Jehovah's Witnesses fought 23 First Amendment actions before the Supreme Court.
In the first year of American participation in World War II following the sneak attack at Pearl
Harbor, a Jehovah's Witness Named Walter Chaplinsky was doing what his religious leaders
constantly urged all JW's to do.
He was delivering the same message that Watchtower society Judge Rutherford so often
preached in the Watchtower, on the radio and in recordings played to householders on a
phonograph record. His choice of pulpit was eccentric by common standards, the public
sidewalk in downtown Rochester!
Chaplinsky passed out pamphlets, tracts and magazines with the catchy slogan, "Religion is a
snare and a racket!" The town folk did not respond too kindly to having their beliefs denigrated
publicly.
The town marshall stopped by and cautioned Chaplinsky to "keep it down" and try to avoid
such a commotion as was stirring. Then, the officer left. Chaplinsky ignored the advice and
went right back to his inflammatory preachments! This, of course, included such tasty tidbits as
all priests and ministers are of Satan leading their flocks to eternal damnation!
A crowd of insulted citizens gathered around him to the extent the roads were blocked. An
incipient riot was in the making! In no time at all, the over-eager Jehovah's Witness found
himself surrounded by men challenging him on the eccentricity of Witness beliefs on flag-salute.
Chaplinsky informed them that it was idolatrous and an abomination to God. Things went
downhill in a big hurry! In some reports given at trial a man with a flagpole in his hand
threatened to impale Chaplinsky on it if he didn't renege on his insults. At any rate, he found
himself pinned against a car by the pole when a police officer arrived. In the melee, the JW was
struck by one of the angry citizens and the officer arrested Chaplinsky.
The town marshall returned to help and Chaplinsky argued with both officers that they should be dispersing the crowd and not arresting him for preaching!
Well, Chaplinsky was one of those fellows who possess a handsome amount of righeous
indignation! Suffice to say, what he said to the town marshall got him arrested and resulted in a
legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States!
The result went against the Watchtower Society's expectations!
The Court upheld the arrest as legal and appropriate.
The legal case established that "insulting or fighting words were those that by their very utterance
inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace and are among the well-defined
and narrowly limited classes of speech which the prevention and punishment of which have
never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."
That's a long-winded way of saying Jehovah's Witnesses should NOT say, as Chaplinsky had
said to the marshall, "you are a damned racketeer and a damned fascist!."
Chaplinksy v. New Hampshire (1942)
This Supreme Court decision is one Jehovah's Witnesses never speak of or write about!
While Judge Rutherford was a firebrand preacher insulting other religious groups left and right using inflammatory language which succeeded in agitating religious citizens against Jehovah's Witnesses in their door to door work it was the rank and file members of the local Kingdom Halls that bore the brunt of the ill-will. Arrests, assaults, jail sentences and injuries were expected of brothers and sisters and urged on members world wide. Being a public martyer was a badge of honor in those days. After the death of Rutherford and under the new leadership of the more business oriented Nathan Knorr this agitation was curtailed.
By 2009 a policy of turn-tail-and-run had crept in. What the older scarred and pummeled veteran witnesses thought about this wimping-out we may never know since complaints are stifled and can easily lead to excommunication at a disfellowship committee meeting.
"Question Box", Our Kingdom Ministry, October 2009, ©Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, Inc., page 3, "What should you do if directed to stop preaching? In some instances, the police have approached publishers who were sharing in some form of the ministry, informed them that they were violating the law, and directed them to stop. You should promptly and politely leave the territory if directed to do so. ...If it is possible, tactfully obtain the badge number of the police officer and the number of his precinct. Thereafter, promptly inform the elders, who will then contact the branch office about the incident."
Common policy is for local Kingdom Halls to maintain a do-not-call list, so the first time a JW bothers you can be the last.
How different the low-profile, sleek, modern Jehovah's Witness is and what a bold contrast to their brethen in the old-school style past!
Do you suppose that the really old person sitting next to you at the local Kingdom Hall may be pretty pissed off at what has happened to
their religion after all those hard-won battles?
We will never know!
new hope and happiness

To answer your qvuestion. Why?
steve2

How different the low-profile, sleek, modern Jehovah's Witness is and what a bold contrast to their brethen in the old-school style past!
Yes, this a frequently-observed point. It is primarily only when you stand back and take in a wider perspective that the contrast hits you.
Not to pinprick the extremely interesting question you raise about whether those old-timers would be pissed off at the new breed, I'd suggest that those old-timers would be pretty much all dead now, with most of the "survivors" well into their nineties now. My mother - was born 1932. Her parents were pretty tough preachers from the early Rutherford era onwards. They hogged street corners Friday afternoons and nights with their children in toe and spend long hours traveling the countryside door-knocking weekends and some evenings, in addition to the weekly meetings. They lived and breathed the Watchtower.
They died decades ago.
My mother would tell us that her parents' generation were the last of the foot-in-the-door witnesses - and I think she was right.
Very few from that breed of door-knockers remains.
Terry

Not to pinprick the extremely interesting question you raise about whether those old-timers would be pissed off at the new breed, I'd suggest that those old-timers would be pretty much all dead now, with most of the "survivors" well into their nineties now.
Hmmmm....I'm beginning to think the "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" slogan was flawed, now that you mention that!
When I became associated with the Kingdom Hall in the late 50's those old style firebrands were very much still in evidence and only too glad to tell you their stories! We younger generation newbies were given a very high standard to meet! It was unthinkable, for example, in 1967 for me to give a moment's thought at NOT complying with the Neutrality policy vis-a-vis conscription into the armed forces.
We just automatically did as instructed. Who wanted to the first generation of pussy-willow Witnesses? Not me!
Iown Mylife

Insulting people, make 'em mad as hell, when they attack just start whining that you're under persecution - proving you are doing God's will.
Ring doorbells on Christmas morning, deliberately and with aforethought ruin people's holiday. When they bluntly tell you to leave their property as you are not welcome, triumphantly announce to the car group that you just made Jehovah so happy because you have been persecuted.
IT IS INSANITY
Terry

I'm doing a great deal of research into the details of the old days for my book. A very disturbing picture emerges. The Watchtower Society
insisted it was NOT a religion (that admission came later when it suited their purposes to get past certain legal obstacles) but was embarked
upon a plan to do whatever it wanted and call it FREE SPEECH. Hayden Cooper Covington, Olin Moyle and Joseph Rutherford fought many court
cases over First Amendment issues. We grew up hearing about the many successes, of course. It is even more interesting to read about the failures.
This link contains a comprehensive list of cases. If you read carefully you see who fought the cases and the outcome; both wins and losses:
http://www.watchtowerdocuments.com/documents/1991_Total_JW_U_S_Supreme_Court_Cases_as_of.pdf
sarahsmile

You do realize the neighborhoods Rutherford target were Catholics. That was like taking a phonograph to the middle of Bethel and making all kinds of hatred comments toward JWs. People forget that the streets were more segregated.
steve2

Those old timers stood menacingly outside selected churches and thrust tracts full of rabid warnings about religious harlots into the unwelcoming hands of parishioners. They were so crazed with beliefs that they alone had the truth, that the end was perilously close and that all others were doomed. Funny, we're now several decades closer to the perilously close end, those crazed old timers are either well dead or having their diapers changed in residential homes - and meanwhile the softer breed of Witnesses sips on lattes in their local mcCafe, counting time and their inexorably emerging grey hairs. Doubt twitches nervously underneath but it's nothing that a good yawn and half-hearted shuffle around the territory for a bit won't fix. Just don't think too much about how close the end is - reality can be too hard to bear. But thank God we no longer bait the locals by use of spiritual ambush.
Phizzy

I was around some of those old firebrand JW's as I grew up, and was taught to be fearless in taking the message to anybody. I was the one, even as a callow youth, that the other Dub's used to "allow" to go to the Vicarage or the really big Mansions etc.
I was the one who, at just 17 years old, went toe to toe with scriptures for over two hours with a Born-again type. We "agreed to differ" in the end.
I was never foot in the door, but some of my parents generation were, I remember seeing one old Bro who was famous for it, he was pushed out of the door, which was then heartily slammed, and the old fool fell back in to the street ! we all rushed to pick him up and he sheepishly said " I guess that chap didn't want to listen". He was unhurt, but it didn't changed his ways.
I don't think today's JW's are apatch on that old guard, they cannot make a decent defense of any of their unique beliefs, they can do no more than offer magazines in a desultory way, they couldn't present a "Three scripture sermon" as we were supposed to.
Even the old timers who were my contempories have dumbed down their methods, out of necessity, as one 70 year old Elder explained to me recently, most that they call on have no knowledge of the Bible, not even the basic stories in it, and most are not interested in it either.
Terry

What is the moral of this story, then?
I would say the following: Cults are personality driven. The Watchtower Society was personality driven under "Pastor" Russell. There are still Bible Students
who have not changed a jot or tiddle who revere the man and maintain his teachings.
Under Rutherford the cult was personality driven in a different way. Rutherford made enemies as easily as babies make dirty diapers! Rutherford
was like the guy in the motor boat that plows through the lake and overturns the rowboats in his wake. Under his headship worship consisted of insulting others and provoking angry responses which were then labeled "persecution."
Under Knorr it was Franz whose invisible power tripping consisted of cranking out oracles of chronology and whack-job interpretation.
After HIS DEATH the whole religion collapsed like a circus tent.
All we have now are mind-bent yes-men who puff out their lack of credentials like a peacock brandishes its tail.

OLD SCHOOL vs NEW SCHOOL style of JW preaching

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