Stand for Pure - You are a Donkey Hole.
What has happened to Jehovah's Witnesses???
by DATA-DOG 35 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
Finkelstein
What has happened to Jehovah's Witnesses???
The organization got a lot richer, the WTS that is.
You could say they are in a process of advancing their business acumen to a higher level.
Say next time stand for pure worship when your at your Hall and the monthly financial report is be addressed at the podium
and the suggestion goes out that left over donations should be forwarded to branch Head Quarters.
Say .. " Wait a second, the Bethel HQ just recently made a billion dollars in real-estate sales ! "
I'm sure the congregation would appreciate that information.
-
chrisuk
Stand for Pure Worship - I find it ironic that you're defending the org and at the same time going against their wishes (orders) and posting on an apostate forum. I'm sure they wouldn't be very pleased about that. Why don't you reveal who you really are and see how long you continue to live a double life before you're dfed?
-
steve2
Yes, the organization's going through a lot of changes...it always has, in one form or another. I'd say the biggest changes in the organization's history happened in the late 1920s - early 30s when Rutherford wrenched the organization out of its tired, patronizing Russelite influences. This is nothing new.
On a related topic, Witnesses have for long decades salivated over the dubious "evidence" that the light is becoming brighter.
It is telling that the cover on their newly revised bible shows the light is now becoming greyer. Hey, printeries have to earn their living: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
-
wasblind
Steve No more Black or white thinkin', grey areas are now allowed
-
ADJUSTMENTS
The WTBTS is like any other fourtune 500 company on the market. Instead of using the word insubordinate for an employee who doesn't agree they use the word apostate!
-
Vidiot
StandForPureWorship - "...adaptability throughout the years is clear evidence of Jehovah's blessing."
By that logic, an inability to adapt would suggest that "Jehovah's blessing" was absent, would it not?
I'm having a hard time imagining how an ultraconservative apocalyptic-millennialist authoritarian high-control group can adapt to the rapidly changing, information-saturated, Wikileaks-level-transparency-craving environment of the 21st Century.
-
fulltimestudent
We were told that our faith was a direct successor of the 1st Century Christians. The Bible Students humbly met in small groups, and were so very different from the Churches of Christendom, and their harlotry with the governments and links to the commercial world in Satan's grasp. So where are we as a religion?
But Data-dog, early Christianity did transform.
From a beginning in which they looked so similar to the sect that collected the Dead Sea scrolls, they were transformed by the dynamic missionising (advertising) arrangement of Paul (later copied by Mani - with similar results). Its true that the NT Jesus stories describe Jesus as advocating missionary work, but we have to remember that these were written decades later, after Paul's 'take-over of the religion.
We should also ask whether Paul's ideas on preaching were original. I suggest not. The first missionary religion was Buddhism. Could Paul have heard of Buddhist missionary (advertising) methods? Certainly, there are clear records of contact between India and the west Asian areas of Syria and Palestine (and more).
Nearer to our times, and in the post reformation era, the Catholic church did a lot of missionary (advertising) work. Think of the Jesuits , Dominicans and Franciscans in China from the 13th C, and various Protestant churches in Asia in the 19th C.
So how different were Charlie R's early Bible Students? Some different doctrines, yes! but not really that different.
When did the Bible Students become transformed? Wasn't it when, that all-American boy Joe Rutherford, who (possibly influenced by his business friends of the Coca Cola Coy) epitomised the go-getting spirit of post WW1 America, became President. Think of his slogan, 'Advertise, advertise, advertise the King and his Kingdom', and his re-organisation of the WTS etc into the image of an American business organisation to efficiently support his vision of a world wide army of advertisers. Knorr, whatever his opinion of Joe R, (by the end of Joe's life) accepted that same vision.
Both Joe R and Nathan K saw the world through the eyes of the American way - a way that transformed America (and the world). What you see today in the organisation that seduced us all, is that same vision grown old.
-
Cold Steel
DATA-DOG: What has happened to Jehovah's Witnesses???
Yes, indeed. What has happened? Back in the early 70s, the JW missionaries seemed to know the scriptures and could at least give one reasons why they believed in some of their more bizarre doctrines. I actally had a number of very pleasant discussions with them. But now, everything has been dumbed down. About three years ago I had a couple of guys in and they kept pestering me about my religion, which I refused to tell them. "If I tell you, I fear the discussion will turn from what's right with your religion to what you think is wrong with mine." They finally backed me up against the wall and, sure enough, on the next visit they brought an elder who was an "expert" on mine. He wasn't pleasant at all and the other two guys were clearly treating him with a great deal of deference and a certain amount of fear. He sat on the edge of the sofa with the other two guys looking at him as though he were Gandhi. When it came to the soul sleeping doctrine and the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C., he pretty much folded. And when they left, they never called or came back.
On another thread, SloppyJoe describes an encounter with his in-laws. He writes:
I was truly amazed about how very little [my mother-in-law] knew doctrine. She has been in 46 years. No idea how to calculate 1914. No idea how vital 1914 was to the organization. No idea 1919 has no biblical backing. No idea how the governing body receives communication from God. I had to tell her I was amazed she didn't know any of it. I showed 587 in an encyclopoedia and she was shocked it didn't say 607. Even still she just didn't seem to grasp the importance of 1914 and it's lack of foundation. To end this story after I explained all this she even acknowledged that they make stuff up to suit what they want.
They now seem to believe doctrines because to believe otherwise would risk being disfellowshiped. They also were more optimistic about the 1970s being the decade where everything would come to a bloody end. Now they just seem to have been whipped too much. It's like Mario and Vito are enforcing the doctrines. I have a whole Watchtower dedicated to Armageddon, and whoever wrote the article didn't know squat about the subject matter. I would have been embarrassed to give it to anyone.
What would happen if someone took an investigator to one of the Watchtower meetings and he or she questioned the material. Would they be angry or would they patiently try to explain it to them?
-
steve2
Again, "What has happened to Jehovah's Witnesses?" is, ahem, "What Has Always Happened in the Organization". There is nothing new under the sun, baby!
Even when I was a young kid traipsing along with Mom and Dad to the hall in the early 1960s, the common refrain was, Jehovah's organization is on the move and if we slacken our hand, it will leave us behind.
As now, there was an elastic capacity for the brothers and sisters to perceive any changes whatsoever in the organization as "evidence" of Jehovah's blessings.
Sure, every now and then the changes have rankled some to such a degree that they cite the changes as their reasons for leaving.
But, in general, the rank and file lap up the changes, buzz with excitement - and tears, ahhhhhhh - for a time before lapsing back into the mind-numbing smugness so beloved of the self-righteous.