To quote your predicted future for the JWs...
This is the history of the future:
1. Witness leaders nowadays do not have the luxury of an 'open the window' period of reform, although there have been some small moves in that dirrection.
2. The governing body (especially the young ones and future appointees) will panic when they realise that tinkering (15 mins for old publishers and pioneer requirement shifts) has not done the trick.
3. They will make more and more grave statements about the end being near, but these won't do the trick either because they will contain nothing specific.
4. Eventually the governing body will stomach the idea of promoting 2034 as the possible date for the end (120 years from 1914 - 'just as the days of Noah will the days of the son of man be...'). There may be some infighting about this as there was in Franz' day, but some new 'prophet' will need to come forward from among them! A replacement for Freddy is still awaited.
But what will happen then? That is the interesting part. Will the Witnesses have a turn-around just as they did in the early 1970s? Or will ordinary Witnesses see through the date setting because of the flood of information on the Internet? Or will the Witnesses break up into various factions and branches before it even reaches that stage? (see earlier thread) That is not so easy to call. I am just setting out one of the possibilities.
One of the biggest problems for the governing body is that 2034 is an awful long time away. Only when new appointments are made to the governing body of people who have a reasonable chance of making it to 2034 will this idea get off the ground. Even then, the governing body will have a challenge in convincing ordinary Witnesses to hang around until then. They can either come out with the date soon in the hope of short-term gains - or they can keep it under their hat until the mid-2020s. If the latter - then they are going to have some problems in giving incentives for making people stay until the new prediction is made. The general warnings about the nearness of the end, no matter how strongly they are worded, will simply not have the same impact as a definite prediction.
And you seriously want to go back to that? Everlasting Lies?
