Can the jw organization be reformed?

by wannaexit 122 Replies latest jw friends

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  wannaexit

  I know that this has been discussed in the past but I wanted to get some fresh opinions. There are many out there that recognize the "rot" that is in watchtower but still feel that there is a "wholesome" side to it and are trying to bring about change or reform from within.

  In 2002 when the rose colored glasses came off for me and I truly started to understand TTATT, I still felt that there was some redemable aspects of the organization.

  I felt that Russell had some doctrinal things right. I don't feel like that anymore. I also don't have any respect for Russell and have since learned that whatever he had right was borrowed by his own contemporaries and other faiths.

  The question whether the organization can be reformed came up again for me while dialoguing with a a pleasant and for all respects sincere jw who feels that reform is possible.

  What do the brilliant minds of JWD say?
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  steve2

  People have long believed that the Watchtower has gone off the rails but that before it did so, it was God's organization.

  Trouble is, they disagree on the topic of "when" it went off the rails.

  Case in point: My JW aunt's now deceased mother-in-law was disfellowshipped in the late 1950s for refusing to accept that her adulterous husband who remarried was going to be reinstated because he had served time outside the organization and his new wife was heavy with child.

  That permanently disfellowshiped woman believed fervently until the day she died in her late 80s that the Watchtower had stopped being God's organization in the mid-1950s by succumbing to apostasy- and that it was directly related to its "immoral" reasoning in allowing her (ex) husband back into the organization.

  I have known others over the years who have got justifiable "bees in their bonnets" about the organization and declared that it had apostasized since other dates and at other times on other issues.

  With such a grab-all view, you could reasonable conclude that, given its shocking history (and we haven't even touched on the Rutherford years in the 1920s and 30s, when has the organization even given a good "witness" for its "God", Jehovah???
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  Londo111

  Nope! And I don’t think they’ve much right at all...nor did I go through that phase. However, I will say with Russell I don’t think it started out to be a cult, but that is where things ended up under the Judge and his successors.
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  Captain Blithering

  I would like to believe so, as I've seen a LOT of good done to and for a LOT of people. But then I'm biased, ive not been the recipient of some of the butt kicking described on this forum, and I suppose the very fact that nobody knows I'm a member here, or ever can, for fear of total shunning and loss of family ,balances my bias out a little. . I feel that reforms would need to be too radical to be sustainable. So bring it on!
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  unstopableravens

  in my opinion: for there to be any real reform as in being a real bible believing group, they would have to believe that jesus is god, that he rose bodily and without the new birth there is no salvation. without beliveing the gospel any other reform is pointless.
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  Doubting Bro

  Not in my opinion. To reform would require such a drastic change in policies and even in people that it would just implode. Plus, anyone who voices a contrary opinion is quickly squashed. The only ones that have the right to question anything are the GB and it's in their best interest to continue things as they are. It's hard to imagine even a black swan event that would make them drop their most cult-like traits.
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  fulltimestudent

  Can they be reformed (i.e. changed to suit our revised concepts)?

  ummm!!! think-think-think!!! ponder-ponder-ponder!!!

  Well, maybe - many brands of christianity have changed (modified their views) over the centuries - but its just liking putting a clean suit on an old drunk. - Its still the same underneath.
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  Vanderhoven7

  There is no reformation without repentance; repentance for putting an organization between sinner and Jesus Christ; for injecting an organization into the salvation formula; for judging other members in the body of Christ and accounting them worthy of destruction based on rejection of unappointed men in New York.

  If repentance happens, the organization would become a loathsome thing in the eyes of all who repent.

  So my answer would be - "No...it is impossible...because it is rotten to the core"
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  frankiespeakin

  Any reforms must be for corporation interest, as CEOs of the Watchtower Corporation the Governing Body will only bring about reform when a certain position is no longer deemed profitable for the Organization, bottom line, and morals and right or wrong have very little to do with it. These guys are also old and set in their ways and attitudes and so their response time to issues and opportunities will alway come after the fact because of deep denial of true facts and delusional about Jehovah the corporation's killing machine.
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  blondie

  When I first remember the WTS there were less than 1M in the world....the administration still consisted of a board of directors with a president running the show. I figure if the 1975 fiasco did not tip the ship, nothing will. The WTS will just adapt and adjust and the ones that leave will be replaced by other easily fooled people. I do see a possibility of a rift in those in authority when those claiming to be anointed dry up.