Hello New World: JW.org prepares for the Long Haul In the Old World

by steve2 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • steve2
    steve2

    The prominently displayed text in the home page on JW.org is (predictably) Matthew 24:14. But you do not have to be too keen-eyed to see something pivotal missing from the shortened verse. It omits perhaps the most important part of the verse (well, important for an end-times religion).

    This is how it reads on JW.org: "This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth."

    THis is how it reads in the Bible (NWT): "This good news of the kingdgom will be preached in all the inhabited earth and then the end will come."

    Why have they left out the last phrase?

    As many here have suggested, the new emphasis on JW.org appears to be part of an exerted "bedding-down" manouver in which the expected emphasis on the nearness of the end is muted. Oh, they still talk about the end, yes. But with the massive building projects (expected to be completed in....2017) and the toned down rhetoric around the perilously close end, these dudes are acting as if it ain't gonna be anytime soon.

    Yes, when the end tarries decade after decade after decade after decade, and 1914 is celebrated for its 100th anniversary, you better adapt fast.

    As the churches of Christendom found, you cannot believably keep harping on about the end with no thought to bedding down and securing your organizational future.

    As the years pass, those who have called the organization to task for manipulating scripture and its own publications to its own ends will die off. And the re-branded Watchtower (JW.org) will become a more established church, wealthier and more corrupt. If not already, it should be very much at home with the churches of Christendom which it has so vehemently condemned. Ouch!

  • Simon
    Simon

    Any doomsday religion is always going to appear a little crazy to the mainstream - they have to drop it to grow any more and become more of a lifestyle religion like the Mormons.

    It does show how they are willing to sacrifice the bible and command for their own ends. You'd maybe have more respect for them if they kept to their message but it's clear they don't even believe it themselves and are solely concerned with commercial growth.

  • blondie
    blondie

    The WTS has long used "snippets" to direct attention away from embarrassing concepts or ones non-jws aren't ready to absorb.

  • FadeToBlack
    FadeToBlack

    JFC steve2, good catch! I'm going to keep a tab open all the time to that site while I am here, and when my wife walks in on me, bring it up.

    Hey hon, come take a look at this (how can she fault me for being at jw.org? I even printed out WT study in Polish for her last night). Why do you think they only include part of that verse? It sounds similar to me why they dropped all that stuff about the 1914 generation from the Awake masthead. What's going on?

    Any predictions on the reply from her?

  • Band on the Run
    Band on the Run

    I felt strong so I visited JW.org today. They are carefully and methodically misrepresenting the religion to make it more paltable to newcomers. As an older born-in, I've been shocked by the surprise of converts when they are expelled from the Witnesses. I recall how I called out Shelby on their expectations. My parents sat me down when I was preschool. There were about 300 things I could never do if another Witness was present. Brothers were the enemy of good Jehovah's Witnesses. When people go running to elders for help with domestic violence or adultery, I am shocked. We were taught to go anywhere else!

    A quick glance at JW.org told me why born-ins and converts have different experiences. They are telling wholesale lies. Someone decided to take a rudimentary marketing course. Their explanations are legalistic in the extreme. The site is very seductive. How does anyone counter such salesmanship? It reminded me of the snake talking to Eve in Genesis.

    After glancing at JW.org, I see a clear need for informational sites that are not extreme to counter the Witness claims of normality. Now I finally see how people are promised one thing when they enter and slam into Witness culture.

    I must apologize to converts. The rules are not clear.

  • FadeToBlack
    FadeToBlack

    BOTR,

    It sure looks to me that they have brought in some outside help to put this together. Content is the SOS, but presentation is pretty slick. If this was just a bunch of bethelites who had taken some web design courses, we would be seeing something much less professional. I'm sure we have some web professionals who could chime in here. Heaven forbid that they would actually employ possibly university educated people to develop this (I'm not saying that you have to have a university level education to be creative or talented).

  • designs
    designs

    Band- The Wt. has fine tuned their political manuvers. Bob-n-weave, head-fake right and left. Like any politicians on the stump they say and do whatever it takes to bamboozle the flock.

  • TTATTelder
    TTATTelder

    Yeah Steve2, you see them pulling back to a cruising altitude. I wondered if after the sale of the NY properties and the hundreds of millions coming in, if they would back off the pushing for money and free labor. Well they certainly have not. Multiple letters have been issued and read to the congregations asking for money and volunteers. This tells you they intend on sitting on that pile, making interest off of it, investing it, and so forth.

    Interesting also that they are closing branches all over the world at the peak of their wealth. Very telling. I don't buy the "we don't need them now because we don't print as much literature" bit either. If they were focused on growth and expansion of the preaching work with the end of the system of things in sight, they would be full steam ahead. They would be using the branch offices for training and teaching and preparing for growth. Not happening.

    They are consolidating and liquidating assets for a long cozy winter.

  • steve2
    steve2

    The demotion of their iconic brand name "The Watchtower" - which harkens back to Chuck Russell's archaic methodology - and the surprisingly hearty promotion of the previously derogatory short-form "JW" are astute marketing maneuvers. As the Colonel discovered when fried foods were increasingly seen as unhealthy meal options but you didn't want to tamper with the main recipe, you rebrand as "KFC".

    And, as with the creepily similar control-freak Mormon organization, no one can accuse the "JW" organization of sleep-walking its way into the future. The future is Now. Lookin' so very smoothly new bro, but, um, tastin' the same!

  • breakfast of champions
    breakfast of champions

    Great observation, STEVE2

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