why is the org acting worried? (page 2)

apostatethunder

I think they realized that some witnesses are rebelling in their own little ways: gambling, disrespecting their husbands, smiling at disfellowshipped ones, etc.

It's room for hope though a very small one and they intend to close it.

The biggest issue is dwindling money donation. In wealthy countries like USA, UK, Germany, Japan, the membership is stagnant. The biggest growths are in countries that are very poor and where the donations are fraction of USA. With a development of the mobile apps, people are less interested in reading; and everything is moving to cloud, mobile apps, and electronic publishing. Even developing countries have rather well developed mobile and wireless communication. This affects how the literature is distributed and accepted by potential converts. The business model of the 1900-1950 is clearly broken. For example economic crisis in Europe barely increased the number of JWs even in economically depressed Greece, and decreased in Hungary, Czech Republic, or Slovakia. Wealthier East Asia have highly secular, and religiously indifferent population with well educated class. The JW have hard time to influence societies which have high emphasis on education as they have for decades dispise higher learning.

As long WT sticks to 1914 teaching, which became liability, the organization will have hard time to expand in this world. They will eventually phase out and modify to create a new sense of urgency, but this takes years to develop. For now we can just watch stagnant membership and organization in crisis.

LostGeneration

They have boots on the ground in the form of COs. They get a report twice a year on every single hall, I'd love to browse through a stack of those reports.

The stuff we hear from the a$$emblies and printed in the kool aid WT is in direct response to the issues being reported. Its about money, apostates, women marrying out of the b0rg because there are so few options to pick from, and talking/emailing/facebooking DFd people. Most of these issues are intertwined in some way, its like their big ball of yarn is staring to slowly unravel and they have no answer other than beat the sheep.

And the growth you see is from Africa and other third world nations. Educated and rich nations are growing sick and tired of religion in general, and especially sick and tired of fundamentalist wackos (like JWs).

RunAsFastAsYouCan

They are projecting fear? Go figure.

DATA-DOG

You mean like the Wt study today?!?!? It's time to close ranks!! Satan is attacking!! LOL!!! Obey the 8 Dukes for survival!!

DD

Apognophos

"Eight Dukes" is next week :)

LongHairGal

CRAZY GUY:

Any organization that keeps saying "loyalty" is making an emotional appeal for disgruntled people to stay. It makes me angry because the religion is lying, deceptive and unaccountable - but is crying for people to be "loyal" and stay. They are losing responsible working people and gaining people with serious issues.

They are afraid of what the future holds for THEM. Elderly who contribute are dying off in the West; growth in poor areas of the world spells less money.

I also feel that here in the U.S. people are sick of fundamentalist-types of religions. I also think people are sick of the tax-free status of religion in general, especially useless ones like the JWs that contribute NOTHING to society.

steve2

I'm hard pressed to think of a time during the 20th Century when the organization did not "act worried". It's more of the same.

If you want a glimpse of the organization when it was really worried, if not paranoid, look back to Rutherford's day:

He whipped up blatant hysteria about anything or anyone who dared express a differing view - and he often did not bother to "sweeten" the message: He was blunt, rude, arrogant and threatening. Anyone who knows anything at all about the Olin Moyle trial will know precisely what I mean. Perhaps there is a link on JWN to information on this disgusting period of Watchtower history?

Oh Gawd

As a non jw with no particular motivation to see them run off the planet, I don't see this as any more than a rallying of the troops. It's a business and they're acting like good businessmen. The Catholics are doing the same thing, rallying the troops, by way of a kinder more humanlike Pope.

Look, the threat to the WTS, and every religion, isn't websites exposing flaws in their doctrine. It's science exposing the very basis from which they all draw their power as being false. But that's going to take a very long time to play out. Even still every religion, even Islam, is filled with faders so to speak. Those who still associate but don't REALLY believe. And every religion is trying it's best through whatever methods work best for them to maintain their core believers. Sure, the WTS probably has a hard job at hand, but nonetheless, they're all pretty much in the same boat.

Think about this; you can't teach creationism, the very foundation of religion, in public schools yet that in and of itself doesn't stop everyone from being religious. It should, but it doesn't. Why? I suspect it' because many don't realize evolution is a scientific fact. People hear evolutionary theory and think it's an idea still up for debate when, in fact, it's been a closed case for some time. The only thing up for debate is the how not the if. But I also suspect that alot of people don't care in that they want to be religious regardless of what the truth is.

So my point is, exposing the truth is not the weapon of mass destruction for religion that some seem to believe. There's people on this site who have abandon the jws but still believe in the bible, for example. They still believe in a fairy tale. They've just exchanged one for another. So no religion, not even the WTS, needs to fear the truth anytime soon. People will believe whatever makes them feel good regardless of truth.

kaik

OG, the biggest threat to organized religion is education, social welfare nest, and indifference. Catholic church lost power in Europe once states picked up the tab on providing social services, retirement, health care, and charity from established religion. People do not need to be a part of the congregation or church to get health care or food stamps. They only need to be taxpayer. The science undermines the irrationality of fundamentalism and providing explanation for many events around as. The education is the biggest threat to primitive religious reasoning, and for that reason, fundamentalists like JW are against education and science. Illiterate people are much easier to control. The last issue, the indifference, makes people oblivious toward religion. USA is the only country in the West, which went through four distinct Christian awakening. JW ride on this wave, but they failing to become a mainstream religion in industrialized world which is both Western and Eastern Europe, Anglosaxon states, and East Asia. Their only growth comes from the most impoverished societies in the world which do not have well funded education, established social nest, and people are hungry for any religious extremism that would give them any hope for better future.

why is the org acting worried?

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