Has the Governing Body Become More or Less Authoritarian in Recent Years?

by cofty 74 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cofty

  It seems to me that this is a no-brainer but I have been out since '96.

  So based on your personal experiences what do you think?

  Lots more - a bit more - just the same as always - less - a lot less?

  If you think more or lots more can you spot a time or event when it started to change?

  My vote is lots more. IMO they have gone from behind the scenes leaders to objects of adoration whose word must not be questioned. I think it changed around the time I left when they began to panic about failing generation teachings.
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  Londo111

  Lots more.

  As a JW I felt it, especially after 2001. At the same time, I noted how the literature was getting dumbed down.
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  Band on the Run

  Too far out to know. There wasn't even a GB when I was born-in. Freddie Franz was the religion. Knorr was the organization and growth. I would love to hear what someone who has been in for many decades believes?
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  kneehighmiah

  Literature is being dumbed down big time. It's on an elementary school level. This is because most of the growth is amongst uneduacated people. Almost all newly baptized people at my hall have serious mental/emotional problems. They cannot think critically and need an authority figure to tell them how to live their lives. I've never in my life had to ask an elder how to make a decision. they run to the elders to ask what color underwear to put on every morning.
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  Laika

  I don't think I've been paying attention long enough to say definitively, but I think you're right. As I said in Phizzy's thread just 6 years ago I could not have named a single GB member, and I was a devout JW, I think this is impossible now for any half committed member, the GB are everywhere.
• 

  cofty

  Just noticed Minimus started a similar thread a few days ago...

  Apologies for repitition.
• 

  RottenRiley

  Hi Cofty, when this question was recently posed I thought they were getting less controlling but I was wrong. Cedar's Videos, JW Struggle Infomation and knowing friends who are still at Bethel are saying the Governing Body is not backing off. The fact that websites like JW-Facts, JWN (highest volume of web-traffic), JWStruggle, Cedars Videos are getting more feedback with a few mentioned by Elders in good standing tells me they are going to squeeze tighter.

  I believe the Fifth Generation is the last of the strong Jehovah's Witnesses under the spell of the Watchtower. The Youkais are losing their control even as we speak, sure their numbers might increase if we have a World Disaster but Jesus did not say that was the mark of his followers!

  Does the Jehovah's Witness Church offer to Christians desiring a spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ and YHWH his God and Father? I love God and he does not desire anyone to be under the control of power hungry goons!
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  Finkelstein

  More so, they have to be, there's so much information out there exposing this organization's lies and corruption,

  particularly concerning its professed doctrines which the organization proclaimed for decades are showing their own

  failed corruption and culpable deceit.
• 

  AndDontCallMeShirley

  More.

  The constant clamor for blind obedience, no independent thought, no questioning, do as you're told. Be a good little slave-give us your time and money. The GB has elevated itself above all JWs while marginalizing the anointed into the "mentally unbalanced" category- unimportant, non-essential...has-beens.

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  I remember the days when, if you didn't study ahead for the WT lesson, you'd be lost ( of course, it was all bullshit...but at least it was well-thought out bullshit-WT at least attempted to appear scholarly). Now a child can look at the WT for the first time at the study and figure it out.

  -

  The WT serves up week old, lukewarm leftovers while bragging it's the best meal ever served.
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  kaik

  I left 20 years ago, and I think they became more totalitarian after 1994. Rest of my family is still in, but I hear from them complaining that the KH is constantly asking them for money, money, free food and cook out, loundry for DO, and free rides into field service.