Emeth, yours is a good point. Money sitting on a shelf is not beneficial. So why can't that money be used LOCALLY where there is a need rather than being sent off to unknown bank accounts controlled at a level where the people like you who donated have it no say over its use? Why can't local congregations decide for themselves to use their own donated funds to fix up their hall, or to help needy widows who don't receive pensions, etc.?
jws brag/preach that no donation plates are passed while they put down churches who tithe, yet jws will be held to binding documents requiring that specific congregations donate specific amounts of money. Just like the catholic and many baptist churches require ten percent donations of gross household income. Doesn't matter that jws don't require 10% (yet) because locking someone into forced giving is... a tithe. So much for jws giving from the heart.
Those funds are never truly accounted for, and you have no idea who is benefitting from that money other than vague promises of "oh, yes, we're building khs in another country" which you cannot verify, btw. In actuality, those funds are quite often invested in ways that you would be told are risky and wrong, like hedge funds.
We've all given money to the WT even when we may not have had enough for ourselves, because we were told it was the right thing to do for God. But those funds are not truly being used for charitable purposes to help PEOPLE, they are being used as the GB decides to invest in real estate which YOU will never benefit from, or get to use. Those funds are being used to build a financial empire.
In NO WAY does this match taking collections for feeding and sheltering Jesus' disciples or caring for needy widows. Only the GB and their slaves are being fed and sheltered, and sometimes the widows of the GB. The rest of us out here in the real world get hammered to provide donations but are not helped by them. Instead we're told not to worry about providing for our families by getting decent educations, just make enough to get by because the end is coming (everyone join in here) SOON! And those poor Bethel slaves don't get diddly if they leave Bethel, even though they give away the best years of their young lives to print magazines which end up in the trash 90% of the time. Where's the love in that? Why aren't some of those donated funds used to give them a start out the door as a kind thank-you?
Jesus wouldn't tolerate the situation that's going on in the WTS, so there is no way is he running the jw show. Jesus would be overturning the tables and shaking this WTS org to its core. People need to wake up and really examine the actions of the WTS and not sit back and accept their own words in their own magazines. That's like asking a robber if he's a robber and expecting him to admit it. If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's a duck...err, financial scheme. It's not worship of God, it doesn't involve Jesus, and it's not helping mankind.
May all good-hearted people wake up to TTATT.
(((hugs)))
