Ha ha not where I live! Most rent and do dull jobs where I am. There are a few rich ones too, but much more towards the pension range here. And I live in one of richest cities in Australia.
New video release at district convention. Do Jws live like this?
by solomon 44 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Magnum
InquiryMan: What is this nonsense that JWs live substandard and have mediocre jobs all the time??? Must be more of an American phenomenon... If you go any assembly or KH the cars parked there just resemeble rest of society, so does housing etc.. Witnesses travel, work etc as most people do..
"Nonsense" is a strong word.
One of the following must be true about you:
1) You're twelve years old.
2) You were never a JW.
3) Your comprehension level is extremely substandard.
You have missed the main point. It's not so much about the way JWs actually live, but it's about the message the org has sent in the past versus the one it seems to be sending now.
In the 80's & 90's when I was extremely active, all I ever heard was "pioneer, pioneer, pioneer". There was a Watchtower article that very strongly asked: "Can you justify before Jehovah why you're not pioneering?" There was a district convention drama that depicted a young man in an area where the need was greater who was so broke that he couldn't afford tires for his car, yet he stayed in his assignment anyway. JWs were told to be content with sustenance and covering. They were told the end was imminent. There was a very strong district convention talk at the end of the 80's entitled "Responsible Child-Bearing in the Time of the End"; it promoted not having children because the end was so close. Young people were discouraged from getting education. They were advised to work part-time and enter some form of full-time service. One cannot live as do those depicted in the video if he followed the org's advice - not unless he inherited money, already had it when he became a JW, etc. And that wouldn't have made it completely OK. We were counseled in the 80's and 90's to be careful about setting a bad example for others even if we could afford material things.
I know of JWs right now who have pioneered for years and live in old mobile homes and drive very old station wagons because they did what the org said. These are good people who listened to the org's message. One is a very kind, smart brother who's late sixties. His suits are very dated because he can't afford new ones. How do you think he feels when he sees the people in this video living the way they do? I lived in very primitive settings and was admired for it. If I had lived like the JWs shown in the video, I would have been looked at in a totally different way.
I know what the message was; I was there. I lived it.
It's like the feel of JWdom is changing. It used to be that the sky was falling and that JWs were to sell everything, live simple lives, and spend their time warning others. Now it seems the org is trying to present a new image - one indicating that JWs are more mainstream, more normal. It seems that the sense of urgency is gone - that JWs are settling down for the long haul.
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InquiryMan
I retract the word nonsense. That was not called for. Sorry about that. However was a witness for several decades, and also an elder... BUT not in America.. Please remember that some JWs in the US tend to be somewhat more extreme than in many other countries... That goes both ways... Sometimes when we read examples in the Watchtower about e.g. grand weddings with examples of exagerrations it was always in an American context and far away from reality in our own country.... I agree there has been a change somewhat though. Witnesses nowadays seem very auto-pilot.
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OneEyedJoe
InquiryMan - Maybe it is a difference in the states. I won't say that all witnesses here are poor, but the ones that aren't usually own their own business. Most of the rest are idiots in blue collar dead-end jobs.
The window cleaner or janitor comments definitely reflect my experience. For some reason, there has always seemed to be a disproportionately high number of brothers or sisters who work in some sort of cleaning type job. My mother is one, there's a brother in my current hall who owns a janitorial business of some sort and I've known several others who have worked for other brothers who owned some sort of janitorial business. It always seemed like an odd coincidence to me until i got here and saw that it was apparently part of a very wide-spread trend.
I'm not sure if it's because the jobs offer flexibility to pioneer, or if it's just because most converts tend to come from lower-income families where such jobs are more common. Probably a combination of the two.
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InquiryMan
In e.g. my country you can have a good living even without a degree or a white collar job. I think the "fare" of JWs has a lot also to do with how the economic/social structure of life are med up which actually differs a lot from the US to e.g. Scandinavia where I live. Of course quite a few JWs are windowcleaners here too, but more so in the past.... Most I knew had regular, ordinary jobs. And I‘d say the general standard of living differ very little from the general populace. It is mirroring it.Also most witnesses own their own homes, just like the rest of the population do. I have been quite a few times to the United States and see how poor people live in substandard homes... We hardly have anything like that here.
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Magwitch
I would love to watch the video. Has it been posted anywhere?
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neverendingjourney
There was a YPA video that was released some 15 years ago. It, too, had an upper-middle class family (by U.S. standards) at its center. They would have had to have been pulling in at least $200k a year to afford that lifestyle.
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daringhart13
Hilarious.
They robbed entire generations of a higher education......then, hoping they are all dead or gone, release a video like this in a weak attempt to make everyone forget how dead set they were on having a good career.
Is it any wonder people hate this cult?
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sparrowdown
They are so full of contradictions and double standards.
I have known "rich" JW's that were treated like royalty because "although being well-off, they put the kingdom first".
They were considered an example to all. But if Bro Joe schmo dirt-poor-cleaner tries to get some overtime he 's considered materialistic.
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Magnum
To me, the main point is, as I think I've already said somewhere above, that it's not about how JWs may actually live in your area, but it's about the JW message versus how JWs are depicted as living. In the 80's and early 90's, the end was supposed to be coming at any time. The generation limit was to be up by 1994 at the latest. Several places in JW literature said the end would come before the twentieth century was over. JWs were told to pioneer and to follow the self-sacrificing examples of Jesus and Paul. If they had to work, preferably it would be part-time. They were encouraged to forgo education, to forgo having children, to pass up job opporunities that would interfere with kingdom interests in any way. If JWs acted according to all that, they could not afford the lifestyles depicted in these videos unless they already had money prior to becoming JWs, received inhertiances, etc. And even then, they were encouraged to live simple lives. See the quote from a Watchtower study article shown below. I remember the article and the point about the elder driving the Volkswagen.
***w83 1/15 pp. 24-25 pars. 6-8 Armed for the Fight Against Wicked Spirits ***************
6 No, for consider how that person’s materialistic course can affect others in the congregation. For example, when younger, impressionable members of the congregation see another Christian exerting himself to make a lot of money and get nice things, are they thereby encouraged to seek first God’s Kingdom? What have you observed? Is it not true that, upon observing the apparent advantages of having material things, newer ones in the way of the truth are inclined also to pursue materialistic goals, perhaps to their own spiritual disaster?
7 The experience of a Christian elder in Germany, who also happens to be wealthy, is noteworthy. A Christian brother, knowing something about his financial status, asked him why he drove a Volkswagen (a less expensive car) and lived in a modest apartment. Becoming very serious, he answered: ‘Because if I drove a Mercedes Benz (a luxury car) and lived in an ostentatious manner, it could have a damaging effect on the spirituality of my Christian brothers and sisters.’ How different that attitude is from the world’s! To make a “showy display of one’s means of life” is the way of the world. (1 John 2:16) According to the world, the measure of success is the amount of money and material possessions a person has. But may that never be so in the Christian organization! We need to be armed so that none of this type of satanic thinking infiltrates our own thinking and that of the Christian congregation. At the same time our own godly devotion along with contentment will result in our not being critical of those who may seem to be overlavish in their way of life.—1 Timothy 6:6-8.
8 We need always to keep in mind the attitude and example of our Master, Jesus Christ. Although Christ could have possessed great glory and wealth, and could have lived in luxury, he did not seek these things. At times he did not even have what many people consider life’s essentials. (Matthew 4:8, 9; 8:20) Why was he so self-sacrificing? Because he had his priorities in proper order. He realized that the doing of God’s will should come before everything else. (John 4:34) Are we looking to his example, endeavoring to copy it in the way we live? For what are we really living—having an easy, comfortable life now or the gaining of everlasting life in God’s new system?—Hebrews 12:2, 3; 1 Peter 2:21-24; 3:14.
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To show people living lifestyles like the ones in the videos goes contrary to the message that was hammered into me for several decades. That's the main point. This world was supposed to be gone now. They still say the end is imminent, but the actions depicted indicate otherwise. The lifestyles depicted in the videos require a lot of money. It's not just the initial cost of the houses, cars, etc., but all the other associated costs - insurance, taxes, upkeep, etc. The JW message is inconsistent.
JWs who live as depicted in the videos either don't fully believe the message or they're weak JWs. If they truly thought the end of the world was imminent and that literally billions of lives were at stake, wouldn't they be using every bit of their time and all of their resources warning others - not living normal lives in fancy houses and driving fancy cars?