by Poztate 41 Replies latest jw friends
For all we know, we may have more flexibility over councience matters such as:
Treatment of DF'd Relatives
Blood Transfusions
Voting
Higher Education ( We have some flexibility over this one already, but no heavy sanctions could befall us such as DF'd. )
QB - I'd be shocked if they eased up on any of those (and since when is voting a conscience matter?) at the AGM. The AGM is when they want to announce something new and exciting to get everyone worked into a froth. If they ease up on any of those, it'll likely be in a QFR article or a small interjection in paragraph 11 of a WT article.
The only way I can see them easing up on higher ed (again) is if they explicitly state that it should only be sought out if you're planning on using it for bethel. I doubt that'll even happen, though, since too many would be likely to go in with 'pure' motives and come out the other side with a newfound ability to reason and question things. I think they learned their lesson on higher ed. I'm a product of their more lenient stance on it, and it didn't work out in their favor.
No reason for them to change anything big. (144,000 symbolic, all partaking emblems, etc) Over-lapping generation was just to give them more time since the "this generaion" understanding expired and showed them to be false prophets. The change to GB only the F&DS was just to give them more power & authority over the JW's.
Maybe something more minor. They could do a change where new JW's just have to do door-to-door tract work. This would make it easier for those where speaking d2d may hinder. More experienced publisher can continue the door knocking and engaging people. They also may ease up somewhat on higher education as to outsiders this makes them look more bat-shit crazy then any of their doctrine beliefs.
One Eye J: Voting is a concience matter in certain countries, today. Some Eropean countries demand that you show up, what some JW's do is spoil the ballot, according to their concience.
Since we were speculating on this post, I mentioned the Higher Education as a concience matter. You see the way it is right now, you can apply for a Higher Education, but you are not treated favorably, your Father may even lose his cong privilledge. But, no DF. It's different with accepting a Blood Transfusion, voting, and involvment with DF relatives.
I'm saying that there may be a softer stand for those areas.
Ahh, yeah the ol' 'you can go into a voting booth, but what you do in there is between you and god' thing. forgot about that one...in the US, voting definitely isn't a conscience issue, so I'd forgotten about that. Not sure if you'd get DF'd though, but it's probably not an issue as less than half non-JWs vote anyway, and most JWs seem to be of the demographic that wouldn't vote regardless.
If anything, I think they'll get stricter on the higher-ed stuff, but they probably won't do anything visible there. They'll continue with the WT articles and assembly talks demonizing it, and maybe issue a letter to the elders citing 'persuing higher education' as an indication that someone is not seeking first the kingdom, and therefore does not qualify to be a MS (maybe even disqualifing you from carrying the mics *gasp*). I doubt they'll ever DF over education (unless you're studying evolutionary biology or something) but I can't imagine that they'll losen up on it.
Regardless, the AGM is hardly the venue they'd use to lighten up on anything. When they relax a rule, they do it quietly so as not to seem like they're admitting that they 'went beyond the things written' and were too harsh before. Just like they did with education before, they demonized it for a while, then WT articles seemed to be a little softer on it for a few years and then they went back to demonizing it again, all without anything official.
They seem content to just ignore the blood issue, so I suspect they'll stick with that strategy for at least another 2 years or so before they make any official change.
My guess is if anything happens, it'll just be the announcement of more apathy trollies, maybe the testimony cards that were mentioned in another thread and possibly the further reduction/merging of the monthly magazines, with a name change. My guess is if they do that, they'll just drop the 'public' WT, and we'll be down to an awake magazine for the public, and WTs for people who are indoctrinated. That way they can drop the WT name and all that's associated with it on the public side, without appearing to the members as having dropped it.
When they went to a single awake, they said it was because they were doing more bible based articles (as opposed to current events type stuff as had been the case before) and there was too much overlap with the WT. They'll just say that the Awake's transition to being all about the bible has been so successful that they no longer need the public WT. Maybe they'll change the name, maybe not.
Other than that, I can't imagine anything that they'd want to share with such a wide audience at the AGM. Most of the changes that they've got in the pipeline are likely to be reactive (candice conti, crack-downs on charities, bethel layoffs) and difficult to spin in a positive way, so they won't want to make so much fuss about it that people actually think on it and realize they're spinning a negative thing.
In some countries, it is compulsory to register to vote and you are required to present on polling day (or potentially face a fine - e.g. Australia). In these countries, it is acceptable for a Witness to register to vote, turn up on polling day and signal on voting forms they are not voting for any candidate. THis is viewed as a balance between obeying Caesar and obeying "Jehovah" by being no part of the world.
Maybe they'll announce the planned sale of the Warwick property and the relocation of the branch and Society corporations to the Cayman Islands, or something like that.
The GB has varied in size, in the Proclaimers book there were 12, in 1976 8 members had been added for majority effect cushion in 1975 for the GB coup, so they had 17 or 18 members then, can't recall.
So the AGM is at times a time to release blasphemies against their own supposed faith in some massive form every now and again, and this next one may be of similar duplicity. Since the Bethel "predictive program" already has JWs expecting the ministry to end, this is probably to be done when the real Bethel criminal deconstruction process begins, hence the multi-billion dollar liquidation already in progress for 4 years. Internationally the asset liquidation may be well over 1 billion dollars worth of properties and other investment assets.
God knows they are sucking JWs dry for every last possible drop from the JW and congregation pockets.
They already "abandoned the house" at classic Bethel, and JWs have no HQ, so maybe 2014 marks the time to prep the JW mind for the "self fulfilling prophecy" final stage of the GB coup, we shall see. That they are godless frauds, not Christian much less "anointed" is now obvious with more than a UN NGO orgy under their belt, these guys are literally a criminal racket even according to "the world's" standards, and that will have blowback.
If Russian intrigues continue to ratchet up, we may see a new "King North" decoy to further conceal the GB's "8th King" internationalist developments actually in that prophecy. Whatever may develop "the end" "anyday now" is definitely planned and pre-programmed for Bethel, not the "system of things", and JWs have a nice Bethel "self fulfilling prophecy" to cover up that deconstruction as if "prophecy is fulfilling brothers!", it is the "attack on Babylon the Great!" by "the Assyrian", "job well done, see you in paradise!". But in fact Bethel is the target set for demolition first (1Pet4:17), and they are the central apostasy of their own time.
When the Titanic of Bethel has the GB captains on the only lifeboat, and the ice water starts to splash JWs in the face, then maybe a couple JWs will wake up to what is really going on at lawless and apostate Bethel.
Oh well, maybe we won't get any changes. Just a new and improved GB with a comic twist. Maybe the message we will get this time will be, "Hey, We're funny, too",
Haha, that'd be pretty awesome. A half hour of Losche doing stand-up (everyone knows the germans are the funiest people!) and then a roast of Lett.
