I was feeling a little melancholy earlier this week and I decided to start reading WT literature again, just to see what was new and improved. And it seems that, as has consistently been the case, the more I read of the literature, the more I see that I made the right choice to leave.
The first chapter goes into explaining what the Kingdom is, then it looks like they must've essentially cut and pasted from the recent WT study articles about the 'harvest' illustration and about the two groups of anointed = one generation, but there's a third group of anointed who aren't part of 'this generation' (but, I imagine, probably will be someday, I mean, if two groups decades apart in age can be part of one generation, why not three?). It's interesting, looking at it again after all this time. Just seeing how much butchering of scripture happens, I mean.
Jesus himself explains the meaning of the harvest illustration. He says that the harvest is a 'conclusion of a system of things'--not the BEGINNING of a conclusion of a system of things. He also says the reapers are angels. Then very clearly, he's talking about doing a judging, not unlike at the end of Matthew 25. So how does the Watchtower suggest that the harvest work is done by humans? It flies in the face of scripture. What's more, it elevates the JWs to a status that is, well, usurping the role of the angels and the one who would be assigning them to gather the wheat. I would've thought that since they stopped teaching that the preaching work is not separating the sheep from the goats (that's still true, right?), that logically, it would be inconsistent for them to teach that JWs are or have been in any way involved in the harvest. Hmm.
But the 'generation' discussion really highlights one big thing for me, and it called to mind my judicial committee as I was talking about this: the Governing Body is not just wrong repeatedly, but remains unrepentant in their attitude as far as making predictions about when the end will come. Even after being wrong 4 (probably more, but I'll lump the 'generation' stuff pre-1995 into one big error) different times, they still don't see it. Except that they do see it, if the late Ray Franz is to be believed. They need another date, but they need to avoid the risk of being too specific. Hence, a 'generation'. This also demonstrates that the Governing Body is very conscious of what they are saying and doing. They're not just sincere men trying to do the right thing; they are carefully crafting predictions like this on purpose because they hope it will generate more recruitment and more fear.
It seemed like a strange way to end the chapter, considering how convoluted the concept is. The chart should get people to think--but if you can't see that you and your dad aren't of the same generation, well...I feel bad for you.
Chapter 2 was as far as I could get before I had to just stop reading. I'm sure they probably said it in the Proclaimers book before, but reading that C.T. Russell was a modern-day fulfillment of Malachi 3:1 was just too much. Once you've read the literature from the 1914-1919 era...you just cannot, cannot believe that anything written then was fulfilling some kind of Bible prophecy. But it got worse as the discussion went on.
They gave examples of Watchtower instructions/teachings and then went on to imply that basically, if the Watchtower magazine did not provide this sort of guidance, then Jesus would not have found any true Christians on earth when he returned in 1914. One can hardly imagine a more arrogant, presumptuous thing to say. It is to say, "Without us, without the Watchtower literature, Jesus Christ would have failed to preserve anyone as one of his followers." One wonders if they believe in Jesus Christ at all with a statement like that, because it sounds an awful lot like The Watchtower is more powerful than Jesus.
Well, I don't have the book in front of me, so I can't post exact quotes--and I doubt you guys will read a thread this long anyway. But if I have time, I'll try to revisit this thread and post some quotes, particularly from Chapter 2.
--sd-7
