[I posted this elsewhere before the silentlambs thing got as big as it is. I wonder if this post is still valid and even if the Watchtower can be saved based on the depth of the scandal that's coming... Anyway, I wouldn't mind hearing comments on my proposals...]
Brothers, all you need to do is look to the Mormons to see what The Watchtower organization could potentially become. First off, the Mormons dropped the idea of immolation or Armageddon years ago. Why? Because they wised up. Face it: It ain't coming, and every day you insist that it is, you lose credibility. The Mormon belief about people having the chance to become a god eventually and how each person will have multiple chances to accept the creator into their hearts is a much more high-tech method to increase the ranks.
The Armageddon belief only hamstrings your people into being short-term thinking dolts. They don't save money, they don't plan for the future, and they don't dig in and establish strong pillars for the organization.
This leads me to Tip #2...
Tip #2: Drop the "materialism" crap.
This is the thing all Witnesses are sick of hearing. They're tired of feeling guilty for owning anything nice or for having money in the bank. Can't you see that when your followers are well employed and have money, that you will have a higher quality of organization? Are you so dim-witted that you can't see the damage you're doing to your beloved religion?
See how the Mormons are so wealthy and frighteningly entrenched? See how having wealthy, educated members who give 10% every month would be a benison to the Watchtower org.? It amazes me how JWs will say, "They will never discuss money at the meetings. They will never "Pass the Plate". YET THEY ARE BEING FINANCIALLY CRIPPLED! Any Mormon is happy to pay 10% because the 90% he has left over is ten times more than his JW neighbor, who never went to college and is trying to find a way to pioneer!
Stop mentioning the evils of materialism. You're only causing problems, and you are creating a diseased sort of JW who can't rectify the basic human need to provide comfort and safety for their family with your constant reminders how much guilt they should feel toward Jehovah. This brings me to the next point:
Tip #3: Give the average JW more time.
Look, field service (utterly ineffective these days) and meeting attendance (unbelievably burdensome to the average JW) have served their purposes: You've got two million JWs in America and that's the most you will ever have with these low-tech, tired old cultish methods.
You need to (A) Eliminate the School/Service meeting, as it is tired and totally ineffective in making better speakers. If you actually want to make better speakers, then set up a two-week course or an optional weekly meeting, but please do not make freaking TODDLERS sit through it! (B) Eliminate the Bookstudy and replace it with the Watchtower Study. Let people gather each week on their own, as many JW's do, (actually studying their Watchtowers BEFORE the Sunday study) and get the enjoyable aspects of the Bookstudy with one less hour per week. (C) Stop harping on pioneering and door-to-door service. Are you so out of touch or just plain stupid as to not see the utter banality of the door to door ministry? You think the world sees this as positive? No, they see you as a joke. It's time to abandon this crap and stop pushing the average JW to take time away from his family. Keep the pioneer setup for the young kids who want it, but don't push people to go out in service. Drop it and let them feel comfortable staying home on Saturday morning. You will end up with a happier JW who is a much better husband/wife/son/daughter and who will be much better poised to promote the organization through friends, family and co-workers as Mormons are famous for doing.
Tip #4: Drop the Shunning/Blood/Holidays nonsense.
Look, believe what you want, but if you are serious about creating an organization that's gonna last for the next two-hundred years, you gotta look past this stupid crap.
Shunning is destroying the org and will HAVE to be dropped eventually. It's just another Rutherford low-tech cultish practice and anyone that uses it (Moonies, Scientologists, Church of Christ) is dismissed as a cult. You're killing your own people. Wake up.
The blood doctrine, while seriously entrenched in JW history, is not insurmountable. If you do an about face, and you simply say something like, "It is not unusual for faithful ones to go too far in their quest to please Jehovah. Even Moses himself, certainly one of the most faithful followers of Jehovah, was seriously reprimanded by his God." then, hit them with, "Jehovah has finally softened our hearts to the correct thinking on these matters, and it is not without much sadness that we here clarify the Watchtower's new position on the issue of blood transfusions and the application of scripture." If you just cut quick and clean with the past, you will be amazed at how _few_ JWs will leave. On the contrary, their hearts will be warmed by the fact the _you_ finally figured out what _they_ knew all along.
Holidays are just silly. It makes your people look like freaks, not God's servants. The scriptural evidence is sparse or non-existent. It's just made up oral traditions left over from The Judge.
Tip #5: Make Patterson into an actual accredited college.
This one's a no-brainer. You lost me as a JW because I couldn't go to college. I felt betrayed and became angry. You would have eventually lost me anyway, but you could have hung onto me a lot longer if you had provided a more mainstream educational process. Examine the Mormons and their use of BYU to assist the next generation of Mormons into life as adult Mormons. You're always going to have some attrition in any religion, but the JW attrition rate is absurdly high. The few lost souls you gather in the clunky door-to-door ministry _barely_ cover your losses as each generation of JWs (myself included) leaves the org with anger and betrayal in their hearts. If you'd have given me a college, I'd have fairly positive things to say about the org. and I'd probably have stayed a lot longer in it.
Tip #6: Give the sisters something better.
Yes, Paul was a woman hater, and yes, he created Christianity. Nevertheless, any modern religion _has_ to embrace the feminine component in it or it will certain not flourish. Again, the Mormons provide an example, even if this is where they too, fall short.
It is a fact that _many_ women simply want to be mothers. The JW system does not provide for these women. It doesn't allow them to feel comfortable settling down and breeding. If the Society would just shut up about pioneering and stop making people feel guilty for having money, they'd DOUBLE the number of JWs in the US within ten years. Why? Because the current generation of JWs, who want to get married and have sex, will be far more inclined to nest and make a nice family. This means (A) less kids leaving the truth, and (B) more kids being born into the truth. This will also provide women a chance to simply be a loving, nurturing mother to their children and to the congregation, without any traces of guilt, if that is what she wants. There is trememendous healing power in women and it should be tapped, even if the basic doctrines of Judaism and Christianity (and all religion in general these days) are essentially female-hating.
CAUTION: The next suggestion is high-tech and would go beyond any current American Christian religion!
For those women who feel inclined to write and speak, they should be given equal opportunity to do so. Let them be elders and servants. Hell the names are even gender non-specific. We've just been conditioned to think "Man" when we hear the word "Elder". Let these sisters heal the congregation. Let them educate. If you do so, you will lose a few of the more-stupid bigoted men. This will result in a significant loss to the organization, so start slowly and have a five-year "loosening" plan. Sow articles and talks leading to this conclusion and then when you drop it on the people, you will have sufficient women who will be ready to step in for the women-hating Servants and Elders you lose. Without this change, you are missing out on some of the most valuable resources in the organization and they are right at your fingertips.
If just a _couple_ of these changes were made, I think the org. would produce much healthier, happier humans whose bright smiling faces would be quite a change than what you see when you look out from the platform now.
Think about it, my brothers.
Goodboy.
Edited by - Goodboy on 13 August 2002 6:3:57
Edited by - Goodboy on 13 August 2002 6:6:47