Pre internet days? :P I was surfing usenet back then. :P The internet has been around much longer than alot of people realize. Trust me people were talking on usenet also. Not to mention local bbs networks, like fidonet, and the one I was on, citnet.
Who were the apostates I once saw?
by ballistic 22 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
jws
I remember being, oh, maybe 10 and seeing that somebody had put magazines on the windsheilds of quite a few cars at a district convention. I think in Green Bay. They were made up to look like Watchtowers. Being only about 10 or so and loving parodies (like Mad magazine did), I wanted a copy, but our car didn't get one. I wanted to try to get one, but my parents told me they were apostates and wouldn't let me. Even so, I tried, but people were collecting them to throw away.
At the time, I didn't know what an apostate was. They told me that they were people saying bad things about the Witnesses and trying to argue against our beliefs. This actually made me want to see one of these things even more. Being raised JW and believing we had the "truth", I didn't think there was anything they could say against us and wanted desperately to see what it was. The fact that they didn't confront them like we did door-to-door and expose their lies actually gave them some credibility.
At each assembly afterwards, I would look for those magazines so that I could snag one and hide it before anybody took it away, but I never saw them again.
I think I remember seeing people with bullhorns and signs once. I think that was when I was about 15. I think that was in Green Bay too, but having a hard time remembering the building - don't think it was the packer hall-of-fame. The way they played it up, you'd think this was a sign of the end. I was worried about being physically attacked by protestors.
I'd have to say the protestors and people with the magazines did some good. They sort of woke me up from that "we know everything" mentality. That we shrank away from their material made it seem they had something to say that we couldn't defend against. It made it all the more curious to me. But, being a kid and not having good access to books or info I could never obtain that information. And this was way before www and amazon.com.
By chance, somebody had me watch a TV show on a Christian station about JWs when I was in my early 20's. The guy interviewed had his own ministry and sold some books about JWs, including Ray Franz's book. I ordered IMMEDIATELY.
Still wonder at times about that parody Watchtower. Never did find out what it said... Anybody out there know of this and have one? Would have been from an assembly in Wisconsin or possibly Illinois, maybe '75 to, say '83.
-j.w.s.
-
ballistic
I don't remember any particular flyers jws, just being swamped by seemingly hundreds of people (probably just a dozen) forcefully thrusting leaflets into unsuspecting witnesses hands who were generally feeling like they had been 'conned' because having accepted the flyer, there were no bins in which to place them.