The word 'lifestyle' gets tossed around these days. Yet, I still cringe when I
hear some describe being in the organization as a 'lifestyle'.
I suppose anything that eats up the precious currency of your life could be called
a lifestyle. By this definition, you could have a dieting lifestyle, a prison lifestyle,
an illness lifestyle and so on.
What's the Witness lifestyle? Peddling magazines and dragging themselves to vacuous
meetings? Not much of a life - or a style - is it?
As lifestyles go, this one's getting downsized even further from any opportunity
for personal growth. They're eliminating commuter Bethelites and cutting staff. I
understand missionary branches have had to make cuts too. Meanwhile, they publish
a tract for Witness youth obviously advertising organizational alternatives to
college - while those alternatives fade.
This religious 'lifestyle' never built its own general college or parochial schools.
It never inspired any notable artform (Islam) or created a new division of cuisine
( Halal/Kosher/Macrobiotic). It didn't inspire great architecture (Cathedrals/Mosques)
It avoided creating an internal system of social services ( Mormons) or apparently coherent
system of theology (just about any other religion that bothers to actually respond to
questions).
I guess they helped with some no blood procedures and left behind some case law,
useful for establishing freedoms they treat with internal contempt.
Too bad they never put much life into their 'lifestyle'.
metatron