Old is Becoming New Again?

by Tazemanian-devil 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Tazemanian-devil

  Is it just me, or does it seem like JW.org is returning to some very old methods from Rutherford's era?

  - Their carts / booths is very reminiscent of the sandwich board system, including the fact that they no longer personally engage

  - Showing videos via the tablet / smartphone is almost exactly like the phonograph method they used

  - Showing videos at conventions makes the convention much more like when they only had one major convention, such as the Cedar Point Ohio amusement park convention that everybody had to travel to

  Assuming this is true, and the current GB is trying to copy things that seemed to work way back when, I wonder what other changes are in store?

  It already seems like they're working toward moving back to a MUCH smaller bethel family, perhaps even eventually closing all branches and working from Warwick alone at some point.

  Do you think they'll go back to some other old school methods? For example, they could eliminate elder bodies again, and return to the "congregation servant" model that Rutherford instituted, because it's much easier to control one or two people instead of 6 or 8 or more per congregation. Just choose a "company man", such as the current COBE of an infamous US congregation famous for it's issue with apostasy in the 80's, who knows TTATT but stays loyal to the org anyway, who will do exactly what the org tells him to.

  What do you think?
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  sir82

  If you see a "distillation room" going into Warwick, you'll know it's true!
  
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  OneEyedJoe

  At the 2014 convention, Loesch got up there and was talking about playing videos for people at the door and said something about people asking if we were going back to old methods - like playing recorded sermons on a record player at the door - just with modernized technology. His retort was a blind assertion that this was totally different and just the standard reply of something like: "aren't we thankful for how quickly Jehovah's organization is moving and keeping pace with modern technology?" and of course an applause break follows and no one realizes that he completely failed to make a distinction between playing videos and the old days of playing sermons.

  Another thing they've gone back to, but I'm not sure how much it's being used, is the modern day equivalent of the old testimony cards. Now they have the business cards with a QR code that'll take you to jw.borg.

  I wonder when we'll be seeing waves of sound cars driving through the neighborhoods again?
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  sparrowdown

  I think they would have more success if they sold sandwiches from the carts ie instead of a sandwich board a sandwich cart.
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  Syme

  Ray Franz in COC reminds us that the directors of WTS always looked up on past WT literature and WT methods as if they were Scriptures. If something was being said or done in the past, that was a reason for it to be brought again on to surface. So maybe they used those old methods as a "scriptural" precedent to justify using them again. Of course, that's the pretext; the real reasons are always economic. But the pretext is important; even in GB sessions, they have to use pretext, orwellian speaking, for fear of one to another, if not for anything else.
  
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  Witness 007

  Brother Knorr/Franz 1943 take over is being reversed. No more bookstudy/theocratic school...street witnessing stalls return.
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  wisdomfrombelow

  Witness 007

  Brother Knorr/Franz 1943 take over is being reversed.

  It seems like they are deconstructing what they constructed because there is a decline and not an increase. No more training of missionaries. Vastly reorganized branch structure. Revamped bible. End of types/antitypes. Revising the New World Translation. Like Russell and Rutherford before them, Knorr and Franz would not recognize what happened to the religion they built.
  
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  OrphanCrow

  Another way in which the old Rutherford era is being replayed.

  The baptism of children. In Rutherford's day, very young children were baptized - 5/6 years old and up. The WTS needed the children to bolster their stance in court. The children were used to challenge the constitution.

  Also, in Rutherford's day, the WTS used a radio channel to broadcast. Today they have jw.borg.

  One thing that hasn't changed and it looks like it never will:

  The organization is still, and always will be, a patriarchal institution that treats women like shit.
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  cultBgone

  Amen to that, OC.
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  Vidiot

  Regardless of how hopelessly misguided, delusional, and just plain wrong Fred Franz was, the guy would have a f**king heart attack if he saw what the WTS has evolved into.

  Rutherford, on the other hand, would probably have a f**king hard-on.