jgnat: Thanks for this post...great title...LOL and very true!
The box with the testimonials from old-timers which lists their current age and the year that they were baptized is very interesting. I don't have the article in front of me now, but I remember reading it when it came out and figuring out that of the 6 or 7 people quoted, the ages of baptism ranged from something like 11 years old to 15 years old. And who says, JWs don't practice infant baptism!
Cheers Artful
Is the Watchtower Sterile Seed?
by jgnat 15 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
artful
-
jgnat
Artful - Glad you liked my title. I sweated that one out. I wanted to condense my thoughts in to one catchy phrase. Hey! You are right about those ones held up as "fine examples". They nearly all have to be "lifers", second generation.
Name Age Baptized Born Age when Baptized
Harry 72 1946 1930 16
Claudio 43 1974 1959 15
Gerard 79 1955 1923 32 Gerard is the one that admits it a personal struggle! Hmmmm.
Eleanor 26 1989 1976 13
Paul 79 1940 1923 17
Daniel 75 1946 1927 19
Joan 66 1954 1936 18 -
johnny cip
jgnat: yes i have seen the list. i fact these are the articles i ZERO in on. because the history stories , always say the jw has been serving jehovah since 1900, 1920,30,40,50,or 1960. etc so i start on the year the article talks about . and start listing false prophecies and old light. then i ask was that worship acceptable to jehovah . to preach that garbage . so WHY is the wt printing today that it was. i try to keep it simple and not play bible ping pong. it is almost every week that they have a history story. and i work my dad on them all the time. i show NO QUARTER. HOPE I'M PLANTING SOME SEEDS....john
-
blondie
Thanks, jgnat, for your insight. I noticed that too about the ages of the ones commenting, that only one was baptized over the age of 25. Just one 32 year old baptizee. Just like today. Almost all those baptized are children of JWs, maybe one out of 10 is an adult. And those young ones are leaving or being DF'd just a few years later. The WTS is hard-pressed to find young adults to use as examples in the assemblies/conventions and will sometimes use the same one for both sides of the circuit or all the conventions in one city. One year 2 teenagers were used and DF'd by the next year. One year 2 had left/become inactive by the end of the same year they were used as shining examples.
My husband said the WTS has lied about so many other things, that he can't believe the examples. If they are true, he figures it is one person out of 10,000 who filt the mold. Like they would quote anyone who had a honest things to say.
Blondie
-
artful
Blondie: good point about being hard-pressed to find young adults as examples. The younger generation are very computer and Web literate, and have much greater access to information then we ever did. I think this problem for the WTS will continue to grow.
Artful -
jgnat
I appreciate your insider comments, Blondie. Since it is part of the WT mindset to be constantly doubting one's own adequacy, it must be doubly hard on these "shining examples." They must be under extreme pressure to maintain their standing. I have read a few testimonies of these folk where they felt very uncomfortable being displayed at meeting after meeting, while at the same time they harboured doubts.