by pale.emperor 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
http://www.newsweek.com/jehovahs-witnesses-russia-ban-police-903021?utm_source=quora
I guess the GB's idea of writing to the Russian government last year didn't help? Now they have their names and addresses in which to raid their homes.
I sometimes wonder if the GB knew this would happen and wanted it to happen to ensure they'd be persecuted thus creating their own fulfillment of prophecy.
Wait, did they have even the Russian brothers write to the government? Please tell me they weren't that stupid.
dubstepped: Wait, did they have even the Russian brothers write to the government? Please tell me they weren't that stupid.
That had already happened before the org had their global letter writing campaign.
I can't remember the year they did it but the Russian JWs had their own letter writing campaign in the years leading up to the Supreme Court hearing. It was during that earlier Russian campaign that the Kremlin got flooded with emails and the org was warned not to spam the government with emails so they resorted to the letter writing campaign.
I really feel for the JWs in Russia. They have no idea that they're involved in a cult that does not care about them nor does anything for them.
But hey, at least Mark Sanderson could get his fat ass flown out of there the minute the courts banned them... and lets not forget Jehovah intervening to get them plane tickets, remember that one? Why, all they had to do was pick up the phone and call a travel agent! Praise Jah! It's a miracle!
I agree the religion should lose it's status as a "religion" but this kind of treatment is just awful. Taxing the hell out of the Russian WT branches would have put enough pressure on the borg without affecting the rank and file members much.
Oh wow, I feel for them too. It's like they were set up. Ugh.
It shows human wisdom is at work. God's wisdom would have preempted such untoward incidents.
Hmmm if they had only followed their own advice "Do not put your trust in men to whom no salvation belongs."
If this is true, I feel like such an idiot. I broke down at the Remain Loyal convention when the Bunker videos came on. I was so angry that they were screened because of their sensationalist and anxiety-inducing aspects.
Everyone there told me to calm down because the Governing Body is "warning us in advance so we'd be prepared when this kind of thing happens," etc. I wrote it off as rubbish and proceeded to wake up in the successive weeks after that convention.
Now I can imagine the Witnesses I used to be close to (including my now-estranged parents) talking about how the food indeed came at the proper time and that I was foolish to pull a "Kevin" and abandon the bunker/organization.
Urgh. I've got some mind f*ckery to sort out. I know this Russian gundown isn't part of a divine prophecy, but to the folks I said c'est la vie to as I bounced out of the hall for good, it sure looks that way.
Here's an article in the Moscow Times, publish April 27 2018
Russia’s Crackdown on Jehovah’s Witnesses Begins With a Foreigner
"The men who stormed into the hall were armed with handguns and clad in masks and bullet proof vests, as if prepared for a shootout. Inside, several dozen worshipers, many of whom were children or elderly, were in the midst of a Bible reading.
The raid, led by the police and Federal Security Services (FSB) officers last May in Oryol, targeted the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination known for its strict interpretation of the Bible. A month earlier, a Supreme Court decision had declared it an extremist group, putting it on par with violent terrorist organizations like Islamic State.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses in recent years had increasingly come under the authorities’ spotlight. Analysts told The Moscow Times that the group had been swept up in Russia’s drive to reign in minority religious groups that rival the Orthodox Church and oppose President Vladimir Putin’s militaristic brand of patriotism.
But the crackdown on the Jehovah’s Witnesses, analysts said, did not take off in earnest until the raid in Oryol. It marked the first arrest following the Supreme Court ruling, notably of a Danish citizen, Dennis Christensen, who had been leading the Bible reading that late spring evening.
On Monday, after being held in a pre-trial detention center for 11 months, the proceedings, which his lawyers say could last up to three months, finally began. Fighting charges of extremism, Christensen faces up to 10 years in prison."
