Hi Robyn,
I appreciate your kindness and insight. Although it's probably otherwise pointless, I can justify a reply by considering yourself as an unbiased and reasoning audience to any further attempts to explain my beliefs on the Watchtower's Armageddon doctrine.
First, I think the current administration in the Watchtower and past administrations have used the fear of Armageddon in a misguided belief that instilling "Godly fear" in the rank and file will pummel them into uncompromising obedience to God's organization. I believe they really believe that Jehovah appointed them and therefore they reason obedience to God's organization is required to obey God himself.
Obviously the more enlightened JW who truly read their Bible daily and sought the truth out of love for truth (not out of fear of what they imagine will happen to them for not finding it) knows that the Watchtower Society is probably not Jehovah's visible organization on Earth but rather an imperfect instrument for broadcasting the good news worldwide. Obviously this implies that God is using them warts and all without their really understanding the nature of how God is using them.
In other words, Robyn, while they are motivated by their own manufactured and self-aggrandizing belief that God appointed them as the "faithful slave," God is in fact using them like all the other do-good organizations worldwide that provide a wide array of spiritual, social, medical and food delivery services to humanity. While the Red Cross engages in physical relief for example, organizations like the Watchtower, Mormons and other religious faiths engage in broadcasting the hope that God will save mankind from death. True, it's a sore subject by many including myself that the Watchtower doesn't attempt like Jesus did in his ministry to provide physical as well as spiritual nourishment to the poor, and this probably is a sore point with Christ, but they have built a billion-dollar infrastructure that is highly efficient in disseminating Bibles, less than accurate but nonetheless Bible-based literature that focuses on a positive future for mankind under the Kingdom, and hope. I believe that God figures that good people will take what they need from the message of JWs and discard the rest. While the Watchtower is loathe to this concept it is nonetheless being used by Jehovah. The proverbial steak might think it's all good but the one consuming it might cut off the fat and only consume the lean mass, to use a rather silly but I think pertinent metaphor. (I'm typing on a "stream of thought" basis because I'm sipping a latte in a Starbucks with a limited timeframe to respond; and because I type fast you're going to get unedited voluminous data out of me.)
This leads to the Armageddon doctrine. Notice they teach that if one is not part of God's true organization on Earth that one is destined for destruction. Aside from being dead wrong in the very foundation of this teaching, and assuming that Armageddon is coming even within a few decades it's physically impossible for every righteous-hearted person to join ANY organization that God approves let alone one headquartered in Brooklyn NY of all places, let's examine the gist of this teaching.
First and foremost, any body of religious teachings involves exegesis:
Merrian-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
Main Entry:exegesis
Pronunciation:*eks**j*s*s
Function:noun
Inflected Form:plural exegeses \-**s*z\
Etymology:New Latin, from Greek ex*g*sis, from ex*geisthai to explain, interpret, from ex out of, out + h*geisthai to lead * more at SEEK
: EXPOSITION, EXPLANATION; especially : critical interpretation of a text or portion of Scripture
Understanding the "luminaries" behind the Watchtower who live in the ivory towers of Brooklyn and Patterson, I have learned after almost 30 years a Watchtower slave (sorry, couldn't resist the cliche since the majority of visitors to this site would consider me exactly that!), involves solving a complicated puzzle. I won't pretend to have solved it completely but I have come awefully close! Some will immediately recognize that sometimes when we think we're "close" to solving a puzzle, we couldn't be farther away from the solution. Having acknowledged that, I'll continue that we must therefore critically interpret both the Society's references to Armageddon and death that Dedalus quoted to support the claim they teach that only those affiliated with the WT will survive the worldwide destruction by God.
I assert that they in fact believe they are truly God's ONLY chosen organization for a reason. Right or wrong they believe they are practicing the truth where those outside the organization are not practicing the truth. Furthermore, they hold the outrageous belief that Jehovah's son Jesus Christ is directing the worldwide ministry to the point where any areas "missed" are for a divine reason, i.e., that no honest-hearted ones are in those missed areas.
Layer after layer of sincere albeit twisted reasoning follows to the point where they're convinced that anyone outside this supposed one and only "God's organization" are outside for a reason. They honestly believe -- and I'll admit this seems insane on the surface until you understand the layers and layers of self-brain-washing they have done to themselves motivated out of a morbid FEAR of death -- that those outside of the organization might appear to be righteous and sincere when God knows they are not. Therefore those in the Watchtower's higher eschelon harbor an admittedly warped view that the majority of mankind are unrighteous people living under the guise of being good people. This is based on the incorrect scriptural view that God will not save people who are willing to live law-abiding ordinary lives but simply don't love Him or don't want to make any sacrifices for Him.
In summary, the teachings of the Watchtower are that one must be part of God's organization to be saved, that God will miraculously make sure before Armageddon that those "worthy" of life will become connected to that organization, and that the majority of mankind although outwardly appearing to live good lives do not want to embrace God's values and therefore are "unrighteous." Then the Watchtower proceeds to make the case why THEY are the organization, and why THEIR teachings and exegesis of the Bible embrace God's values, therefore leading to syllogisms leading them to false conclusions!
The Watchtower is in effect saying "unless you can prove we are not God's organization and our interpretations of the Bible are not precisely what God intended when inspiring the Bible, then {Watchtower Society conclusion A, conclusion B, conclusion C, etc. .........}.
This sheds an entirely different light on the Watchtower Society that many on this forum refuse to consider or accept. Instead of it being an evil "Borg"-like organization run by manipulative religious con-artists its fundamental motives are quite the opposite. Like the mentally and emotionally disturbed child who is willing to do ANYTHING to please the parents, and grossly misinterprets anything the parents say (i.e., the parents say "Johnny, I don't care what you do, but make your younger brother stop crying!" meaning "Johnny, will you try to play with your brother and keep him occupied while we visit with guests in the livingroom?" -- Johnny takes their words to do "anything" to stop the infant from crying. All else failing, Johnny drowns the infant in the bathtub and it ceases to cry.)
The Bible can be taken in a similar vein by the over-zealous! Those with the most sincere and good-hearted motives have grossly misinterpreted this book and applied it in damaging ways that God never intended. The problem with the Watchtower is that it is an amalgamation of different people running it with various backgrounds and degrees of sanity! Quite often those whom everyone relates to but in fact are the most unbalanced and less than stable individuals get the most attention and sway a group's course. In this case we are talking about an organized religion and its belief system.
Well, I've been here in Starbucks for almost 2 hours trying to explain the basis for the JW teaching and why it is widely misunderstood, so it's time to wrap this up (as I haven't had dinner yet and it's after 8:00 PM here on the west coast). My point is that aside from making a case of why Watchtower reformation is so critical in the upper eschelon of the organization, I'm also trying to explain why myself and a great many JWs worldwide have come to the conclusion that no matter what the Society publishes or has published in the past in literal terms, the underlying caveat of the teaching is the assumption that under no circumstances will anyone whom Jehovah loves or who has potential for living peacefully forever will be destroyed. Also, many JWs realize that like any war, the war of Armageddon will involve many casualties including JWs! Those who perish in the worldwide destruction will receive resurrections. Of course the Society has speculated that those divinely executed at Armageddon may not receive a resurrection, but it also acknowledges that there maybe innocent casualties of war who will in fact be resurrected.
My battery is low, so I must close for now!
Thanks again, Robyn, for your kind words.
Derrick
