I knew a guy who had been disfellowshipped 3 times and went back each time. Definitely a glutton for punishment. He finally stopped messing with his fellow spiritual sisters and married. I think that's what cured him of his disfellowshipping trend.
How many DFed go back?
by els 16 Replies latest jw friends
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onacruse
gita, that's a good point. On that basis, one could take the 40% recidivism rate as an upper limit.
Personally, I've seen a whole lot more DFings than REIs, more like 10:1. If we assume that everyone who was DFd stays DFd, there'd be about 1.25 million of us on the planet. If we assume a 40% return rate, that leaves about 750,000 still DFd.
This is one of the major demographic issues that the WTS is only now having to deal with...the increasing number of exJWs is becoming a millstone around the GBs neck.
Craig
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gitasatsangha
Counting all classes of X-JWs (Submarines <they pop up at memorials>, Faders, Inactive Ones, DA's, DF's, Publishers who just stopped coming, True Faith Jehovah's Witnesses, children who went but never got baptized) I would not be suprised if there might be almost as many X's as there are JWs. Certainly the X-JW community is the most vocal. There are x-Bahai, X-Mormon and other x-whatevers, but it seems like X-JWs make more noise and put more pressure on the group they left.
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onacruse
gita:
it seems like X-JWs make more noise and put more pressure on the group they left.
I agree. I think it's a natural part of what we were trained to be as JWs: vocal, assertive, confident. My family told me more than once that I should just keep my mouth shut and hold my opinions to myself. I've always responded: "But that's not the way I was raised to act."
The goose-and-gander scenario.
If we include all those that "ever-thought-I'd-possibly-be-a-JW," then for sure, there are more ex's than actives. The Memorial attendance figures alone prove that.
Craig
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GentlyFeral
Can't give you a real citation because I heard this in an assembly talk about 20 years ago. The speaker said:
Half of all the disfellowshipped are reinstated.
Half of those reinstated are eventually disfellowshipped again.So, a net return rate of only 25%. Don't know if this is still true.
GentlyFeral
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topanga
most go back because of the lonliness and because they realize its not a religion just a social club that makes its money as a not for profit masquerading as a religion and telling people what they want to hear.
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blondie
Of course, this doesn't include those that just fade away and don't come back. I have a spreadsheet at home that shows that for every 3 that are baptized, 1 drifts away. When I get home, I'll post how many over the last years have faded; I call them the missing in action (MIA).
Blondie