(How) Will The Slow and Subtle WT Internal Shift Affect Us? (page 3)

resolute Bandicoot

So, where is it all headed, a watered down non trintarian, more mainstream protestant, online cult with regular automatic tithing?

I think they’re going to stop publishing the numbers sooner or later, which means stopping collecting numbers too. So it would make sense to begin adjusting the focus away from numbers, but probably toward organisational loyalty and reliable reputation, rather than good all round character.

But I just don’t think JWs without books makes any sense. It won’t fly. Publishing and studying texts is essentially what it is to be a JW. It’s like trying to have a bat without wings.

We are witnessing, not the transformation of the organisation, but rather its collpase.

Half banana

It is after all a batty religion Slimboy.

The type/aniti-type thing was not dreamed up by Fred Franz it has a long history going back to the early Church. Medieval and Renaissance religious paintings are larded with 'types' to be interpreted by the faithful for their instruction and faith in Catholic teaching. Modern JW-ism is just not capable of imparting such complexity mainly because it has such a dumb following today and instead of visual symbols for the illiterate, it uses emotive threats of shunning to secure control.

The act of removing the "type /anti-type" has an element of democracy about it, something normally alien to WT behaviour, probably because most JWs including elders and COs and I suspect the GB also, couldn't follow all the significant details found in each story, so they agreed to drop it. Any JW dogma which becomes unpopular or untenable eventually fails. In fact all JW dogma fails but the unpopular stuff fails sooner!

So the GB, for all of their squawking and rattling of their cage, eventually are bound by the hard realities which present themselves like the stagnation of membership numbers in the developed world.

I think that that the change in JW-ism which the OP is discussing has to do with trying to capitalise on what is still working rather than sticking out their necks and forming deliberate executive directions. (Methinks as a symptom of their decline, the GB are becoming passive and led by events rather than doing the leading?) Because there are so few new recruits to the cult due to the reality of the internet, the GB are instead stressing the happy faces of their flock as a means of attracting new punters: all friendly like, "Come and join our club and be a smiley face like we are." I reckon if JWs have happy faces it's because they are now losing faith in JW promises and enjoying the pleasures normal people have like exotic holidays, partying and getting on with work and family life.

The JW religion is increasingly being reduced to a noise in the background. I make this statement because this morning on holiday and having breakfast with my JW son and DIL, the world of nature, politics, history and science seem far more important and interesting to them than does the grubby cult to which they belong.

ttdtt

I think they’re going to stop publishing the numbers sooner or later

I really thought that was going to happen when they stopped printing the yearbook.
But the just put the numbers on the website.

Remember, they can spin the numbers however they want.

If they grow, its Jahs blessing, if they shrink, its because we are near the end and satan is working hard.

Shrinking numbers actually plays into their "close ranks" mentality better right now.

Vidiot

"Come and join our club and be a smiley face like we are."

Diogenesister

really thought that was going to happen when they stopped printing the yearbook.

But the just put the numbers on the website.

This is just one of the things that make me believe the decision makers at the top are real believers and not nefarious , malevolent pretenders.

_Morpheus

But I just don’t think JWs without books makes any sense. It won’t fly. Publishing and studying texts is essentially what it is to be a JW. It’s like trying to have a bat without wings.

Lol and we have now have a collapse thread! Been kind quiet recently, im glad all is well in collpase land, slim one.

I agree with you, in principle, on the “writing and studying are fundamental to the jw experience”. Where i see a flaw, and i hesitate to point this out, oh slim one, is that they still write. Its all online my friend. They even still publish physical items, i smaller quanties.

What we are witnessing is transformation. They are still growing. Thats the opposite of collapse.

Words matter.

notsurewheretogo

I like your post...but...

I attended the Pioneer school in 1997 and the message was back then "Be a friend and just have a conversation about what is important to them. No literature required just bible or ~~tablet~~ in hand. Feel what they feel. Be a friend" very much as you say.

Nothing really has changed in that aspect.

slimboyfat

But do they still write? They’ve cut the yearbooks, the annual book and brochure releases, and they’ve cut the public Watchtower and Awake back to almost nothing.

The only written content they still regularly produce is the Study Watchtower. Will even that last? Maybe they’ll replace it with a half hour Watchtower video, followed by review questions. Sounds ridiculous, but it’s the way they’re going.

_Morpheus

You forgot the clam workbook thing. They study exactly as much as they did before. Wt, bookstudy, service meeting (by any other name).

(How) Will The Slow and Subtle WT Internal Shift Affect Us?

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