by LostintheFog1999 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
My late grandfather believed he was one of the anointed. That aside when asked about whether the JW organisation would last, he would pull out the attached WT magazine (the second edition) and say "if the day ever comes when the organisation asks for money outright, it will be proof that Jehovah is not it's backer." That's how convinced he was that such a thing would NEVER happen.
I often wonder what my grandfather would make of the modern organisation today.
I didn't know him, of course, but I wonder if he would say that the GB had no choice because brothers and sisters today seem to have lost their zeal for Jehovah.
Blame the JWs, not the organization!
"if the day ever comes when the organisation asks for money outright, it will be proof that Jehovah is not it's backer." This days hundred other thing's have been added too list of proof of no backup. Not gonna write them down. You gonna find them scrolling around website.
The opinions of many JWs change over time and they simply fall in line with what the Watchtower wants them to think.
When your grandfather believed this, they were buying books and magazines regularly from the Watchtower. They were also selling them to the public. They were told the charge only covered the cost of printing.
That all changed and JWs just accepted the new system. Chances are, your Grandfather would have gone along with it.
The story I have been told is that my grandfather was on a train traveling as a professional magician in 1910, and was contacted by some colporteurs that gave him a brochure entitled "Is Hell Hot?" Now the story goes that he did not like the idea of a burning hell being raised in the Church of Christ so they caught his attention. IMO, wouldn't being a magician make him a skeptic...but anyway. So he got involved with the Bible Students which now I think he was attracted too because Russell was using a pyramid to predict dates. So my grandmother got involved too, and it was passed on to my dad who was born in 1920, who passed it on to me being born after he was a Circuit Servant and pioneer and Gilead graduate who went to Peru as a missionary with my mom who got pregnant there and had to come home. Now I was not conceived there as my mom had a miscarriage at the airport but a year or so later I arrived. I would love to talk to my grandfather now, he died before I was born, he died in 1943, but I think he figured things out before he died. He recreated his magic career with card tricks, his name was R. W. Hull, he's on wikipedia, after the 1925 Millions now living will never die thing didn't work out. I have questioned why they stayed involved at that time when 75% left, but I think it was because they were close friends with MacMillan who was one of Rutherford's henchmen. Interesting that my grandfather's JW legacy at this point is all but gone.
Edited to add of course both of my paternal grandparents were "annointed" as was my maternal grandmother.
Remarkable Sister Pettifog
________
This morning I arrived on my bicycle at the local Starbucks early and took up a seat at the outdoor table in the fresh air.
That’s when it happened--a group of 3 older ladies at one of the other tables outside rose to leave and one of them walked over to my table and spoke directly to me.
I was wearing earbuds at that moment and didn’t hear. I popped them out and asked her to repeat herself.
“That’s a beautiful bicycle you have there. What a great way to stay healthy!”
I thanked her and idly chatted about this and that.
As I spoke, I could see she was scrutinizing my face like a private investigator rummaging for clues. The analytical part of my brain went on alert at that instant. What was she doing?
“I think I know you. It’s been a long, long time since I last saw you. I don’t expect you’d remember me, but I remember you because my great grandmother used to tell me how much you reminded her of her favorite movie star, Randolph Scott.”
“You’re talking about **Mildred Pettifog, aren’t you?”
We both laughed and proceeded to rake over various remembrances about
The 1950s and 60s.
That’s when I heard the following bit of eye-opening information.
This pleasant lady told me a brief story about Sister **Pettifog, her great grandmother.
___________________Backstor
Sister Mildred was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses brought up as a Bible Student since the late 19th century.
In case that means nothing to you, think of it this way: they fought the Civil War only 15 years before Mildred was born!
They introduced me to her in 1960. Sister Pettifog was already 80 years old.
Way back in 1960, when I first attended a Kingdom Hall as a guest, old ladies looked like old ladies. White hair was quite acceptable.
Sister Pettifog sported a purple hat pinned to the back of her head by a long hatpin. Her hair was mostly silver-white tinged with a faint blue tint.
This elderly Sister flashed a crinkled smile and her skin was quite pale; with cheeks radiating a pinkish powder blush (a proper style back in the olden days.)
Her dress appeared to be handmade and steel-rimmed bifocals framed her wide-set eyes that bestowed an impression of wisdom
The most remarkable aspect of Mildred Pettifog’s persona was the fact she was one of the anointed members at our Kingdom Hall.
(In those days it was very special... and a wee bit mysterious.)
What did it actually mean to be “anointed”? I wanted to know.
Sister Pettifog had what was “a heavenly calling.”
The vast majority of JW’s aim for an “Earthly hope.” Life everlasting in a new Eden.
Scant few possess the interior tingle of a special self-awareness.
If you’ve never been a Jehovah’s Witness, you’ll be scratching your head about now wondering aloud just how cuckoo this might be.
Until fairly recently, the eight million Jehovah’s Witnesses all over the world imagined the “anointed” got direct messages from the heavenly realm tipping them off about sacred secrets and advanced prophetic divination. These whisperings were better than stock market tips!
The person introducing me spoke in respectful hushed tone of awe.
This created a funny feeling inside of me, too. The psychology of awe is quite contagious! Sort of like, “Ya wanna meet Elvis?”
****
At this point, I’ll try my best to give you the story as told to me by the great-granddaughter of Mildred Pettifog.
________PETTIFOG goes rogue?
“The first time my great grandmother said one bad thing about the WatchTower organization. Of course, I knew that the Truth as published by the WatchTower organization had a way of suddenly flipping the script and Granny Mildred noticed it and used the word, “Sneaky.”
This shocked me. I didn’t believe my ears.
I asked her to explain. When I heard what she had to say, I wished I hadn’t!
She stood there in the kitchen helping me wash dishes like she always insisted on doing and at the same time started ticking off a long list of “sneaky” things she claimed the Organization had done over the years to prove they were “making stuff up.”
I kept telling her not to continue. I was panicking! I immediately thought of rushing her to the hospital. I thought she had suffered a stroke and wasn’t responsible for her words!”
“A year passed with these embarrassing conversations (private as they were). We moved to Oklahoma and started going to a new Kingdom Hall. All the while, she kept going to all the meetings and out in Field Service, (door to door,) like nothing inside her had changed. I asked her how she could pretend what she was learning and teaching was still “The Truth”?
“Granny smiled and explained that her ‘anointing’ could do a lot more good ‘undercover’ than being labeled an apostate because nobody is permitted to listen to an ex-member. But everybody would listen to her as one of the anointed remnant!”
At this point in her story, I was begging for details.
Granddaughter glanced at her watch. She had to go shortly, but she said she’d tell me this one thing Granny did when she was around young Witnesses. The teens.
Sister Mildred Pettifog would wait until she was in the car with a trapped audience who couldn’t flee. Then she’d start talking about her life as a Jehovah’s Witness. . . .
____PETTIFOGG’S HISTORY from her own testimony
"I stay faithful to the Organization!
I knew I was going to heaven no matter what the Governing Body decided was true!
Right or wrong. Where else would I go?
I didn’t graduate from High School or go to college when I was young because Armageddon was coming in 1914--what good would a worldly education do me?
Pastor Russell said what Jehovah told him and it didn’t happen the way he told it.
Was it a mistake? A human opinion? Wrong is wrong. But we believed it and we were surprised, sad, and many of our Friends declared it a ‘false prophecy’ and left the Organization. Not me."
"Pastor Russell took a wait-and-see attitude but he died and Brother Rutherford told us 1925 was the year it would all go down. Another mistake, or human opinion, but Jehovah’s anointed remained faithful to the organization.
The Bible says “No man knows the day and hour.” That didn’t stop Brother Franz and Brother Knorr from 1975, however.
It was exactly the same thing taught in 1874, moved forward a hundred years.
Yes, 1874, 1914, 1925, 1975. We all went along preaching it as ‘Truth’ even though it was men’s opinions, wrong guesses, and the anointed slave assuring us we are a spirit-directed organization. Who am I to say they are wrong - until the date comes and goes? I remained faithful to the Organization."
"I am in my 90s knowing we, the anointed, were dying off.
We are the anointed Generation of 1914 and have to still be alive to SEE the end.
We used a generation of human lives as the Countdown Clock. We were the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.”
We are part of the MILLIONS NOW LIVING who will NEVER DIE. Do you understand? Why would we leave an organization that gives us this heavenly assurance?"
"Each year, more of us anointed die and it assures and proves Armageddon is getting closer and closer. What fool would risk leaving with such assurance?
Now I’m 98 years old. I was 95 the last time Armageddon didn’t come.
Do you understand? It is now 1977. 3 years ago they taught us the world was ending because of earthquakes, famine, and wars, and IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.
Many have gone away now. They lost faith in Jehovah’s organization.
But not me! I’m faithful and loyal to the bitter end.”
________
Mildred Pettifog’s granddaughter shook her head in wonderment at the words she related and added, “How she got away with that—I just don’t know. You could see the young kids’ faces. They didn’t know if she had lost her mind or what!”
If a young person were of college age, she went out of her way to talk to them.
She’d get them off by themselves and say: “I never got a proper education because the world was ending. It ended over and over and over.”
“I have friends who never married because of that, too. They have no kids or grandkids because they assured us we’d all be in heaven or Paradise. Many people now are old, bitter, and unhealthy, thinking they never lived a real-life - just waiting around for Armageddon.
Not me. I went ahead and married and I had beautiful kids and grandkids. I’m anointed too - and Jehovah’s spirit allowed me the freedom to have a life.
Well, I am sorry I didn’t go to college. I could have earned enough money to give my children and grandchildren a start in life. But don’t listen to me. I’m just a grumpy old lady and my mind isn’t as clear as it used to be. You better do exactly what the Organization tells you to do.”
Then Granny would walk away leaving those young JW’s with a dazzled expression of pure horror and puzzlement behind.
_________
I asked the granddaughter if any Elders ever gave her a good stern talking to?
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Are you serious? Granny was too slick for that!
She knew her scriptures, and she’d start quoting them one after another until the busybody would shrug and give up. You see—she knew they had too much respect for her to get mean—as they do with most members who have loose tongues.”
I asked what happened to Sister Pettifog.
“Granny died peacefully in her sleep 10 days before her hundredth birthday.
She had written a long letter to be read to the congregation at her funeral. She mailed it to the Presiding Elder and a copy to WatchTower headquarters a few days before she died. Do I need to tell you that the letter disappeared? It was not read, nor mentioned!
Plenty of Elders asked all the family about Sister Pettifog’s state of mind.
I told them she had only grown more loving, kind, cheerful, and open-hearted the older she got. I told them what she had said about loyalty to Jehovah’s organization, too. They didn’t seem to catch the irony.”
______
It was time for the granddaughter to leave. I thanked her for stopping to talk to me.
As an afterthought, I asked one more question. “Did any of that weaken your faith?”
She smiled as she climbed into her car and gave me her answer:
“The day after her funeral I walked away and haven’t been back to a meeting since then. Nice talking to you, Randolph.”
Away she drove.
She truly was a Remarkable Sister Pettifog!
_________________
**Note: I have changed the name to avoid tampering with people’s memory of her.
If you think you know her actual identity but aren’t sure - I’ll give a hint.
Her nickname was “Boots.”
She was in the Poly Congregation in Ft. Worth, Texas.
_________________
Foolednomore...your Grandfather was an 'intelligent' man
I wonder if he'd notice that the Governing Body(tm)(pee be upon them), of a Corporation now solely owned that title excluding all others by calling them irrelevant and/or bonkers.
The doctrine of anointed that watchtower has promoted seems strange. Before the idea of some going too heaven and other not, everyone one participated in commemoration. After doctrine was introduced many stopped participating in the celebration. Was it because before most of them hade mental problems? The other thing, most anointed seem to be white, bald, living at bethel new York and all are JWs 😂. Always thought God liked variation. Just don't add up.
