by Sea Breeze 20 Replies latest watchtower bible
Anybody else notice this? The have a syndicate (governing body) Regional bosses (District Overseers), Captians (Circuit Overseers), and Elders are their "Made Men" that enforce policy at street level.
If you run your mouth too much, they wipe out your whole family (disfellowshipping).
It's just business. Fugitaboutit.
I would agree! Real grease ball outfit.
I don't think the analogy works.
Mafia bosses don't live on tiny stipends, live in strangers' homes 5 nights a week and depend on voluntary gifts.
they eliminated a whole layer of control, district overseers, saving the members to green handshaking that mid manager burden. Giving the lower echelon freer reign.
It's still a protection racket....you stop paying us, you loose your (eternal) life🤔
A long, long time ago, when I was young (in years and that org.) I was interested in a girl in the same cong.. Her mother was a witness, but not her father. I thought I'd win some kudos, if I could 'persuade' the father to come to meetings. But he opened up one day and told me that he'd been a witness, and been the WTS's accountant (back in the day when there were only a few thousand witnesses in all of Aust.) and he had left the org. because it was/had become commercialised.
That was news to me, and I nearly left the org. then. But another oldie (Bill Schnieder, if any other Aussie ex-witness recalls that far back), got hold of me and told me what had happened.
Back in the 1930's the WTS had bought a property (in Strathfield NSW) to be the branch office. But it had to be refurbished and buildings constructed for the office and printery. After the purchase, there was no money left for all that work (Aust. still affected by the 1929 depression) and, of course, the org. was very small in Aust. Anyway as they could afford it, they started building some of the above things with volunteer (JW) labour.
Then came 1939 and WW2. and lots of men enlisting in the army (keeping in mind that JWs refused to do military service) but there was still a need for building work and maintenance in the general community. So the relatively few tradies who were working on the the Strathfield Bethel, were suddenly in demand. The word got around in the general community about these guys so then the Branch office started seeking this outside work - and that's how the Aussie office had become commercialised.
That was an interesting time, the branch office was taken over by the government, and although the Bethel family were still allowed to live there, in 1942 the Aust. Army placed 24 hour sentries around the building. The Branch overseer was a guy called Alexander MacGillivray. He was out one night dining somewhere, maybe too well, and when he got back to the Bethel home, the sentry challenged him and MacGillivray said something stupid, so the sentry shot him. Didn't kill him but I was told it was a serious wound.
Anyway, the witnesses took the case to the High court, and in 1943, the government's ban on the Jws was overturned and the Army evicted from Bethel.
Nathan Knorr turned up, as soon as he could after the war ended, and condemned the commercial activities, eventually installing T.Jarasz as Branch servant.
An academic study, by Dr. Jayne Persian (University of Southern Queensland) of the above can be found at: https://www.academia.edu/170809/The_Banning_of_Jehovahs_Witnesses_in_Australia_in_1941
-------------------------------
Attempting to keep an objective view of my (and the WTS's) past I find the comparison of the witnesses to the Mafia rather strange.
We live in a monetised world. (The alternative to bartering). We earn money to buy goods and services. Organisations like churches, have to pay money for their goods. How can they obtain that money. That was the dilemma faced by the Aussie WTS, in my remembered experience way back in my youth. Other churches also face that same dilemma (think, the big-time evangelisers on TV). Think, the RC church in the middle-ages selling indulgences. It's fascinating to know that in the USA, that church (according to the N.Y. Times) has resumed selling indulgences.
Quote: "The fact that many Catholics under 50 have never sought one, and never heard of indulgences except in high school European history (Martin Luther denounced the selling of them in 1517 while igniting the Protestant Reformation), simply makes their reintroduction more urgent among church leaders bent on restoring fading traditions of penance in what they see as a self-satisfied world."
Attempting to keep an objective view of my (and the WTS's) past I find the comparison of the witnesses to the Mafia rather strange.
@Reasonfirst,
Open your eyes. It is a successful business model. They bring your family into a conflict when necessary to control you and to protect their "thing". It is so successful they are quite adept at convincing you to even commit suicide... or at least forfeit the authenticity of your life, which is a type of death. They are there to enforce the addage "all men die, few men really live".
It is a seductive thing to die (in one way or another) so your family can "live". Few men can resist it. I did and I highly reccommend it. Pantangeli did not:
The local elders gestappo
Another similarity between The Mafia & The WTBTS is the thing called Cosa Nostra or Our Thing...members are never allowed to leave, withdraw membership or disassociate peaceably! Membership is for life...the only way to leave is in a box!
