by slimboyfat 67 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Elderly ones having to buy 'tablets' and not understanding how they work, those that don't, feeling left behind.
Older COs being made redundant, and leaving them feeling exactly that!
The big Bethelite clearout. Nothing like being kicked out on the street with no money, job or home to make you 'wake up'.
The wacky broadcasts, that although may appeal to the die-hards, for anyone with a few doubts, it'll just add a few more.. then a few more...
We had the book study at a brother's home who heated with a wood burning stove. We were studying the "Babylon the Great" book. It was as thick as a Bible. The questions were in a separate pamphlet. The room was on average 90 degrees year round. I was around 10-12 years old. Yeah; I really looked forward to that snoozer.....
Another one:
Dumbing down of literature, both quantity and quality.
There used to be 4x32 = 128 pages of information in the magazines each month, now there is 16 pages per month.
There used to be 2 or 3 books, 192 pages or 256 pages or even longer, released each year at the conventions. This past year, not even so much as a new 2 page tract.
With those hundreds of pages of articles & books per year, there used to be something of at least moderate interest, something that was not embarrassingly dull or vapid. Now it's all bullet points and simplistic illustrations.
Nowadays it's all video presentations and "JW broadcasting", all instantly forgotten.
Want to see a deer in the headlights? Ask a JW what his favorite part of the May broadcast was. Or the April. Or the March. Or....
All forgotten, all meaningless drivel.
Want to see a deer in the headlights? Ask a JW what his favorite part of the May broadcast was. Or the April. Or the March. Or....
Ask a Witness what his favourite part of the Sunday meeting was or what the public talk was about on a Monday morning and you get the same look.
I'll just ad my $0.02 to two points already made:
1) Consolidation of meetings
2) Reducing the frequency of printing on magazines
My former presiding overseer/COBE once said that, if it weren't for all the meetings, brothers would have more time to get in trouble. Little did I know that by saying "get in trouble" really meant living a normal life.
In this internet age, a slow decline is inevitable no matter what they do.
Many decisions are reactionary, some decisions might mitigate monetary loss and keep longtime members in the pen.
Other decisions are in desperation as things slip away. I fear how desperate things might get when the decline becomes really apparent and they grasp at the reigns harder.
Good list sbf. I'd include the new and "approved" type of explanation from the WT March 15, 2015. You know, all the Type/Antitype stuff. I just couldn't believe that so many books and WT articles with deep, spritiual "truths" became obsolete with one devastating stroke of the GB's mighty hand. Together with the Candace Conti case and the bizarre Overlapping Generation doctrine, it really got me thinking, and I mean REALLY... leading right to the refreshing waters of TTATT and my fade six months later.
So glad I don't have to teach that bullshit anymore...
@ slimboyfat...
What makes you think all these things are "mistakes"?
If they were expecting a decline, wouldn't these actions serve the purpose of managing said decline, by alienating and thus weeding out the soft-cores, WINOs, and fence-sitters, whilst leaving a smaller, but more robust core of hard-line True Believers?
Their decline would have happened even if they had not done anything, at a slower pace though. They just accelerated their demise. The internet and greater access to education in the last 50 years will erode the power of religion, any religion.
In the case of the JW leadership, I have a conspiracy theory that I find attractive and plausible. Some people on charge of finances likes the idea of reducing membership because it will enable them to convert into vanishing liquid assets some of their huge real estate portfolio.
It's coming up on twenty years now, but they had an opportunity to rid themselves of the albatross the blood issue had become and they didn't do it.
Instead, they cooked up yet another absurd rationale for the allowance of fractions and kept going.
