New light

poopie

June at article now it's ok to say a greeting?

Gorbatchov

Fake artcle. Jw.org will use it to show the jury that jw see the worth of greeting to all kind of people. Case closed.

G.

Della Street

What do you think this is new light about exactly? Doesn't seem new to me.

Listener

The article in the June 2018 Watchtower, the following is the first paragraph, highlights are mine

THE POWER OF A GREETING
HELLO! How are you today?”
No doubt you have often used a greeting such as that. You may even have accompanied your greeting with a handshake or a hug. Customs and words used may differ from place to place, but the basics of a greeting are much the same. In fact, not offering or responding to a greeting may be taken as unloving or as evidence of bad manners.

Poopie, it's very unlikely that there will be any change in policy.

Even when I was a full believer I could never come to terms with the fact that Witnesses are obsessed with the making and interpretation of rules. Witnesses spend hours gleefully discussing organization rules and regulations. They try to "one-up" everyone as if they are more righteous than others because they have adopted a more stringent view of these rules. I also noticed that they would spend little to know time discussing how to imitate the love of Christ. Probably because they have none and never had it to begin with.

jp1692

It would be nice to interpret that as a softening of their shunning practice, but there's really nothing in this innocuous little paragraph from a puff-piece article to suggest otherwise. In fact, disfellowshipped peopled and shunning aren't even mentioned anywhere in the entire magazine issue.

BTW, it's helpful if you are referencing a source to give adequate information so others can find it. In this case: “The Power of Greeting.” (June, 2018). The Watchtower. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.

The quote itself should be followed with the page number, which in this case is page 30.

Vidiot

Let's not kid ourselves, folks.

Once again, this is just another tug on the leash.

under the radar

Die-hard JWs will say the same thing about this article as they do about the 2009 Awake! article that says no one should be forced to choose between their beliefs and their family. To quote my erstwhile sister, "That doesn't apply to us! We have the Truth™!"

They will say that the general principle in the paragraph doesn't apply to disfellowshipped or disassociated ones, but only to the public in general. And yet... just as Gorbatchov and others pointed out, you can bet WT lawyers will cite this article in court to try to show that JWs are not extremists and that being shunned is not absolute and therefore not all that bad after all.

LongHairGal

UNDER THE RADAR:

You and others are probably right that they will try to use this article as proof that they don’t shun....

however, I have a far-fetched idea that there is a possibility that they would like to entice many ex-JWs back. But, because of the many radical changes they have made to the religion in a short time it would be too shocking to many people there to say “you can talk to DFd people now”. So, they’d like to lay the groundwork and ease it in slowly.

I don’t think any of this is prompted by “love” but fear ($) caused by (responsible and sane) people leaving left and right. Just my opinion.