As many of you know, I am 63, and left the religion about 40 years ago. I was raised in it and would like to explain what it was like compared to today. First of all, back in the mid to late 40's the patriotism of the U.S. was very high and the treatment at the door was very harsh. I was told on several occasions to get off the porch or the householder would get his gun. I was nine or ten at the time. In my wife's case, a housholder spit in her face. The draft issue was different back then. When you got your announcement to appear, you went. While the other inductees took the oath and took one step forward, you were ordered to stand in place, then you were hauled off to prison. There was no alternate service back in those days. Edcuation was forbidden. My cousin and my sister were valedictorians of their class. Neither went to college. Today, it is possible to go to college, although it is still not encouraged. The one thing that was better back then were the dating practices. Like "the world" we were encouraged to shop around, and get to know many people. We did not have caparones, but were encouraged to double date, to help preevent fooling around. We also had parties, where we danced both rock and roll and slow dances, again with no nosey caparones there. Now, if a young couple were engaged and admitted to fooling around before marriage, they were put on probation. After they got married the probation was lifted. Yes, they were embarrassed, but they were not disfellowshipped. I lived before the elder system, and believe me, the previous system was better. The congregation overseer was the final arbitor (sp?) and the results were generally better than the committee decisions of a body of elders. I believe the same applies to the before and after at Bethel with the Governing Body. Committee decisions, usually do not work well. Well, I lived in the golden age of the religion. From the mid-40's to the mid 50's, the religion had double digit growth. They were proud to proclaim that they were the fastest growing religion. It sure has changed since then, growth wise that is. Today, the religion is soft and weak compared to what it was back then. A pioneer's quota was 100 hours. I pioneered for about two years and felt guilty if I was five hours short, and I never cheated on my time, nor did I count coffee breaks, or even take them until I was done working the territory. Times have truely changed.
JW changes over time
by larc 70 Replies latest jw friends
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bikerchic
Wow! Do you miss it?
I sorta remember those days being a baby in the 50's and raised in it. I did miss the connectiveness of the congregation when I was in my teens compared to how it was when my kids were in their teen years. So very different, the love of the brotherhood became very conditional and it's one of the major reasons me and my kids aren't in anymore.
Different times we live in, some for the better some for the worse, what doesn't break you makes you strong eh?
I enjoyed the read.
Kate
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Lady Lee
Hi larc Welcome back Hope all your computer woes are over
I have to agree that the org has changed. I only went in during the 60's and from what I hear goes on now it is a very different religion. I think it has gotten more legalistic and far less caring than it used to be. There seems to be a greater emphasis on conformity disguised as unity rather than obedience based on a love of God. Mind you they focus far more on a love of organization than on God
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SanFranciscoJim
I had a dear friend who passed away at the age of 74 a couple of years ago. He was never a JW himself, but his grandmother was a "Russellite", one of the "anointed".
He told me that she was a devout JW and always tried to proselytize him. (Ironically, he became a Presbyterian minister instead.) He told me many stories about his grandmother. The two items of interest about her which stick out in my mind are that she was a non-stop chain-smoker, and that she threw the largest and most festive Christmas parties in Dubuque, Iowa.
Times do change!
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shamus
Wow, I;ll say that they've changed!
I found the congregation to be an unloving and cool place. Very clicky. Also, very gossipy, if you know what I mean. People just love to get dirt on you, then tell everyone about it.
All in all, I would say that I would feel more comftrable in a catholic church than a kindom hall.
Shamus.
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Guest 77
Larc, I grew up in the same era. It was exciting times, besides what else was there? For me, baseball captured my focus. Service and meetings was better than being couped up in the house. My mom was over protective of her chicks, and just to get out the house was a blessing. Yes, times have changed and time will always change. I do have some fond memories, like my wife whom I've known since childhood. She wasn't a witness and the cong. made no big deal about me marrying outside the faith. In the long run, I made the right choice in marrying outside the faith. Yeah, I reflect on the past and notice a big difference. We need to roll with the punches.
Guest 77
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mustang
I am slightly younger than Larc:
My brother would have been valedictorian, but "threw it" or "sandbagged" on purpose. Education was close to forbidden; essentially the same thing. It was a waste of time to ask.
Draft: by the time of the Vietnam War, there were lists of alternative service selections that you were given. We didn’t refer to it as Alternative Service, per se. It was just the list you would be given.
I knew people that had gone to prison in WW2, but hadn’t heard of any since then. But some of my contemporaries ended up going to prison.
I think they figured out some different routes ~during the Korean War period. I wonder if Eisenhower(sp?) had something to do with that? I know that I heard the Quakers had been a real force on those changes. Quakers would do Medic work, even in combat areas, I understood. Perhaps when they got numbers of volunteers for that, Selective Service expanded the SSS categories. I’m not sure that the CO (Conscientious Objector) status’s even existed during WW2. (Classification I-O or I-AO, for instance.)
I remember meeting one of the "weak brothers" at a Circuit Assembly. He knew I was pIONEERING. He tearfully told me how he took a hospital assignment as a CO . This was before eLDERS and the "brothers" really cut him some slack. Frankly, I think the Congregation Servant knew he would screw up in some other way, anyway.
I did the pIONEER thing, fought for and got deferments.
I agree: things were different from what I hear that is going on today. The double-life stuff didn’t exist. That recent thread about the "don’t care JW’s" with a lackadaisical attitude was an unheard of attitude.
I have a legal commentary on the flag salute issue during WW2. It is an eye-opener. I shall transcribe it one of these days.
Yes, on the dating scenarios. Those were better times, but they were slipping away as I grew up. I saw the heavy handed, control freak business start. I was in the middle of many of the changes Larc mentioned.
Bingo on living before the eLDER system. It was coming in as I was fading. I heard about the "rotation of eLDERs" thing after I left.
There was no baptismal Q&A, no book of questions to study for an exam. You "just did it". Been there, done that: totally on a whim, pre-teen, on my own and nobody stopped me.
I second the thought on "Congregational justice": it was more just back then.
pIONEERING and Field Service was tougher, like Larc said. We did real work, but "corner cutting" was starting at the end of my spell as a JW. The 60’s was a mixture of the tougher older times and the soft times as Larc describes them.
It is now a VERY DIFFERENT RELIGION, as Lady Lee says. Since I "bailed" in 1974, I didn’t see any of the major flip-flops and backsliding that has come to be "taken in stride", shoveled under the rug and passed off as "New Light(tm)". There was strength of conviction and a lot less hypocrisy.
I left BEFORE THE CHANGE OF BAPTISMAL VOWS. Obviously, so did Larc. We are truly something that might be described as Old Time JW’s. Jesus was still YOUR MEDIATOR and we didn’t PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO BROOKLYN.
The night and day contrast now evident in "before & after" relief is the biggest witness to me against the whole mess.
It’s the old "you can’t go home" scenario. I could never go back: what I left doesn’t exist any more!!!!!
PS: one of the "old timers" who predates me (but barely) just died. He came in when I was a kid and became an eLDER. This is really "deja vu"ing me.
Mustang
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avengers
A pioneer's quota was 100 hours
I remember that.
I remember that a temporary pioneer had to make 75 hours, a regular pioneer 100 hours and a "special" pioneer had to make 150 hours.
In 1971 I pioneered for a year as a regular pioneer together with a friend of mine. We worked as cleaners in a factory and went in service in the afternoon and weekends.
We always had problems making the 100 hours, so we decided to have the "congregation servant" (as I recall that's what they were called in those days) to set up a letter to try to explain to Bethel that 100 hours were too many and if it would be possible to lighten the load a bit.
The answer surprised the hell out of us. "Who do these brothers think they are trying to give advice to the brothers of Christ?".
A couple of years later they changed the hours of a regular pioneer to 90.
Oh well. Too late for me.
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larc
Very Eloqant (sp?) Mustang, You mentioned World War Two. My mother's cousin spent three years of a five year sentence in prison, because he would not serve in the war. That was a very difficult time for Jehovah's Witnesses. Today, JWs rarely come to my door. I never see them down town in the magazine work. On occasion, I find a magazine on the seat on my bus. Has it come down to this, leaving literature on a bus????
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Prisca
Interesting post, Larc. Although I wasn't alive at the time, your recollections are similar to those I used to hear from my parents. My mother was brought up as a JW and she had to endure many things, including the work being banned in Australia during WW2. She was baptised as a teenager in her own bath-tub (no public assemblies during the ban).
My dad said during the 50s they used to have the quotas written up on the blackboard at the front of the Hall (often a rented community hall) so they knew what the Society expected them to do each month. My parents courted during the 50s. They never had chaperones, but my mother was still a virgin when they wed. Later, when my mother became pregnant with my sister, she was looked down on for having children in the "last days". Little did my mum know that 38 years later she would be not only a mother, but a grandmother too!
From these and other stories they talked about, I have gathered the impression that being a JW 40 or 50 years ago was much different to today. It was a different era back then, and the witnesses were stricter in some areas, yet laxer in others.
I wonder how things will be 50 years from now?
