by ukpimo 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Another aspect or the internal culture is the present aloof state of the congregation elders around Britain. They do not take their sheep seriously. Nothing will ever please them.
That isn't just Britain. That is what I find to be a common complaint in every congregation where there are still ones who are in that talk to me have.
They save on gas with letter writing, but spend it on stamps! Those letters are so unwelcoming to strangers. The phone calls didn’t work too well, either. My mom tried calling, she said a lady asked how she got her number. Well, she got a list of numbers from an elder, but she couldn’t tell the lady that. So she said she got her number from the internet. The woman said, “I think you’re full of crap.” And hung up. 😏
DOC, I realize there is a down trend, was back in 2001 when I stopped attending anything jw-based. Jws found any way that meant they had less and less reason to go door to door. Stopped even trying to give the appearance of preparing to anything that might interest non-jws to investigate the WTS, didn't make return visits, made themselves feel better turning them over to regular pioneers, never trying to start a "bible study" so they weren't tied down to a specific time, just turned over to regular pioneers. Taking long "breaks," starting out later so "not to wake people up," stopping early at 11 a.m. Counting time for the time they left their house and arrived back home. Faking time. Went out "preaching" only with their own family and faking it, doing errands like picking up dry cleaning, grocery shopping. Making "return visits" on people for 10 years without that person ever attending a meeting at the KH. Writing groups even back then, one phone shared by 15 people, writing letters to family members of people in the obits, freaking them out. One time the WTS commented that some were writing one letter by hand, making 100 copies, and putting them in people's doors and counting 100 hours. I saw all these things happen. I'm sure it has not stopped. Covid just made it worse, easier for people to fake things. The end has been announced by the WTS since 1879, many false starts, and here jws are in 2025 still waiting for Armageddon to come. Less and less contact with someone in person in their so-called preaching work. Will the WTS become an online religion, I have no doubt.
Probably late 1990s is when the internet era really kicked in too.
I believe that the turning point for Witness culture was in 1980, when the Bethel purges began after the Disfellowshiping of Ray Franz.
Much like the advice given to King Rehoboam in 1 Kings 14 ... a rod of iron began to pelt the backs of the Brotherhood, seeking to stamp out any form of disloyalty. This (as most here will remember) took to form of hard-line WT articles on apostasy, increasing the oversight by the COs, a ban on independent bible study groups and an direct instruction to stop elders from arranging social gatherings.
Not that there was problems actually, but the fear to loosing control was enough to remove any form of locally organized activities and recreation, which directly contributed to the splintering of the collective spirit congregations generally bring.
And while it has take some time, its now quite clear that the very thing Governing Body didn't want back then ... has now quietly but fully been manifested in the form of lip service by the rank and file, with Publishers doing basically whatever they want.
no-zombie - “…the fear of losing control…”
Trust me, it was much more than that.
It was the fear of not really being “God’s Exclusive Earthly Organization”.
There isn’t much they won’t do to keep up that premise.
Vidiot,,
Once the $heeples make that disconnect,,,of the WT not being of God,, its over.
BTW, to clarify this, Ray Franz was not disfellowshipped at the time he left Bethel. He joined and was a jw in a congregation just over the Georgia border in Alabama. An elder in that congregation was so dismayed about how Ray Franz was treated, that elder disassociated himself. At the time, the WT did not disfellowship jws for associating with disassociated jws. Ray and his wife (not disassociated), went to dinner with that disassociated elder and that elders' non-disassociated jw wife. The WTS made a retroactive ruling that if you dissociated with a dissociated jw, you in fact had disassociated yourself. Interestingly, Ray's wife was not considered to have disassociated herself although she had been at that same dinner. Quite hypocritical. So in WT terms, it was later when Ray was in a congregation, he was not disfellowshipped at all, but later was considered to have disassociated himself. I have had to repeat this several times over the years. Ray was my personal friend, and I learned this from him, his wife, the disassociated elder and his non-disassociated wife. (BTW, Ray did not write his first book until 1984 when the WT considered him to have disassociated himself) For further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Franz
