Metatron's post about the decline and fall of "The Society" led me to want to post some snippets of my family's saga with "The Truth".
My parents were taught witness doctrine by a man named Jim Jones. No really, that was his name. He was threatened by mobs during WWII for being a witness and not being patriotic. My parents met during WWII at an airplane factory before they were witnesses. They became witnesses in 1946, the year after my older brother was born. They were told by Brother Jones that my brother would never start school. Of course he has grandkids in high school now.
My parents were among the first to become witnesses in south Georgia. They are the last of that breed, the third generation witnesses, the first being the 1874 to 1914 group. The second being the 1914 to 1935 group. Their group came in from 1936 - 1950 or so. I think they were the last of the die hard no compromise witnesses. My mother wrote to every peanut butter company when I was a kid to make sure they did not use blood or blood by products in their peanut butter. We did not eat at Chinese restaurants because they strangled their chickens, supposedly. My mother still talks about how aluminum cookware will make you sick.
I guess that makes me a fourth generation witness which I would say went from 1951 through 1975. This period was the era that from a percentage basis, the witnesses really took off, going from like 200,000 to 2,000,000 in a relatively short period of time. We believed the end would come in 1975. We still shaped our lives around the belief that the end would come at any time. I counted on my fingers as a child how old I would be when the persecution started. I think mine was the last generation of kids to be treated badly in school for not saying the pledge of allegiance or going to the holiday parties. Several of my teachers despised the witnesses and took out this anger on me at every given opportunity.
In the early 60's my brother was disfellowshipped and in the last 40 years never became a regular publisher again. My father spent my childhood and teenage years drinking and staying away from home and the Kingdom Hall. I'll never know exactly why this happened. He remained determined that I tow the line and not get out of step one bit. Something changed in him when he attended the Kingdom Ministry School in Pittsburgh. When he came back he soon lost all interest in going to meetings. This kept up until he retired from work, after I had moved away from home. He then returned to the hall and became an elder again, which he still is at the age of 80. Mom and Dad simply say, "Where else would we go?" whenever questioned about "The Society". Because it is always about "The Society", not about Jehovah.
My brothers generation was the first stage to rebel against the tight grip rules and regs. When I was a teenager we shunned those who went to, or even talked about going to college. They were as bad as worldly people in our eyes. from 1975 until now I think is the 5th generational type of witnesses. Yeah, there are still rules, but other than apostacy, you really have to be a hard liner to get disfellowshipped. I don't think DFing carries the same stigma now that it did when my brother was DFed and you had to stay DFed for at least one year.
Now witnesses children can freely go to college, take part in sports or other activities and I don't think they really see themselves as that different from the world. Serena and Venus are great examples of this. I saw Prince on TV the other night talking about the Creator and his purpose for the earth. He had long hair and make up on and I just had to shake my head at how little change is expected anymore for someone to conform and proclaim themselves a Jehovah's Witness. There really doesn't seem to be much of a yardstick anymore.
The only true line of separation left I think, is between "apostates" and witnesses. Apostates being basically anyone who was a witness and who isn't a witness anymore.