The May 1 and June 15, 2001 Watchtower issues have reading articles about “Helping Widows through their Trials” and “Look After Orphans and Widows in Their Tribulation”. Both articles contain very healthful counsel, tips and recommendations to the grieving and needy and to those around them on how, and when to offer help and support.
The problem with these articles is not that the average JW or local congregation elders are not doing their part in helping out the needy. In fact, most individual JWs are as compassionate and supportive as the average person. Additionally, and despite many failings, the majority of congregation elders are decent human beings and will try their best in helping out.
The problem lies with the system that not only authored these articles, but also constrains the limit and the amount of help and support that JWs and elders are able to give.
I say system, because nowadays, unlike the heydays of Russell, Rutherford, Knorr and Fred Franz, there is no one single writer for any article found in the publications of the Society. A writer may begin an article, but then it goes through several stages of checking, proofreading and very importantly, a legal audit before it gets to printing. During this process, the finished product may end up looking entirely different from what the original author started with. All this, is done under the oversight of the different committees of the Governing Body. However, if someone wanted to take the Society to task for lets say, writing something offending, neither the original writer, nor those that did the checking, and not even the GB members, with the latest re-org, can be held liable. Instead, they will be met with a wall of a legal corporation. So, it is a system, and it is very efficient. Because it is a system, it is rather vague, and cannot be visualized.
When anyone receives counsel or advice from someone, what is the first mental reaction they tend to have? Well, they would be checking whether the one offering such advice is applying it themselves. But, when the one offering such counsel is a system, it would be difficult to point the finger. It would also be more difficult if the system were robed with spiritual terms like “Faithful and Discreet Slave” or “Jehovah’s Organization”.
Bearing in mind, that the Society's main motto is to emulate the way the first century Christian congregation operated, we would like to know what was the legal corporation that Peter registered in Jerusalem? How many proofreaders did his letters had to go through? To which Governing Body committee did the apostles send their writings for approval? Beside the apostle Paul, who were the other members of the legal team?
Going back to the articles, they speak about God’s provisions in the Law of Moses for the orphan, widow and the needy and that during the early days of the Christian congregation, caring for those afflicted … was a distinctive feature of true worship. James 1:27 This is very true. The apostle Peter personally took charge to appoint capable men to oversee this most distinctive feature of true worship and that is the collection and distribution of funds to the needy. In the same vein, we would like to know how the modern GB has emulated that? Which committee is taking charge of this? Given the recent re-org, what is the name of the new corporation that is responsible for this distinctive feature of true worship?
The Society today, boasts about the Billions of hours spent in the ministry worldwide. But, when one asks how many of these hours were spent visiting one sick sister? The answer is zero. Why? Because, of the system. The system says only hours spent talking to or being with unbaptized persons should be counted. So, if the sick sister is baptized then the time spent visiting her is not to be counted. This is not to say that JWs do not visit their sick. But, since they are urged and constantly prodded to maintain a certain monthly average of countable hours, one can see where they are going to invest most of their energies. Elders, Ministerial Servants, and Pioneers are extra sensitive towards maintaining their averages in order to safeguard their privileges.
Caring for the Widow, Orphan and the elderly should be everybody’s responsibility. How has the Faithful and Discreet Slave taken his share besides providing for members of the GB and Bethel staff?
How many publications the Society had published in its entire history only later wish they hadn’t? There were books, magazines, brochures, tracts, assembly parts and others. All this is due to ever-changing doctrines. How much money was wasted on such publications? If you account for paper, ink, power, real estate maintenance, personnel and their care, crating and shipping, etc. If we assume that the average cost of one magazine is 5 cents. The Society publishes close to 100,000,000 magazines every month between the WT and Awake. @ 5 cents each and we have $5,000,000. Try to figure out how many books, brochures and issues of WT and Awake the Society would rather not have published and multiply that by millions of dollars.
Furthermore, how much time, energy, fuel and personal money the average JWs spent in distributing these “Wish-we-hadn’t-published” publications?
The Society is well aware that of the tens of millions of magazines that are published every two weeks, the percentage of those that are actually read is in the minority. A lot of JWs find it hard to catch up with reading all these magazines. How much money is wasted on this? Additionally, every JW has a stock of undistributed literature. I know I have hundreds. Lets say that each publisher has 50 mags. Multiply that by 6,000,000 active publishers and you get 300,000,000 mags at an average cost of 15,000,000 dollars.
As the article says, that True Christians look after widows, orphans and the sick.
The real questions then are this;
How have widows and orphans been helped, when millions of dollars that could have gone to their support were instead been diverted to fund “wish-we-hadn’t-printed” ever-changing-doctrine publications?
How have widows and orphans been looked after, when millions of dollars that could have aided them in their trials have instead been funneled to publish a plethora of wasted publications?
How Have widows, orphans and the sick been helped when Billions of hours that could have been spent in comforting them were instead used in distributing these publications?
One wonders when Jesus finally returns and sits on his Judgment Seat, of which is he going to be impressed the most? A boastful record of Billions of hours spent in “qualified” service, or a discreet one-hour visit to a sick and needy sister?