September 1,2004 WT Beware The Voice of Strangers (page 3)

TweetieBird

I have a question...if the JW's supported Hitler, then why were they thrown in the concentration camps and persecuted?

Elsewhere

have a question...if the JW's supported Hitler, then why were they thrown in the concentration camps and persecuted?

For the same reason Hitler invaded Russia immediately after establishing a peace treaty with Stalin.

Hitler used people, organizations and countries to accomplish is goals... and then killed them.

XQsThaiPoes

In 1934 werent many americans enamored with germany? America was trying to practice isolationism. I am wondering was the watchtower trying to be pro german or just anti american?

Corvin

I just love the last illustration with the guy's head turned completely away and his hand held up as if to say, "la la la la la la la la, I'm not listening to anything you have to say, STRANGER!"

Why doesn't the WTBTS just do an illustration like this instead?

Paragraph 14 sure is interesting. The question for the paragraph is: "How do the media, at times, publish the voice of strangers?", yet the paragraph itself apparently imports this same voice by "citing" the media. In other words, the "apostate" voice is still detectable in the WT's own literature, though muted by the WT's own rephrasing and recharacterization. Apparently the need to mention specifics outweights the apparent danger in mentioning the claims made by "apostates", though mitigated they may be. What does the "apostate" voice consist of, according to the WT?

1) ...[I]n one country a news report falsely stated that the Witnesses supported Hitler's regime during World War II.

The WT Society tries to distance the flock from the "apostate" source by muting both the specific source (an anonymous "a news report") and specific locality (an anonymous "country") of the claim. The claim itself is mitigated by the stance adverb "falsely" which is designed to prime the reader to reject the claim before he/she encounters it. The claim itself (indicated in red) has also been muted and altered from the acutal historical observation made by Jim Penton and other ex-JWs and anti-WTS writers. The ones cited giving "support" to Hitler are "the Witnesses," when the original claim relates only to the leadership, and to J. F. Rutherford in particular. Since it is well-known that most "Witnesses" (nay, practically all laity Witnesses) were politically neutral, and those in Germany heroically resisted Hitler's regime, the claim appears obviously false to the uninformed Witness. This is thus a case of overgeneralization. The use of the word "supported" is also a case of exaggeration; the "Witnesses" gave neither financial support, labor, or even much propaganda in favor of the regime; a more accurate term is that the leadership compromised to or "kissed up to" the regime. Finally, the reported claim has the wrong timeframe -- the compromise took place in 1933-34, not during World War II. So obviously the news report is "false". The WT thus bungles the actual claim into a strawman that is of course false.

2) ...[A] report accused Witnesses of vandalizing churches.

Again there is the vague "report" which cannot be sourced, and the stance verb "accused" which implies that the claim is a malicious accusation. I am not sure what the origin of this claim is. When I checked Lexis Nexis, there are scores of reports of Kingdom Halls being vandalized (cf. The Seattle Times, 10/24/1999; Belfast Telegraph, 5/20/2000; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11/30/2003; The Oregonian, 7/11/2000), and none that I can find of JWs vandalizing churches. So at the very least, the media is pretty fair at reporting injustices against JWs. And since the leadership readily admits that there are "bad apples" among JWs, there is nothing inherently false about a report that a JW vandalized a church at one time. The use of the gerund however suggests that this is a habitual or recurring activity among JWs, an implication that most Witnesses know to be false. The closest report I can find about vandalism presumably at the hands of JWs is the following, ironically aimed at "apostate" literature:

"Seminaries in three Indiana cities found that books in their libraries aimed at the Jehovah?s Witness religion were recently vandalized or are missing. In all, nearly 70 volumes were found damaged or have vanished from library shelves at the Lutheran, Church of God and Disciples of Christ seminaries."
http://www.pfo.org/jwlib.htm

3) In several countries the media accused Witnesses of refusing to give medical treatment to their children...

More vagueness....the locality and the immediate sources are unmentioned. The word "accused" is used again to suggest a malicious intent behind the story. The claim itself contains another example of overgeneralization: the denial of one particular type of medical care (e.g. blood transfusions) is now generalized to "medical treatment" in general. I know of no media report that suggests that Witnesses (like Christian Scientists) are disposed to reject medical care in general. Everything is focused, naturally, on the blood transfusion policy, which is the last remaining prohibition still affecting the lives of Witnesses (unlike vaccinations and organ transplants, which were similarly forbidden at one time). Since all JW parents have no qualms taking their children to the doctor if any problem arises, they would likewise concur that this media claim is false. Yet, they all know they are expected to refuse blood transfusions (one specific kind of medical treatment) to their children.

4) ... and also of deliberately condoning serious sins committed by fellow believers.

This is an obvious reference to the pedophilia scandal, but again it is stated in the typical WT obfuscating wording. Rather than making a reference to "pedophilia," only mention to "serious sins" is made....which in JW-land could refer to anything between smoking and "sexual immorality". Well, it is common knowledge that unrepentance can lead to disfellowshipping for these offenses. The strict policy on disfellowshipping is foremost in the minds of many Witnesses, so reading about the WTS "deliberately condoning" serious sins wouldn't ring true in this light. One would not be able to divine from the above statement that the actual claim reported by the media is that WT policy, by demanding an unrealistic and easily bypassed standard of evidence, allows pedophiles to practice their crimes unimpeded inside the congregation, and second, the WTS all too often fails to inform those who need to know about the past history of known pedophiles.

jgnat

Yowie, zowie. That paragraph fourteen is a doozie. They are specifically mentioning some of the discovered WT hypocrisy, posted on the web. How interesting.

cyber-sista

Thanks elsewhere for posting this. It reads so poorly I may not have believed these quotes from it if I hadn't read them with my own eyes...A few choice lines in this article that struck me (in bold)..

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So apostates approach in slealthy ways.....

....no matter what apostates may say to the contrary, the real aim of the intruder is to steal and slay and destroy. Beware of such strangers!

Obeying Jehovah's voice means obeying Jesus' voice, for Jehovah told us to do so. What does Jesus the fine shepherd tell us to do? He teaches us to make disciples and to the trust "the faithful and discreet slave." Obeying his voice means our eternal life.

What a hearwarming reward awaits us if "we reject the voice of strangers!" (concluding sentence in the article)

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I haven't been to a meeting in over a year now. We're the articles always written like this? It sounds as if they are talking to children here. The sentence speaking of the FDS is the real clencher. "Trust the faithful and discreet slave"--in otherwords listen to their voice as they are speaking for God (in the place of God) and obeying them will mean our eternal life.

I also noticed their overly abundant use of the exclamation mark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lisaBObeesa

Yowie, zowie. That paragraph fourteen is a doozie. They are specifically mentioning some of the discovered WT hypocrisy, posted on the web. How interesting.

Yep. Now JWs have an answer for many charges against the Witnesses............(a false answer, but an answer) The answer to such charges is simple and easy to remember: The charges are all lies! They don't even have to address the UN scandal, because they have established with this article for all NON-thinking people that all negative things about the WT that are read or heard are the "voice of strangers" (read: SATAN)! So all negative things about the WT that are read or heard are lies. So simple. Much easier than actually thinking up an answer for each charge against the JWs. LisaBOBeesa

blondie

They keep saying "Jehovah's voice" when John 10:16 is talking about the sheep hearing Jesus' voice.

I would say that the WTS is worried based on this article. But as was illustrated up above most will have their heads in the sand (or other places).

Blondie

September 1,2004 WT Beware The Voice of Strangers

drwtsn32