Did you know that a decline in meeting attendances was once taken as a sign that wrongdoing had taken place in the congregation? See what you make of this:
In the early 60’s, when I was but a callow youth and still living at home with my parents, a very anxious JW mum came a-banging on our door. Desperate to speak to my PO dad, she wanted to report that her 14 year old daughter had been “Caught up in immorality” with a worldly youth, and that daughter Bella wanted to “Set herself straight with Jehovah” and confess all.
Bella duly confessed to a committee of elders, and, at the following service meeting, an announcement was made that Bella (now 15) was a fornicatrix, and as such, having expressed repentance, was now on probation. The probation was astonishing in its severity and even included that she must be in bed at 9.30 every night when there wasn’t a meeting. She was also banned from ever being alone with any male during the period of probation, as well as other stipulations about how many hours per week were to be spent studying the societies publications.
My Dad later took me to one side, and explained to me that Bella had at first lied about her dalliance and that was why he and the other elders had imposed such harsh restrictions upon her. Hmm. Then he told me how the matter had come to light.
Bella’s mother had found evidence of her daughters behaviour whilst changing the bedclothes. She’d duly accused Bella of being a “Bad girl”, and Bella had denied everything. Mum dragged her hysterical daughter to see her doctor who confirmed that she was no longer “virgin intacta” and that it would be as swell to perform a pregnancy test ASAP. Mum then told said daughter that it was now off to the PO with her, but Bella screamed and screamed that she was innocent of any wrongdoing and convinced her mother to wait a while before denouncing her to the elders.
Mum was still far from convinced, but she decided to bide her time, and instead, talk to another sister about her problem. She decided to talk with the formidable Sister Alice. But, Sister Alice was “remnant”, and as such felt that she knew a way to see whether or not young Bella had been guilty of serious misconduct that wouldn’t immediately involve the elders. Sister Alice said that she would wait and see whether the “Holy Spirit” was being “blocked” to the congregation. If the congregation prospered then all was well, but if it didn’t, then this would be clear evidence of Bella’s guilt.
Moving on a few weeks, and Memorial time came around. This was a fairly recently formed congregation, and as such meeting attendances were in the 50’s, but there had been 117 at the first years memorial, so this year the congregation hired a large hotel room in the centre of town. The anticipated attendance was 150. The actual attendance was 112. Alice’s suspicions were confirmed, Bella’s misconduct was blocking Jehovah’s spirit from the congregation, hence the low attendance.
The following day, Sister Alice confronted Bella whilst accompanied by Mother. Bella lied through her teeth for as long as possible, but the determined duo eventually extracted a confession, which bring us back to the start of my story. Well, not quite.
In ’63, there was an assembly held at Twickenham rugby ground in London. Brother Knorr was giving the public talk and a vast crowd was expected, certainly in excess of the 51,000 who had turned up in the previous year when Fred Franz did the honours. You’ve guessed it, there was drop in attendance to 48,000, and, once more, Sister Alice declared that the spirit in the UK was being blocked by wrongdoing.
Oddly enough, she was on to something. The ’63 assembly had , for the first time, provided huge marquee tents in the assembly grounds for the brothers to sleep in. Shortly afterwards, the grapevine was abuzz with rumours of dozens of confessions to immorality taking place within these tents. This was later confirmed as a fact.
The spin-off to all this was that some witnesses took the meeting numbers to be a sign of approval from God, and were happy to continue in “loose conduct,” convinced that they need only desist when Jehovah showed his disapproval by reducing the meeting attendances. Until that happened, everything was just fine.
I could have gone into business with Rentacrowd!
Englishman.
..... fanaticism masquerading beneath a cloak of reasoned logic.