Raising good kids these days is a difficult task. Jehovah's Witnesses, however, are
encountering wide spread defeat in this critical mission, in large measure, because of the
burdens that the Watchtower Society has imposed on them in raising their children.
Watchtower leaders are becoming worried and are now seeing the "handwriting on the wall".
With growth gone in many countries, they are being forced to confront a worsening problem
they have never solved: how to raise good kids in the 'truth'. This is evidenced by recent
magazines that devote much attention to this issue - such as the April 1 WT and April 8
Awake - as well as ceaseless Assembly and meeting parts. Simply put, if the next
generation of Witnesses is lost, so is the Watchtower.
Unfortunately, their prescriptions for family repair remain the same. Sadly, they do
not grasp the wisdom of the saying, "Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and
over again and expecting a different result." Thus, the Watchtower faces a bleak future,
in failing to humbly discern the reasons why Witnesses in particular labor under the dead
hand of Watchtower counsel. To me, I can report five causes of trouble in their self proclaimed
"spiritual paradise".
1) Isolation from extended family members - Once you become a Witness, your relatives
are transformed into "worldly people" - who, of course, will be killed by God at
Armageddon. Since celebrating holidays ( now transformed into god-dishonoring
paganism) is out of the question, who knows when Grandma will ever get a visit
again? When else does everyone in the family get a day off from work or school?
Family traditions and gift exchanges may disappear - along with that future business
position that your Catholic Uncle Joe might have for your kid - if you'd stayed closer.
Nor does converting your relatives necessarily make anything better. Why do you think the
Society has had to 'harp on' taking care of your sick or elderly parents in the organization
in recent years?
2) Poisoned Spirituality - Ben Franklin once remarked that "if men are so wicked with
religion, what would they be without it.?" Kids can be greatly benefited by a sense
of spirituality, of being part of a greater, grander design. Notice how many 'worldly
kids' are adopting vegetarianism? ( polls say so). The trouble in Witness-land is
that spirituality gets poisoned.
Christianity becomes attending an enforced number of meetings and peddling
magazines door to door. The field service slips do not have any segment on them
for counting time spent spent in honest charity. Reading to that elderly blind sister
literally doesn't count. Kids are highly sensitive hypocrisy detectors, too - so don't
think they won't notice that Brother Elder's kids get special favor while Sister Welfare's
single parent brood get df'd, "keeping the congregation clean". Hours get counted
in a "vital, lfesaving ministry" - while learning to do the "pioneer stroll". They tell
you that the "ministry" is based on "love of God and neighbor" - while you really
do it because of peer pressure and fear of God killing you at the Big "A".
Witness parents sometimes wonder why so many of their kids can turn out worse
"than the world" - while failing to see that these kids, with their "double lives",
have been schooled in a poisoned exercise of hypocrisy. They just don't "get it".
(more in the next installment)
metatron