When I became a JW in 1968, there was barely 1 million JW worldwide, and only about 200,000 in the USA. We were studying the "Babylon" book, which said that the "waters of Babylon would dry up" ... meaning that the churches, especially the Catholic Church, would decline as the JWs would be blessed and grow.
Each year, as 1975 approached, we saw big increases ... and we talked about the little comments in the back of the Awake! which indicated that the churches were losing members ... or they were almost empty with only a few little old ladies attending each Sunday. We felt vindicated at seeing inner city churches boarded up, or being used for non-religious activities.
Since that time, the JWs have reached over 6,500,000 worldwide. What is the condition of the churches today? Looking at the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), we find an interesting set of numbers compared to the JWs:
In 2004, the RCC compares to JWs - just in the United States:
Ranked #1: Roman Catholic Church - 66,407,105
Ranked # 24: Jehovah?s Witnesses - 1,022,397
See: http://www.ncccusa.org/news/04yearbook.html
How did they compare just three years earlier in 2001?
Ranked #1: Roman Catholic Church: 62,391,484
Ranked #24: Jehovah?s Witnesses: 990,340
See: http://www.ncccusa.org/news/01news15.html
The RCC grew by 6.44% in three years. The JWs grew by 3.23%. At this rate, Armageddon will never come.
The JWs growth in the USA is slowing. But, for the RCC, the USA is its hottest growth spot. See: http://www.americamagazine.org/gettext.cfm?articleTypeID=1&textID=2236&issueID=385
How large is the RCC worldwide compared to the JWs? RCC is now 1.07 billion (this figure excludes Eastern, Greek, Russian and other orthodox churches which add another 600 million or so). See: http://www.diocesephoenix.org/vocations/latest_statistics_on_the_members.htm
The JWs are now 6,513,132 (See: http://www.jw-media.org/people/statistics.htm) So, how does all this stack up since 1968?
JWs grew from about 1,000,000 to 6.5 million, worldwide. A 650% growth rate over 35 years. Most of that 5.5 million increase was in spurts during the 1970s and again in the 1980s. The RCC steadily grew from about 750 million to 1.07 billion worldwide in the same period. Their growth rate was only 45% over the same 35 year period. But, this means that the RCC added 320 million to its ranks, or roughly 58 times the total numbers added to the JWs. And, in recent years, as noted above, the RCC is now growing twice as fast as the JWs.
Have Babylons' waters dried up? Or, maybe the RCC and other Christian faiths are not part of any so-called Great Babylon ... but rather, such a silly interpretation of Revelation by the Watchtower seems more like big talk, but not the big walk.
Put another way: The RCC grows nearly 1.3 million per year in the USA ... that is 30% more than all of the JWs in the USA ... it took the JWs 121 years to do what the RCC does each and every year in the USA.
Somehow, the waters seems to be flowing just fine in the RCC.
Jim W.