by Bonnie_Clyde 30 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
How about wearing the "Who Will Conquer the World in the 1970's?" convention badge (image supplied by Osarsif above) during the 2005 "Godly Obedience" convention?
LOL! That's an awesome, hillarious idea for anyone with the guts to try it! At least get the poztates outside to wear it.
The Society has not published the talk in their literature, but the press did report on the talk and provide quotations from it. The talk was given as the public address at three-day circuit assemblies in the spring and fall, and newspaper reports indicate that it was usually given by either district overseers or representatives from Bethel. The talk is also similar to material in the articles "Conquering Evil With Christian Good" in the 1 June 1970 Watchtower, "The Hour of Test is On!" in the 15 September 1970 Watchtower, and the article "When All Nations Collide, Head On, With God" in the 15 October 1971 Watchtower.
I've arranged below the various quotations and paraphrases from the talk, reconstructing the essence of what was reported. Material from the above Watchtower articles are in [[]]. Bear in mind that the ordering of the quotes is conjectural and newspaper articles may not perfectly represent what was said (and the material from the similar Watchtower articles, which I've used to fill in gaps, may or may not have been in the talk), but I think it gives you a good idea of the gist of the talk.
WHO WILL CONQUER THE WORLD IN THE 1970's
The East and West are locked in a struggle much like a fight in a prize arena. In one corner, with fists clinched in red shorts, stands the champion of the East, sponsored by Soviet Russia. In the other corner, braced for any eventuality, stands the West, sponsored by the more liberal democratic powers of the world, committed to keeping communist ideology from its hemisphere. Both champions have made it clear they will not hesitate to lash out nuclear punches in retaliation if necessary.
[[That is the state of the nations today. Because of nationalistic self-interest, they are all in a clash with one another in one respect or more. There is one issue on which each one stands by itself, that is, national sovereignty. Except for some few nations, the majority of the nations are divided into two opposing camps on a world issue. What is that? It is world domination. For example, it has been publicly announced that, in the radical camp, the Russian leaders say that they expect to have the whole world communized by the year 1975. However, the bloc of nations in the capitalistic, democratic camp are determined that such a political development shall not be, by 1975 or any other year.]]
The current international power struggle involves the question of which ideology and economic system will conquer the world. Today average people like us -- carpenters, housewives, schoolchildren -- are dying because of this issue of world conquest. [[Is our earth therefore destined for a divided domination forever? Lovers of peace and righteousness hope that God's time for settling this issue will be soon. They are agreeable that it should be settled by a head-on collision.]] Men who understand the trends in world affairs, and more importantly, the Bible itself, earmark the 1970's as the decade [or "generation" in the original paraphrase] that will tell the outcome.
[[The time is not decided by any particular bloc of nations or the United Nations, but by God the Creator. The nations, thinking only of themselves, are ignoring the unrelinquished superior right of God to world domination.]] And in this materialistic world of the 1970's, the nations are only concerned with physical conquest. But physical conquest is temporary. (Take, for example, the case of Alexander the Great who is pictured in the book of Daniel as a "great horn" of the hairy goat, the Grecian Empire. With military might, he conquered the Medo-Persian Empire and quickly extended the power of Greece as far as the Indus River of India, establishing Greece as the Fifth World Power of Bible history. But Alexander's reign came to an early end when he died from malaria soon afterward. Thus the "great horn" was broken at the zenith of its imperial power.)
Spiritual conquest on the other hand is lasting. (As the Apostle John wrote: "This is the conquest that has conquered the world, our faith" (1 John 5:4). [[True Christian faith is built on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ, a foundation that Apostle Paul describes as incombustible like "gold, silver, and precious stones" (1 Corinthians 3:11-14).]] Jesus underwent great tribulation for his faithfulness to Jehovah, even death on a torture stake, but as he told his disciples: "In the world you are having tribulation, but take courage! I have conquered the world" (John 16:33).)
Jesus Christ became a world conquerer, not by amassing warring armies to himself as did Alexander the Great and others, but by successfully overcoming all the world's pressures designed to undermine his service to God. His battle involved overcoming the pressures from the world that cause violations of God's laws. Jesus conquered pressures such as religious pressure to share in false worship or at least compromise aspects of true worship. He resisted political pressure when he refused a popular draft as a human king. (John 6:15). Rather, he declared, "My Kingdom is no part of this world," and concerning his followers he said, "They are no part of this world, just as I am no part the world." (John 18:36, 17:14) In this he paved the way for us to conquer the world, though not without a hard fight, for the low moral climate of the world makes it difficult for a Christian to be a world conquerer.
(Presumably the talk here gives some examples of worldly pressures that Christians would face, and how there will be a coming tribulation when the conquering nations destroy Babylon the Great and strive for a total world domination.)
Neither of the major bloc of nations now striving for physical conquest of the world will succeed in doing so. Instead of East or West conquering, both will shortly be crushed by the God-ordained conquerer Christ Jesus. Our lives are involved, for then we will be either on the side of the conquerers or among the dead conquered ones. In other words, every Christian in this spiritual warfare is a frontline soldier, not a reserve. World conquest can mean life or death for us.
This is a decade of destiny and as Christian Witnesses of Jehovah, we can conquer the world as Jesus did by our faithfulness to God's Word, the Bible. [[You cannot conquer the pressure for evil just by trying to avoid pressure, leaving a vacuum that Satan and his demons would be quick to fill. (Matt. 12:43-45) Rather, you must voluntarily place yourself under the pressure for good. (Presumably something here about preaching and following the work that Jehovah commissioned for us...yada yada yada)]]
So who will conquer the world in the 1970's? You will. If you by faith stick to God's Word and do his will now, you will thus be rewarded with eternal peace in a new system of things on earth.
Many thanks to Leolaia for using DNA evidence to reconstruct a virtual talk!
Wow, they should be ashamed, but of course we know they never will be. I'm guessing back then they didn't have the rule they have now, meaning that my mom was told by the elders that she's not allowed to give out literature to strangers that's more than three years old anymore. Forget about "old light" and "new light," this light is so blurred and fractured, they're literally tripping over their own backwards feet.
So I asked my mom, if Jesus was a Jehovah's Witnesses, then why would he go door to door handing out magazines that he knew were going to expire in three years?
She didn't like that very much...
Anitar
Leolaia, Great work!
I have a question. How did you identify the three relevant Watchtower articles?
--VM44
I remember I was at an assembly in Norwalk, California and our speaker was Angelo Manera, Jr. I bet somewhere someone has a tape of the talk and it'll surface one day.
I remember thinking at the time that this could come back to haunt us...guess it did.
VM44...Well, what I did first was cobble together the quotes from 7 or 8 newspaper articles (thanks to Google), put them in a logical order, and then noticed the similar language and conception between them, e.g. references to "pressures", the "conquer" metaphor, allusions to the East and West engaged in a contest, etc. and then looked for articles from 1970 and 1971 that shared these features. Those three articles or so popped up, and then I noticed how well some portions of them could fill in the gaps of the arranged quotes. I don't think they represent what literally what was in the talk, but the articles are thematically very similar to the talk attested by the newspaper quotes, so something similar was probably in the original talk. For instance, all newspaper articles agreed that there was a part about Alexander the Great that compared him to Jesus, but none quoted that actual part verbatim, so I found a similar statement from a Watchtower article that seemed to say in essence what would have been said.
The newspaper articles interestingly include a reference to the 1970's as "earmarked" as the time the outcome of the contest would be decided, and describe the 1970's as the "decade of destiny". However, without the actual talk before us, we don't know how accurate these paraphrases and quotes are.
To those who said that The Watchotwer "Never said anything about 1975" ask why this was said in in a 1970 Special Talk:
"Poor Johnnie! Poor Johnnie! Poor Johnnie! He can't go out and play with the other kids on the block. Poor Johnnie! He don't have any fun, no holidays, birthday parties Poor Johnnie! The only kid on his block that will conquer the world in th 1970's! The only kid on his block who will survive Armaggedon!"
Okay, I found some more quotes from the talk. Here are all the statements recovered thus far pertaining to when Armageddon will come:
"Some of the questions creating eager anticipation among the delegates are: Can there truly be a world conqueror? How? And what may the mid 1970s bring?" (Red Bluff Daily News, 9/11/1970, p. 5)
"Bible chronology and world events point to the mid-1970s as the possible time when all human preventers of peace on earth will be eliminated" (Tuscaloosa News, 10/17/1970, p. 2; Ruston Daily Leader, 1/22/1971, p. 4).
"All indications are that the conquest of the enemies of peace will take place within this generation. Bible chronology confirms this fact" (L'Avenir, 10/15/1970, p. 25; translated from French).
"All the evidence indicates that all enemies of peace will be vanquished within our generation. This is substantiated by Bible chronology" (The News, 11/12/1970, p. 6; this is obviously the same statement as the preceding quote).
"This is a decade of destiny and as Christian Witnesses of Jehovah, we can conquer the world as Jesus did by our faithfulness to God's Word, the Bible" (Burlington Times-News, 9/29/1970, p. 8B; the paraphrase of the talk in the same article also says that "men who know the trend of world affairs, and more importantly, the Bible itself, earmarks the 70's").
"Our lives are involved for then we will be either on the side of the conquerers or among the dead conquered ones. So who will conquer the world in the 1970s? You will if you by faith stick to God's Word and do His will now you will thus be rewarded with eternal peace in a new system of things on earth" (Chillicothe Constitution Times, 11/9/1970, p. 1)
Thanks Leolaia for resurrecting this thread. I wonder if anyone has ever come up with a tape recording.
Bonnie
