The GB as JW celebrities (page 2)

RichieRich

the brother with the big nose... I think he's dead now..

But he was at our DC one year. Me and my friends stood in line all lunch to meet him.

I don't know who your Uncle is, but I definitely remember the Jehovah voice from the convention dramas. I would love to have seen the faces of all the people who did the voices in the dramas - mainly I used to picture them as they appeared in the bible story book. Obviously I couldn't do that with Uncle Rubyvixen as there were no Jah pics.

Rubyvixen

Wow.

The celeb thing is far more rampant than I even experienced then. I mean, I got dunked when I was 12 (again, to keep my parents from pressuring me) and my Uncle came to our assembly for that and I remember people crowding around and being really excited to talk with him and me in typical pre-teen fashion was suitably weirded out and rolling my eyes the whole time.

My Uncle, while having megalomaniacal facets to his personality (who doesn't there? haha) is probably far more charismatic (or was, haven't seen him in about 10 years) than the rest and to some extent relished human contact as opposed to others I have met throughout the years who seemed like they tolerated contact as if the people fawning over them were silly fans. Ugh.

I did meet Franz on 4 separate occasions and he was quite feeble at the time and I was quite young and I was not very impressed ;)

truth_about_the_truth

"My wife is sitting over there, and that is where I will be at the close of the session. So if you would like to come over and say hi and pose for pictures, we encourage you to do so."

Unbelievable.....

ruby,

I knew your uncle and have spoken with him on several occasions while I was at bethel several yrs ago. To me, he always came across as a different breed of GB. As ithinkisee said, he was one of the more down to earth GBs and wasn't as uptight as some of the others. He was very approachable and funny.

I had an interesting episode with him once. I dont want to go into too much detail, but there was a time when a bethel anorexic (bethelite who thinks he's heavy but he's not) tried to counsel me on something totally ridiculous. I visited your uncle's office and told him about it. Your uncle took my side and straightened him out pretty fast. I thought that was great.

Yes, I totally agree that the celebrity treatment is extremely apparent. Life is very good for them. They tell the rank and file that the GB is serving them and we are all equal, as the avg bethelite toils away at a mind numbingly busy pre-programmed schedule, sharing a one room studio/no bathroom (in the hallway) getting by on $100/month as they get to travel the world as part of "sacred service", revered everywhere they go, have nice spacious apartments and many many other perks..

How the avg dub cant see through that is beyond me.

fleaman uk

will somebody please pm me or something and tell me who the Uncle/voice of Jehovah is!!!!!!

PaNiCAtTaCk

Ive toured bethel twice and on one occassion we spotted a GB member and the whole group freaked like we had seen Tom Hanks or something. It was very exciting as everyone there obviously viewed him as celebrity status. We were all talking about it back home in our congregation to everyone. About 5 months ago I was visiting with my PO and he was talking about how exciting it was to meet Franz in Denver Colorado once year ago. I then asked him was it Ray Franz? He quickly said NO! NO! it was the good one!!! Fred Franz! Also my cousin was at the Farm from 89-96 and talked about how Fred Franz was a scholar and how he could endlessly quote scripture. Even at our memorial this last year we had a speaker from Bethel give the talk and everyone treated him like a celebrity. He was early thirties and an elder. The kingdom hall was completely packed with probably 300 people and one couple in the congregation has an autistic son of 12 years. Their son had raised his voice a couple of times during the service and everyone just ignored it because everyone knows the family and their struggles. There was no issue but the young bethel speaker stopped his memorial talk and said "Please take the child to the back so that he does not take away from the sacredness of this event!" He wasnt asking please he was damanding it as the mom wrestles to get her son to the back of the crowded hall that was standing room only. It really made a bad witness because everyone has empathy for this family and not only was she greatly embarrassed but her family had been used at the last assembly for an experience of the trials that some go through by her having to raise an autistic son and how much time she spends trying to get him ready for all the meetings and keeping him calm during them. Shortly after The bethel Elder removed the autistic boy a mentally retarded girl behind me made some faint noises and the brother stops and looks in our direction. I was afraid he was going to pull the same thing and these people behind us were someones study. The mentally challenged girl quitened down though and the speaker couldnt never put his finger on who had made the noises. I was infuriated by this speaker and how cold he came across to everyone and even the local elders were all looking at each other like "OH my God what is this guy doing!" There was no love shown that night and any potential visitors saw that. I am not stumbled easily and even when I was zealously doing everything I was suppossed to as a JW I would have been angry.

undercover

My view of the GB was always a little different than most of the JWs I knew. To most JWs, a GB member was basically a rock star. I thought that GB members were just members of tha anointed who were tasked with running the organization. A great privilege, yea, but they weren't any better than the anointed sister that was in my hall. We didn't worship her or treat her any different, why should we treat them any different.

The prez of that time(and I don't rememer his name now) was at one of our DCs a decade or so ago. I saw him step out of the office area of the coliseum and I recognized him. Within seconds, he was recognized by all the JWs milling around the concourse(during lunch) and they mobbed him. Ever seen old footage of the early Beatles when the teenyboppers spotted them? Similar reaction. I was stunned. I moved away from the crowd and watched as they reached over each other and pushed and shoved to shake hands with him. I swear some of them wanted to touch the hem of his garment...These people were going ape-shit over this guy. It upset me to see all these people caught up in creature worship...this wasn't Jesus, he's just a brother, right? I continued watching to see if he would admonish the crowd for acting improperly. He just kept shaking hands and smiling and soaking up the glory.

I was disillusioned after that. I lost respect for the GB as a whole based on what I saw there. Something was wrong. I couldn't admit it to myself at the time, but I think it lodged in my brain and it clicked into place better when other inconsistencies started to make themselves known.

The GB as JW celebrities

RichieRich

Crumpet

Rubyvixen

truth_about_the_truth

fleaman uk

PaNiCAtTaCk

undercover

GetBusyLiving

stopthepain

Ozner

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