The story of my life (part 9- 1975: the date comes)

by onacruse 30 Replies latest jw friends

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  onacruse

  
  How often does it happen that we can be asked, rather like on the witness chair in a trial: "What exactly were you doing on the night of xx-xx-xxxx 30 years ago?" and actually be able to answer that question? I know exactly what I was doing during the evening of September 30, 1975: I was fervently praying to Jehovah that I would be found worthy, in spite of all my weaknesses and failures, to find His favor and live through the next day, the day that Armageddon was happening. Those words, and the fears I had, still ring in my head.

  I had no doubt about this for many reasons, some of which I've mentioned, but for many other reasons as well. I'd been to several "special assembly days" where circuit overseers and district overseers gave talks about how close we were to the end--some of them even saying "Brothers and sisters, it's only xx months until 1975. What do you think about that?" And, of course, we all broke out in almost unrestrainable applause. Fred Franz Himself, the Oracle of God, gave a talk at one of these assemblies, and did everything but put His Imprimatur on that date.

  And then there was the influx of tens of thousands...no, hundreds of thousands of people into the Organization. Bible studies were quick and simple: 6 months and baptized, or drop it. The congregations and assemblies were an absolute flurry of activity; everybody was pumped: What else could this unprecedented growth of the Org mean other than that Jehovah's Hand was guiding the last of deserving humankind into His Ark, for preservation through that last day of Satan's wicked world? We were placing the "literature of the truth" so fast that the people were almost ripping it out of our hands. It was electrifying, and I'd finally regained most of the enthusiasm that marked my early years.

  And then, as that day wore on, October 1, 1975, as I looked outside several times, expecting to see storm clouds, feel earthquakes, watch lightning bolts strike down the unbelieving "worldly" people (just like in the Paradise book), my anticipation began to wane. I came home from work, saying to myself "Well, there are still a few more hours left in the day."

  October 2 was a unique day in my life. Something snapped. A conflux of emotions presented itself: I had now, finally, lost all confidence in the WTS as the Spokesman of God--but, also, all my family and friends and wife were JWs...so I couldn't just up and leave. So I got mad. I got mad as holy hell. I was out for revenge against these "leaders" who had suckered me. And a lot of other JWs were equally mad. We started having round-robin discussions, usually groups of 10-20, including elders and ministerial servants. We'd go back over all the things we'd been told, and virtually promised, to see if there was any possible way that it had been (as the WTS was asserting) our fault for misinterpreting what they had said. We all came to the same conclusion.

  Meanwhile, my folks carried on with the same pattern of denial: "We never understood the WTS to mean anything special about 1975."

  It took a little while, but soon the disfellowshippings for apostasy became a rising tide, a loss of members to match the Rutherford-era blood-letting of 50 years before. Right and left, folks I'd known for years, even "prominent" JWs with a lifetime of service, were either disassociating or being kicked out. And my day was approaching.
• 

  ChrisVance

  I remember those days well. I stopped going to meetings for about a year and a half in 1976 for reasons unrelated to 1975. Of course, many thought 1975 was the reason.

  Please, continue.
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  in a new york bethel minute

  well-written, as always
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  Narkissos

  I have a question here: why October 1st? Was it an exact day expectation in the mind of American JWs? Here in France the expectation was great too but not so precise. The WT calendar speculation would have rather pointed to some date in September as the end of the 6000 years since Adam's creation, which was not meant to be the beginning of the so-called "seventh day" (since Eve had to be created some time later and still in the 6th day). I remember sometime later this autumn an elder joking "6000 years ago, Adam was still in the garden and he first saw a lion's tail among the trees"... you get my point.
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  garybuss

  My "Ah ha!" moment happened when I saw the year text for 1974. "If the fig tree fails to bloom . . . "
  
  
  
• 

  OldSoul

  I will soon be a casualty of Theocratic Warfare, myself.

  Thank you so much, onacruse! I am drawing strength and resolve from your accounting of your life in the "Truth™"

  Oh, and... MORE!!!

  Respectfully,
  OldSoul
• 

  aniron

  I always have trouble with the 1975 thing.

  I became a JW in 1971, not because anyone told me Armageddon was coming in 1975. In fact through my "bible study" etc, the Elder who took it, never raised it. When I did find out, the attitude was "Yeah well it might or might not be" from others.

  In 1974 I married a JW sister, and there was about 4-5 other weddings as well that year. A couple of them even bought houses.

  There was no noticeable increase in the congregation numbers. We had 80+ publishers and it never seemed to increase.

  1975 came and went, in fact my first child was born in September. Others also had children that year.

  I know others I have met since, have said their congregation were really geared up for Armageddon to happen. Elders sort of doing a count down, so to speak. Have met guys who gave up their jobs to preach full-time etc.

  But in the congregation I was in it was like "Lets wait and see" . I tend to put it down to the Elders we had who were elderly, 2-3 of them been JW's since the 1930's so may have thought "We've seen this before" lets keep a level-head about it.
• 

  willyloman

  But in the congregation I was in it was like "Lets wait and see"

  You are right that each congo was different. A lot depended on the leadership in your congregation. Like you, I "came in" just prior to '75 but not because of the date. The elder who studied with me didn't make a big deal of it in our studies and in minimized it whenever anyone else brought it up.

  As a result, it wasn't the focus of our KH... however, there was very definitely a sense of urgency for all the reasons the poster mentioned. Since I didn't start studying until 1974, my own personal sense is that by then -- just a year away from the fall of '75 -- cooler heads had begun to prevail. After all, according to the WTS's calculation, a lot of events would have to take place on the world scene and they were running out of time.

  During that period, sometime in the spring of '75, a visiting speaker was talking about the wonders of the New System and wound up his talk by raising his voice and saying, "Brothers and Sisters... that new system is just... (looked at his watch)..." and proceeded to do the math and count down the months and days left. There was total silence in the room. A few days later, I asked the elder who studied with me about it. He said they had "talked with him" afterwards, presumably to tell him he was out of line. I wanted to know more about the '75 date, and he basically said "some" had speculated about it based on Bible chronology, but in fact "we don't know the day or the hour" just as the Bible states. "And anyway," he said, "We're not serving for a date." It was the first time I'd heard that expression, but not the last.

  Over the next few years, however, I met many, many JWs who had made serious long-range decisions in the years leading up to 1975 -- not getting their kids teeth fixed, quitting their jobs to pioneer "where the need was great," going into massive debt, selling their homes, etc. Many of these actions, which seem bizarre now, were actually sanctioned by the WTS in the early 1970s, both verbally and in print.

  The "friends" were often divided. You may recall there was a huge real estate "boom" in the early 1970s, the first in a series of them as it turned out over the years. Many JWs bought houses then and watched them appreciate in value, doubling in price. Others refused to buy a house, insisting that they'd then be too attached to the system of things when the end came (in '75 or thereabouts). Whole families argued about this. I vividly recall two Witness families, in which a spouse from each was blood-related, nearly coming to blows over the fact that one of them bought a house. The other couple felt that was a sign of a lack of faith and then, after 1975, when the price of houses had soared beyond their ability to buy one, they felt betrayed. They walked away and were never seen again at the KH.

  Clearly, a bunch of people WERE serving for a date. But whose fault was that? I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the GB and whack-jobs like Fred Franz.
• 

  Mysterious

  we don't know the day or the hour

  How hypocritical could they be to even speculate? Here's some speculation, if a bunch of beings of dust found out your divine plan wouldnt you want to change the date just to throw them off. This is of course assuming that humans could even presume to discover the divine plan.
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  Undecided

  I left in 1974 and married a worldly woman and didn't give it any more thought.

  Ken P.