Posts by slimboyfat

41

(How) Will The Slow and Subtle WT Internal Shift Affect Us?

by Solzhenitsyn in

as a "deep pimo" i can say that there is a confirmed re-branding.

the coordinators committee formed a focus group from service and teaching committees.

the results of that group roughly three+ years ago, with gb approval, trickled down to the other committees and eventually into what we have been seeing before our eyes in the org and local congs.. pick an organizational level and see the shift.

slimboyfat

I think they’re going to stop publishing the numbers sooner or later, which means stopping collecting numbers too. So it would make sense to begin adjusting the focus away from numbers, but probably toward organisational loyalty and reliable reputation, rather than good all round character.

But I just don’t think JWs without books makes any sense. It won’t fly. Publishing and studying texts is essentially what it is to be a JW. It’s like trying to have a bat without wings.

We are witnessing, not the transformation of the organisation, but rather its collpase.

68

District Assemblies now being held at Circuit Assembly locations?

by ShirleyW in

jw
friends

i haven't been to a kh in decades, so i get the google alerts for jws and i got one featuring a local news channel in brooklyn covering the assembly being held in flatbush, brooklyn.

i'm sure that venue is where the circuit assemblies are usually held, keeping in mind it's summer and that's when the district assemblies are being held.

why are they acting like they're so strapped for cash and now holding district assemblies in circuit assemblies locations ?.

slimboyfat

Where are the figures from?

I guess conventions don’t make as much these days since they stopped releases.

Plus it probably costs quite a bit to heat, air condition, maintain and repair assembly halls. They’re getting increasingly desperate, and the cutbacks they make tend also to reduce donations. It’s a vicious circle. Can they avert disaster?

68

District Assemblies now being held at Circuit Assembly locations?

by ShirleyW in

jw
friends

i haven't been to a kh in decades, so i get the google alerts for jws and i got one featuring a local news channel in brooklyn covering the assembly being held in flatbush, brooklyn.

i'm sure that venue is where the circuit assemblies are usually held, keeping in mind it's summer and that's when the district assemblies are being held.

why are they acting like they're so strapped for cash and now holding district assemblies in circuit assemblies locations ?.

slimboyfat

Latest cutback attempt to avert collapse. Will it succeed or collapse continue?

40

DECEMBER 2018 WATCHTOWER STUDY ARTICLE...Many loyal Christians have remained with an unbelieving mate under very trying circumstances.

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

december 2018 study article :.

honor “what god has yoked together”.

17 admittedly, there have been instances where an “unbelieving husband” seems to prove that he is not “agreeable to staying with her.” he might be extremely physically abusive, even to the point that she feels that her health or life is in danger.

slimboyfat

Amazing that someone can write this in 2018.

And as someone else mentioned, completely disconnected to actual JW practice. Many JWs get legal divorces simply because they didn’t like each other. Then it becomes a waiting game to see who meets someone else first, and the other can then look for a partner without sanction. Such petty rules.

23

Stroup's "The Jehovah's Witnesses."

by em1913 in

a book that doesn't get a lot of talk these days is herbert h. stroup's 1945 study "the jehovah's witnesses.

" which is too bad, because in the field of jw studies it pretty much stands on its own as a serious, scholarly look at the rutherford era of the movement -- one written with no theological or doctrinal axes to grind, but rather with the impartial eye of a professional sociologist.. stroup received no cooperation whatever from brooklyn in writing this book, but he spent a great deal of time among rank-and-file witnesses of the late 1930s and early 1940s, attending their meetings, joining them in field service, and eating at their homes, and what emerges is a picture of an overwhelmingly working-class movement which overlapped in its hopes and ultimate goals the ambitions of other radical social movements of the 1930s.

the witnesses were not marching in labor parades or participating in sit-down strikes or engaging in other forms of street-level radicalism, but stroup finds that, in their individual views on the social and economic structures of the time, they were largely in harmony with those who were, even in spite of their religion's supposed disavowal of politics, and he sees them as much as a political movement in that sense as a religious one.

slimboyfat

However socially conservative JW social attitudes may be, it’s worth noting that the Pew survey finds that, while most JWs a neutral, of those who express a preference, JWs lean to the Democrats by a margin of more than 2 to 1.

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/party-affiliation/

It’s not surprising really when you consider that JWs comprise a far larger proportion of black people and Hispanics than the population in general, groups which are traditional Democratic supporters.

Plus JW social conservativism is of a peculiar sort. Superficially their views on marriage, sex, gay rights and abortion may resemble the religious right. But the significant difference is that JWs have no expectation or particular desire to make society conform to their teachings on these issues.

Farier taxes, social justice, health and education provision are more immediate priorities.

12

Plagiarized song?

by cookiemaster in

hey guys, so, i went to the hall today with my parents (they needed a ride) and there was this song that i wasn't familiar with.

must be a new song or i might be simply ignorant of jw songs (i hate them).

to my surprise i actually liked this song.

slimboyfat

I made my comments here:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/6006083388702720/beautiful-new-kingdom-song

Noticeable in the song is complete lack of any reference to: Jehovah, God, Jesus, Bible, anointed, Holy Spirit, Armageddon, or any other specifically JW, or even biblical terminology. The closest is the single word “pray”. It could be an anthem for various religious or even secular movements for positive change.

64

The Longest Goodbye Of John McCain

by minimus in

jw
friends

can you believe it?

this funeral arrangement goes on and on and on.

if the people loved him so much he would have been elected president.

slimboyfat

Picking Sarah Palin for VP and then excluding her from the funeral -

Both exhibit terribly poor judgement.

He gets credit for his courage in Vietnam.

But no credit for being a warmonger his whole political career.

23

Stroup's "The Jehovah's Witnesses."

by em1913 in

a book that doesn't get a lot of talk these days is herbert h. stroup's 1945 study "the jehovah's witnesses.

" which is too bad, because in the field of jw studies it pretty much stands on its own as a serious, scholarly look at the rutherford era of the movement -- one written with no theological or doctrinal axes to grind, but rather with the impartial eye of a professional sociologist.. stroup received no cooperation whatever from brooklyn in writing this book, but he spent a great deal of time among rank-and-file witnesses of the late 1930s and early 1940s, attending their meetings, joining them in field service, and eating at their homes, and what emerges is a picture of an overwhelmingly working-class movement which overlapped in its hopes and ultimate goals the ambitions of other radical social movements of the 1930s.

the witnesses were not marching in labor parades or participating in sit-down strikes or engaging in other forms of street-level radicalism, but stroup finds that, in their individual views on the social and economic structures of the time, they were largely in harmony with those who were, even in spite of their religion's supposed disavowal of politics, and he sees them as much as a political movement in that sense as a religious one.

slimboyfat

Yes it’s a very interesting book. I have a copy, somewhere.

There are many incidental comments that illuminate the period. It shed a little light on the length of Rutherford’s illness I posted about in this thread.

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/154191/rutherford-exposed-story-berta-bonnie-redux?page=11

I guess you know about Werner Cohn’s article about JWs as a “proletarian” movement.

Cohn, W. (1955). Jehovah's Witnesses as a proletarian movement. The American Scholar, 281-298.

He also wrote about JWs and “racial prejudice”. I’m not sure how accurate his comments were.

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5687757573718016/jehovahs-witnesses-racial-prejudice-werner-cohn

Very good to have someone interested in WT history on the site.

46

Bumped Into One Of My Best Friends On The Carts This Morning

by pale.emperor in

so this morning i'm walking to my office and there's the jws on their carts outside as usual.

and old sister, a brother in his 20s and an elder i instantly recognized from my jw days.

one of my best friends of about 20 years.. i genuinely just wanted to say hi as i havent seen him in 3 years.

slimboyfat

It’s amazing how this organisation manages to put the blame for family destruction on the person who is being shunned. And JWs really believe this version of reality too. Quite astonishing.

18

Revelation 14:4

by Sergey Antonov in

it turns out that on the basis of the book of revelation 14:4 the anointed ones have to be virgins?

how does the governing body explain this?.

slimboyfat

They have not defiled themselves in worldly politics.