Do they all collect money?
As for the resurrection, while some believers, of course, ≠ a denomination, there is this:
and the idea is dropping in belief in the USA:
careful
JoinedPosts by careful
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Are there any doctrines which all Christian religions follow.
by jwfacts ini cannot think of a single doctrine that is so clearly laid out in the bible that every christian sect teaches the same point.
are there any doctrine where there is total consensus amongst all christian religions, including jehovah's witnesses?.
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Had to share this
by careful inforgive me if this has already been posted.
i laughed when i saw it and figured others might enjoy it as well.. .
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careful
Forgive me if this has already been posted. I laughed when I saw it and figured others might enjoy it as well.
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Reaching the most distant parts - Geoffrey Jackson praising Bible translators and missionaries as "faithful ones" or even "anointed ones"
by TheWonderofYou inafter we heard some time ago that before the time of russel there was no "faitful slave" or no anointed ones who formed a faitful slave class, now we learn that we dont know if before russel there were not "faitful ones" or "anointed".
indeed jackson says that we know the bible teaches that throughout the history there would be a large number of "sons of the kingdom" ..or anointed ones.. beginning from this month in several projects including a film about christian bible translators who gave an example of "faithfulness" and "discretness" in translating the bible, the christian bibletranslators and missionionaries who used "jehovah" by the way are receiving ultimate praise of the governing body, in the first place at the moment is shown the video about tyndale, wo so is very much supposedly a "faithful one" and perhaps even "anointed" because he loved the bible.. jackson says that those early missionaries of the christendom already "preached the message" before russell.
january broadcast.
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careful
This is part of the preparation for their new "Bible Museum" at Warwick. It's supposed to be some kind of collection of old looking Bible translations from the Protestant Reformation on. The translations are ones that used the name Jehovah somewhere in them. No doubt the faithful sheeple will visit the new exhibit and "ooh and ahh" over the old looking Bibles and feel the org has the truth all the more.
It seems a bit odd to me since the WT publications have long called the people at that time "unfaithful Christendom," a highly derogatory term as we all can remember. Maybe they are now giving some kind of exception to those who produced translations that had the sacred name as Jehovah in them (?). Their thinking: "They must have been okay because they used Jehovah." Or evidently, more than okay, even "anointed"? In the Witness world, there can be no greater approval than calling a person "anointed."
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SPAIN - number of Kingdom Halls
by darkspilver inplease note that this post links to websites that are in spanish, if that's a problem, please do not click on the links!.
it is now just over two years since the wt send the now infamous 17 september 2014 letter regarding the programme of building kingdom halls to all congregations in spain.
(letter page one / letter page two).
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careful
One cannot help but think of slimboyfat's observation that the number of congregations, not publishers, is the true measure of a religion's growth or decrease. If applied here, it shows things are not looking good in Spain for the WTS.
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What is Gilead's current curriculum?
by careful insome years back alltimejeff reported on what gilead's curriculum was like from a guy who had gone thru it.
it was detailed and enlightening for those of us in the dark.
(hey, atj, are you still checking in here?).
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careful
Thanks, blondie. So I guess nobody here has experienced the recent curriculum. Therefore, we cannot get a report of what it is now like such as ATJ gave us. I can see one big difference now: ATJ reported that it was mainly on type/anti-type prophetic fulfillments. Since this has now been rejected, with nothing to fill the theological void, it's not being taught at the current Gilead. I'm still wondering what the sisters do there (?). Surely they are not privy to the heavy administrative hoopla that seems to be the emphasis now.
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What is Gilead's current curriculum?
by careful insome years back alltimejeff reported on what gilead's curriculum was like from a guy who had gone thru it.
it was detailed and enlightening for those of us in the dark.
(hey, atj, are you still checking in here?).
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SBF
What year was Gilead downgraded?
I don't know. Obviously they haven't trumpeted it, so they want to downplay the whole thing. By my post I was hoping to get some info on this now dark subject. Gilead used to be such a huge deal. Then it suddenly went off the radar. Thanks for the refs in the old and new ybs.
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New flip flop document - updated from last year
by Splash inabout this time last year i uploaded a document as part of my going away post.. as stated at the time i had to lie low, and am still doing so.
sort of.
mostly.i pop up rarely to chip in when my 'ardour comes up into my nose' about something lol, but still read the leaks and back-and-forth between the members here.
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careful
Splash, good to see you back here. I'm glad your break was not permanent. As always, thanks for your update and work.
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YB17 Promotes Child Baptism
by konceptual99 inaside from the statistics inthe new yb there are also a couple of cases of it promoting child baptism.. in the section about the young remembering their grand creator in georiga you will find this.... https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/2017-yearbook/georgia/youth-remember-grand-creator/.
in support of parental training, elders try to involve young ones in congregation activities as early as possible.
nestori, who was baptized when he was 11 years old, states: “the elders gave me various small assignments from a very early age.
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careful
There seem to be at least 3 reasons behind GB 2's change on this issue:
1. The GB are eager to inflate the flat growth rate in developed lands, and having the already associated youth baptized is an easy temporary solution. You can imagine how bad the newly baptized stat would look without this new policy. In a similar way they had already invented the "doorstop Bible study" to inflate the "Bible study" stat.
2. Several of the GB got baptized as children, and, in their eyes, it worked out well for them. People of limited thinking ability often cannot see outside their own realm of experience. We know how limited the current GB's thinking abilities are.
3. It is much easier to control the born-in youth if they can just DF them when they cause problems within the org. That way the org can marginalize any who act up and threaten any other born-ins with similar treatment. The easiest way for such a policy to work is to get the all the youth baptized early on as officially "in" and subject to the standard discipline, before puberty and its associated complexities hit.
What will be interesting to watch in the coming years is how the downside of this policy will play out. Should we not expect that there will be serious "loyalty" issues with moms and dads who went along with the new policy and had Johnny and Mary baptized at 9 or 10, and then Johnny and Mary went normal at 14? Would not such parents begin to say, "That was too young to get baptized. It shouldn't count!" after their kid is DFed at 14? The recent statements in a WT study article (as reported at this forum—I don't read them) about the permanent validity of baptism may well be indicating that this parental reaction is already hitting the fan...
I've thought about any biblical precedent that they might invoke on this matter. Not that I agree with it at all, but I suppose they might call upon the idea that in ancient Israel the youth were born into a commitment to keep circumcision, Passover, and the Mosaic Law, just by being an Israelite, because their ancestors had committed themselves and their descendants to do such things. Does anyone know if this as been espoused in WT publications on this child baptism matter? Of course, such thinking would fly in the face of the NT view, but I'm wondering if it's already been invoked by the org.
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What is Gilead's current curriculum?
by careful insome years back alltimejeff reported on what gilead's curriculum was like from a guy who had gone thru it.
it was detailed and enlightening for those of us in the dark.
(hey, atj, are you still checking in here?).
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careful
Some years back AllTimeJeff reported on what Gilead's curriculum was like from a guy who had gone thru it. It was detailed and enlightening for those of us in the dark. (Hey, ATJ, are you still checking in here?)
A year or so ago sir82 stated:
Gilead was re-purposed 3 or 4 years ago - it no longer trains missionaries, it just trains "Bethel hit squads" to go out and "encourage" congregations which are "in trouble".
Can anyone give us the inside scoop on what Gilead is now teaching like ATJ did in its earlier version? What are they doing with the sisters there if it's become just a curriculum in studying WTS policy making and enforcement?
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2017 Yearbook released
by bohm ini saw this on reddit:.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/5mlgsm/2017_yearbook_of_jehovahs_witnesses/.
overall the numbers are better than last year (1.8% growth compared to 1.5% last year -- as i predicted ;-) ) with an increase in all major figures including 1300 more congregations (i assume this is not physical kingdom halls?).
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careful
SBF, thanks for the analysis re: congregations. It's insightful and well thought out. If there's real substance to it, then it has all the more import if the experience reported here has repeated itself in other places: