WOW! To both of you, MJ and Carla. With researchers such as you both, how can we possibly lose the war of information with the WTS? How the hell do you kids manage to pick up these sites which give the REAL story behind the hype of the Organisation?
The WTS absolutely revels in producing statistics, as if out of a hat, telling us how dreadful armed conflict is today, and how impossible it is to work out the ways of peace in our time. I would have had a greater respect for their articles if they volunteered to actually DO something to ease the pain of these conflicts, rather than gloat on the sidelines like a flock of vultures, scoring cheap doctrinal points over the suffering of others.
It is interesting to dovetail the two reserchers quoted by MJ and Carla. Of course, the objective behind the WT articles, is not to tell us the facts of the matter, but to reinforce the image that THEY alone have the true Bible perspective on war. How often, with monotonous regularity, have they quoted Matt 24:7 to tell us the end is coming day after tomorrow. The question is: Is this what we are seeing today?
The ignorant rantings of the WTS say :Yes. But both the researchers presented by MJ and Carla say otherwise. Both, the historian, Eric Hobsbawn, whose article is found in the "Guardian Unlimited" journal of Feb 23, 02, and the Human Security Centre report [part 5] bring out something that the WTS either, inadvertantly, or deliberately has overlooked.
Matt 24:7 tells us that , not just war per se, will usher in the last days, but INTERNATIONAL warS [plural] is what does it. If 1914 was the harbringer of the Last Days, there would have to have been international conflictS to tell us this. [Despite it being an inter-state war, it was, to quote the vernacular, the only game in town] This we did not see. Not only was there to be Nation against Nation, but also Kingdom against Kingdom. The WTS has always assumed this to be a singular conflict, but why should it be so? Surely Jesus was prophesying a global conflict within global conflict in a world wide catastrophe of unparalled destruction unknown in human experience.1914 will, in sum, be a blimp, and chicken feed in comparison to the coming conflict that Jesus warned about. [If, as most evangelicals, one takes Jesus words to have a fulfillment beyond the 1st C - I will concede that many feel that Jesus' words do not resound down through the centuries, having been emptied of fulfillment back then]
So, not just war per se, but international wars is what we are looking for, See any? Not according to the researchers quoted. While INTERNAL conflicts within nations may have marginally increased in our time, both reveal that International conflicts which are part of the last days have in fact DECREASED in our time. In other words, for Jesus words to have a measure of fulfillment today, He would needed to have said:"Nation WITHIN nation, and Kingdom WITHIN kingdom". Which of course He did'nt.
The uncomfortable conclusion that awaits WTS scrutiny is this: Either Matt 24 has been fulfilled to the limit of its prophesy in the 1st C, or it is still to be an unfolding drama in the not too distant future. But, there is no credible evidence, as presented by those two reports, that it is being enacted today.
Cheers