i was raised with this belief, that we would never die and actually make it into the "new system".
mu faithful jw aunt still talked about my mother (her sister) and her walking together into the great tribulation--- and never die at all!
she spoke of that 2 days before she passed away.. i believe most witnesses expect to die and then get resurrected.
I recently talked my brother into setting up college savings accounts for his kids. He's either a current or a former elder. I don't know because I don't ask. We haven't talked about "the truth" since I stopped going to meetings 9 years ago.
My brother was always the type of person to disregard long-term planning due to Armageddon's supposed proximity. He's now in his late 30s and realizes on some level that the end ain't coming anytime soon. At worst, he's hedging his bets. Good for him.
against my better judgement, i've decided to share the following as a response to guy pierce passing and the announcement of the elimination of district overseers later this year.. late in january (2014) i got an email from one of my contacts (a fader) who served at bethel for several years, but is no longer at wt hq.
he still has a lot of close contacts within the service department and in other departments at patterson and knows people in all of the ny offices.
i kept this email set aside on a flash drive and haven't shared it with anyone - figuring i'd publish an article about it later this year when i had more time to do it right.
I think we should resist the urge to take an outsider's perspective on change. We can all easily imagine ourselves as business consultants hired by the Watchtower to come up with a list of initiatives to improve morale and promote growth and retention.
Let's not forget that the men on the GB won a decades-long competition designed to reward the most loyal company men and status quo seekers. They've been selected for their aversion to change. Had they demonstrated the inclination to think creatively or shown independent thinking, they would have been weeded out at the CO or ambitious young Bethelite level.
Edited to add:
You also have the 2/3 supermajority problem. Even if you were successful in convincing a change-resistant GB member, you'd have to get 2/3 of them to agree. That's a tall order.
An exceedingly slow death by bureaucratic inertia remains the most likely outcome, in my opinion.
the whole organization is going through huge and big changes.
it can be seen by names of departments, to how things function and teaches.
my questions to you is, what do you think the future changes will be, both in teaching and organizational matters?.
God I've been out so long I don't remember what the "current truth" is with respect to the gathering of the great crowd.
But you're right. I remember reading many times about the assembly in which Rutherford asked all the non-anointed to stand and said "behold the great crowd." Well if they're all dead, they were never really the great growd to begin with because the great crowd passes through armageddon alive.
One of many holes in their doctrine.
the whole organization is going through huge and big changes.
it can be seen by names of departments, to how things function and teaches.
my questions to you is, what do you think the future changes will be, both in teaching and organizational matters?.
"As time has gone by, some Christians baptized after 1935 have had witness borne to them that they have the heavenly hope. Thus we cannot set a specific date for when the heavenly hope ends." Watchtower 2007 May 1 p.31
the whole organization is going through huge and big changes.
it can be seen by names of departments, to how things function and teaches.
my questions to you is, what do you think the future changes will be, both in teaching and organizational matters?.
Laika,
They did away with the 1935 date 6 or 7 years ago. It was all over this board. You can probably pull some threads on it using the search feature.
the whole organization is going through huge and big changes.
it can be seen by names of departments, to how things function and teaches.
my questions to you is, what do you think the future changes will be, both in teaching and organizational matters?.
I think you're looking at it from the perspective of what conclusions some business consultants would come up with if they were hired to review their operations and make suggestions in order to improve their ability to grow.
At the end of the day, the men sitting on the GB won a decades-long, rigorous competition that rewards the most loyal of company men and status quo seekers. The ability to seek out change is not in their DNA. If it were, they would have been weeded out at the CO or ambitious young Bethelite level.
respectful_observer's thread on guy pierce's death,.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/277198/1/heard-a-rumor-guy-pierce-died-this-morning#.uyq-pv21x1n.
got me thinking.
Here's a little theory about how the GB selections go down and how that contributes to there being little to no substantive change.
First let's assume GB members are appointed on a 2/3 majority vote basis. Let's also assume that there are important changes that are being held back because a 2/3 majority hasn’t been achieved. That's akin to giving the 1/3 minority a veto. The minority could similarly exercise such a veto if they had reason to suspect a new GB member would not side with them on contentious issues.
So there's gridlock until the 1/3 minority feels sufficiently secure that a potential new GB member will side with them in preserving the status quo. Perhaps little heart-to-heart talks with short-list members every now and then to get their view on things. Therefore, nothing really new is ever introduced.
Hence, slow death by bureaucratic asphyxiation is the likely outcome for the group.
i saw this on facebook and knew it should be here.
while i am confident that my jw loved ones wouldn't take a look at it, maybe someone here can show it to their jw's and they will see how shunning family is awful when they are looking at a situation exactly like that of watchtower.. a report at http://jehovahswitnessreport.com/blog/scientology-and-watchtower-strange-bedfellows.
mentions this abc good morning america story:.
I've always wondered whether growing up a Scientologist would have been worse than growing up a Witness. I'm fairly certain I would have been better off growing up a Mormon.
Battle of the cults, if you will.
i just got back from my afternoon walk/run and about a block from home i saw two sets of jw's going door to door handing out invites to the memorial.. the first pair walked past me and only said "good afternoon" as they passed.. about two minutes later the second pair approached me and handed me an invite to 2014 memorial on april 14. i asked them why they chose the jw's as their church of choice and was told "we'd like to chat more but we have a set number of invites we have to get out before the memorial.
if you contact the kingdom hall listed here, they will tell you more... on how god's kingdom will rid the world of satan and the evil associated with him.".
i replied "you can't talk now?".
From my last time attending, it seemed that any non-JWs would feel VERY out of place.
This has ALWAYS been the case, at least it has been for me, and my memory goes as far back as the early 80s. It's not tailored for the general public at all. I don't understand how any sane visitor would leave feeling anything but complete confusion over what took place.
The more differences from mainline Christianity, the more things they can point to that separate them from Christendom and "prove" they have the truth.
