Posts by mentallyfree31

39

I just finished Crisis of Conscience today....

by dontplaceliterature in

disclaimer:.

i really hate to hijack this thread, but i wasted my one 24hr post on that window washing thread last night.

i don't think i'll have an opportunity to post this up here if i wait, and would like to get it done before the weekend.

mentallyfree31

Agreed. "In Search of Christian Freedom" is an excellent book. Huge book too. So many additional things are covered.

-MF31-

131

Window Washers

by dontplaceliterature in

question:.

why do i see so frequently the witnesses referred to as "window washers" on here?

i have been a witness (though only recently "conscious") for my whole life.

mentallyfree31

In my former congregation, let me try to count up the janitors and window-washers:

Myself - janitor (3 years, 1995 - 1998)

Presiding Overseer (entire family at times): janitors and window washers

School Overseer - Window Washer

School Overseer's wife - Window Washer

Two senior pioneers - janitors part time

Newer pioneer who started same year as me - janitor part time

Older crazy sister - janitor

Maybe one or two more perhaps, this is all I can remember at the moment.

-MF31-

39

I just finished Crisis of Conscience today....

by dontplaceliterature in

disclaimer:.

i really hate to hijack this thread, but i wasted my one 24hr post on that window washing thread last night.

i don't think i'll have an opportunity to post this up here if i wait, and would like to get it done before the weekend.

A big thing for me was when Ray points to the 1905 Watchtower magazine, and shows where Charles Russell wrote himself the events of how he came to have his peculiar beliefs. He received a flyer of Nelson Barbour's work. He recognized it as the religion Adventism. He was convinced that Barbour was onto something with this 1874 date of Christ's prescense. He paid Barbour's transportation to Pennsylvania, and listened to Barbour. Barbour's evidence satisfied him. He started preaching it. The rest is history.

Here is the actual quote from the July 15, 1905 Watchtower magazine: (I have highlighted key points):

---------------------------------------------

It was about January, 1876, that my attention was specially drawn to the subject of prophetic time, as it relates to these doctrines and hopes. It came about in this way: I received a paper called The Herald of the Morning, sent by its editor, Mr. N. H. Barbour. When I opened it I at once identified it with Adventism from the picture on its cover, and examined it with some curiosity to see what time they would next set for the burning of the world. But judge of my surprise and gratification, when I learned from its contents that the Editor was beginning to get his eyes open on the subjects that for some years had so greatly rejoiced our hearts here in Allegheny--that the object of our Lord's return is not to destroy, but to bless all the families of the earth, and that his coming would be thief-like, and not in flesh, but as a spirit-being, invisible to men; and that the gathering of his Church and the separation of the "wheat" from the "tares" would progress in the end of this age without the world's being aware of it. I rejoiced to find others coming to the same advanced position, but was astonished to find the statement very cautiously set forth, that the editor believed the prophecies to indicate that the Lord was already present in the world (unseen and invisible), and that the harvest work of gathering the wheat was already due,--and that this view was warranted by the time-prophecies which but a few months before he supposed had failed.

Here was a new thought: Could it be that the time prophecies which I had so long despised, because of their misuse by Adventists, were really meant to indicate when the Lord would be invisibly present to set up his Kingdom --a thing which I clearly saw could be known in no other way? It seemed, to say the least, a reasonable, a very reasonable thing, to expect that the Lord would inform his people on the subject--especially as he had promised that the faithful should not be left in darkness with the world, and that though the day of the Lord would come upon all others as a thief in the night (stealthily, unawares), it should not be so to the watching, earnest saints.--` I Thes. 5:4 `. I recalled certain arguments used by my friend Jonas Wendell and other Adventists to prove that 1873 would witness the burning of the world, etc.--the chronology of the world showing that the six thousand years from Adam ended with the beginning of 1873--and other arguments drawn from the Scriptures and supposed to coincide. Could it be that these time arguments, which I had passed by as unworthy of attention, really contained an important truth which they had misapplied? Anxious to learn, from any quarter, whatever God had to teach, I at once wrote to Mr. Barbour, informing him of my harmony on other points and desiring to know particularly why, and upon what Scriptural evidences, he held that Christ's presence and the harvesting of the Gospel age dated from the Autumn of 1874. The answer showed that my surmise had been correct, viz.: that the time arguments, chronology, etc., were the same as used by Second Adventists in 1873, and explained how Mr. Barbour and Mr. J. H. Paton, of Michigan, a co-worker with him, had been regular Second Adventists up to that time; and that when the date 1874 had passed without the world being burned, and without their seeing Christ in the flesh, they were for a time dumb-founded.

They had examined the time-prophecies that had seemingly passed unfulfilled, and had been unable to find any flaw, and had begun to wonder whether the time was right and their expectations wrong,--whether the views of restitution and blessing to the world, which myself and others were teaching, might not be the things to look for. It seems that not long after their 1874 disappointment, a reader of the Herald of the Morning, who had a copy of the Diaglott, noticed something in it which he thought peculiar,--that in ` Matt. 24:27 , 37 , 39 `, the word which in our common version is rendered coming is translated presence. This was the clue; and, following it, they had been led through prophetic time toward proper views regarding the object and manner of the Lord's return. I, on the contrary, was led first to proper views of the object and manner of our Lord's return and then to the examination of the time for these things, indicated in God's Word. Thus God leads his children often from different starting points of truth; but where the heart is earnest and trustful, the result must be to draw all such together. But there were no books or other publications setting forth the time-prophecies as then understood, so I paid Mr. Barbour's expenses to come to see me at Philadelphia (where I had business engagements during the summer of 1876), to show me fully and Scripturally, if he could, that the prophecies indicated 1874 as the date at which the Lord's presence and "the harvest" began. He came, and the evidences satisfied me. Being a person of positive convictions and fully consecrated to the Lord, I at once saw that the special times in which we live have an important bearing upon our duty and work as Christ's disciples; that, being in the time of harvest, the harvest-work should be done; and that Present Truth was the sickle by which the Lord would have us do a gathering and reaping work everywhere among his children.

--------------------------------------------------------

There you have it, out of Charles Taze Russell's own mouth. It was nothing to do with God or some holy spirit. He found an Adventist preacher named Nelson Barbour, and liked his ideas, and started preaching them. Period.

-mentallyfree31-

47

Did You Ever Fink On Another Witness?

by minimus in

jw
friends

did you ever tell the elders that you knew of "wrongdoing" or that you knew a certain person wasn't adhering to the rules?.

mentallyfree31

I squealed a few times. I got an elder deleted one time by tattle-telling. (I must say, this elder never held it against me. We were friends for many years afterwards, until I left the cult. He was reappointed after a few years.)

I got a young person reproved another time by telling somebody else they must squeal.

-MF31-

44

I'm going to end my "bible" study

by KristiKay in

jw
friends

i posted a while back, i've been studying with a nice jehovas witness lady for probably about 6 months.

after a few weeks i googled a few things (earthquakes, how long we've been on earth, ect.

) i realised she was very misinformed.

mentallyfree31

KK - Welcome to the board. I'm sure glad to dug in and realized "the truth" before you got recruited.

:-)

-MF31-

25

False Prophets or Just Poor Interpreters?

by Vanderhoven7 in

is the wts a false prophet organization?

are it's leaders false prophets?

or have they simply been guilty of poor interpretation from time to time?.

mentallyfree31

A year ago, about 20 minutes into Don's book "Captives of a Concept", I pushed back and rolled my chair away from the computer and said "Oh sh**! I have a problem, because I'm no longer a Jehovah's Witness".

-mentallyfree31-

9

KH's being sold.....multiple congs. meeting in one hall. Any ideas why?

by confuzzled777 in

jw
friends

in talking with my mom the other day and we started talking about the #of congs.

that are meeting in the hall that i went to.

she goes to a double hall where 10 congregations attend.

mentallyfree31

The long drive won't matter to most. Remember, these people will let their kids die for their beliefs. Driving 20 extra minutes would be nothing, it would seem to me.

Agree or disagree?

-MF31-

55

Greetings to All, No Longer Lurking

by Franklin Massey in

jw
friends

claustrophobic.

that's the simplest way for me to express how i feel in the wt org.

like many here, my eyes were slowly opened over the years as i did more earnest research, trying to reconcile some long standing spiritual quandaries.