what if the truly unthinkable happened and the tower went down?
perhaps the irs swooped in and claimed fraud and padlocked the headquarters and kingdom hall doors?
or the gb took the money and ran to a nice non-extradition country to live out their years?
DesirousOfChange - “…How do you sell off 3 BILLION$ on tax free real estate sales and be broke in just a few years?”
Warwick went crazy over budget, there’ve been hundreds more CSA payouts that will never reach the general media, and apparently, there were some old outstanding loans attached to the Brooklyn properties that the Org was required by law to square away as part of the terms of the sale.
So, evidently, it’s all gone, baby, gone.
what if the truly unthinkable happened and the tower went down?
perhaps the irs swooped in and claimed fraud and padlocked the headquarters and kingdom hall doors?
or the gb took the money and ran to a nice non-extradition country to live out their years?
Don’t kid yourself.
JW birth rates may be a little higher elsewhere, but in the developed world, where the bulk of the membership is?
No.
If it was, we wouldn’t be hearing so many stories of Kingdom Halls being attended with mostly old people.
what if the truly unthinkable happened and the tower went down?
perhaps the irs swooped in and claimed fraud and padlocked the headquarters and kingdom hall doors?
or the gb took the money and ran to a nice non-extradition country to live out their years?
Not to mention that the Org has done a such a tremendously effective job inoculating the rank-and-file against any other form of religious expression 😁👍, that the majority of XJWs (intentionally or otherwise) don’t bother trading up…
…they figure (correctly) that if the WT doesn’t have The Truth, no one does, so why bother?
what if the truly unthinkable happened and the tower went down?
perhaps the irs swooped in and claimed fraud and padlocked the headquarters and kingdom hall doors?
or the gb took the money and ran to a nice non-extradition country to live out their years?
I think it’d be similar to Hirohito’s surrender to the Allies after Hiroshima and Nagasaki…
…he did it publicly over the radio, everyone across Japan heard it, and Emperor-worship essentially collapsed overnight.
Why?
Because a god can’t surrender. If he did, he wouldn’t be a god. He would, at the very least, be renouncing his godhood, or at worst, inferring that it was never real in the first place.
Either way, no more Emperor-worship.
Similarly with the WTS, it has spent a century insisting that it’s the only path to salvation. If it ceased to exist, not only would it be unable to dictate how loyal JWs live, but it would be the most elegant proof that it’s legitimacy was never real.
“God’s Exclusive Earthly Organization” cannot (be allowed to) collapse…
… if it did, it wouldn’t be “God’s Exclusive Earthly Organization”, which is its entire reason for existing.
i've mentioned before how i've wondered how tony morris must have felt when he was sacked.
yes, i know he's a rehensible human being who got served a healthy dose of karma, or, if you like, divine judgement.
to go from having all there is to have within the world he lived in, to where he is now; that's a long fall.
TonusOH - “…I'm impressed that they've kept it under wraps this long.”
Yup, credit where credit’s due.
i've mentioned before how i've wondered how tony morris must have felt when he was sacked.
yes, i know he's a rehensible human being who got served a healthy dose of karma, or, if you like, divine judgement.
to go from having all there is to have within the world he lived in, to where he is now; that's a long fall.
markweatherill - “…Since his departure, there have been some radical changes in doctrine and policy that I think Tony Morris would never have approved of…”
Agreed.
Putting one of the Old Guard out to pasture to secure the two-thirds majority vote needed for a significant course change makes the most sense.
even tho i've been expelled about 4 years now, i truly checked out around 2015. changes in the org i think we're just starting to get going.
i remember the kingdom songs suddenly getting the taylor swift treatment aka pop music treatment.
meetings were getting axed or meshed together or something.
Leathercrom - “What’s the Org like now?”
Weird AF.
what if the truly unthinkable happened and the tower went down?
perhaps the irs swooped in and claimed fraud and padlocked the headquarters and kingdom hall doors?
or the gb took the money and ran to a nice non-extradition country to live out their years?
Beth Sarim - “I just don't know how hardcore JW will wrap their heads around such a mess of this if the GB disappear and WT crumbling”
This.
growing up as a jw in the 1960s and 1970s, a common refrain from the yearbook, local elders and circuit overseers was how jws were protected at meetings, conventions, and in the field service by "the angels".
experiences of "divine intervention" during service, ww2, in communist lands, and conventions were common.
the internet and google are regularly debunking this myth in the 21st century.
What Tonus said.
”Everything is proof we’re right! Even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!”
😁
I remember when I first realized that for all intents and purposes, loyal JWs essentially subscribed to this, and thought, “wait, that’s… not possible…”
One of many little cracks in the dam.
what if the truly unthinkable happened and the tower went down?
perhaps the irs swooped in and claimed fraud and padlocked the headquarters and kingdom hall doors?
or the gb took the money and ran to a nice non-extradition country to live out their years?
MeanMrMustard - “…If he woke up one year later and found the WTB&TS had been dissolved, that would pretty much line up with what he'd expect…”
I don’t think so.
At no point in WT eschatology is God’s Organization done away with.
Attacked, yes, that event is supposed to kick things off, but not eliminated.
That was one of the whole points of staying loyal… the WTS is, by implication, invincible and destined to prevail, simply by virtue of being God’s Organization.
If my late father suddenly came back to life tomorrow, and the Org was gone, he’d have real trouble accepting it.
