TonusOH-
"But it's a complicated and messy concept, and you can no longer just say "the generation that saw these things is getting older" because (A)you already abandoned that idea and (B)everyone knows you can just extend it again. So you cannot create the urgency this way. "
Waton-
" here you can see the twisting by wt writers of the original text.
Jesus said that all these things will come to pass, then the generation would die (like it did in the first century). "all these things" obviously includes the disaster bigger than Noah's flood. aka Armageddon. that Jesus mentioned as fact in the prophecy.
The start of the GT is only a blip in all that.
wt says : generation dies at the beginning. "
Maybe this will be the end game for the org.
If they were to declare the start of the great tribulation today, it could be stretched long enough to allow the previous teaching to fade into obscurity.
By subtly changing the wording of the prophecy and saying the anointed will be gone before armageddon, they have just solved the generation problem once and for all.
Declaring the GT has started would jump-start the enthusiasm of the members and bring inactive ones back to the org.
The period of the GT is indefinite, so by the time the current generation dies off, the governing body has had plenty of time to switch things up again.