And publish this entirely Fictional figure to hide the exodus of active members that is occurring.
Posts by Phizzy
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512024 year Highlights: JWs hit 9 million Publishers
by Sanchy inwatchtower put out some highlights for the 2024 service year:.
average publishers: 8,828,124. peak publishers: 9,043,460. a 43.2 percent increase in "those who returned to jehovah", meaning 65,816 were reinstated.
baptized: 296,267. memorial attendance: 21,119,442. missing stat: number of partakers .. womp womp.
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Historian and former JW Jim Penton dies
by slimboyfat ini don’t know a lot about james penton but i think he deserves a better thread than the one currently on offer.
james penton, who died recently, grew up in a jw family in canada and served as an elder.
unusually for a jw, he studied liberal arts at university and became a history professor.
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Phizzy
Thanks SBF and others on this Thread that have given me more insight in to the Jim Penton, the man.
I agree that he was a bit, as we say down here in Kent, "full of himself", and that came over somewhat in his writing on occasion.
I think the accusation of "Bias" against the J.W Org. is a bit misleading, yes, Jim did not present his work in the way most Academics do, hiding their feelings by "balancing" criticism in some way, often Academics are afraid of criticism from their peers and community, so do not express their true opinions, I see this time and again, but Jim knew his Work would be quote mined by the Org. if he did that.
His contribution to those who wish to investigate the Org. was immense.
Condolences to all who knew and loved him.
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Meeting attendance
by Farmer Jim1 infor those still in the organization what is your meeting attendance like these days?.
when i left in 2017 there were around 80 publishers and the average meeting attendance was 70..
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Phizzy
I too have wondered what physical attendance at my old K.H is like now, two Congregations use the Hall, and I have no way of knowing what the official Publisher count is for them. But back when I was in there was always 25% of that number missing at any one meeting, different folks each time, but that figure was about constant.
What is of greater interest to me is the number who have left since I did, over a decade and a half ago, others have died of course, and I cannot think they have been replaced by converts, so I am thinking the two Congregations in reality are no larger than when I left.
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Apostles
by peacefulpete inhear the word "apostles" and immediately the mind thinks of the contradictory lists of 12 men in the gospels.
however, the word (apóstolos) had a much broader usage in the greek speaking world, pagan, jewish and christian.
for simplicity i'd copy a few definitions.. the word apóstolos occurs only in the lxx in 1 kings 14:6, where it is used in a non-technical sense to represent the heb.
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Phizzy
Agreed ! It seems that Paul used the word of himself in a new way, and later Writers like "Luke" picked up on the idea, and invented the Apostles of the Christian Movement.
K. Lake in the Books "Christian Beginnings", writing in the 1930's observed :
" Thus we have the extremely interesting linguistic fact that a Pauline-Lucan branch of Christian literature seems to have popularized and given a technical meaning to a word which was otherwise scarcely used, except in a different sense, in the whole course of previous Greek literature".
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Attended JW funeral today
by usualusername1 innever miss a marketing opportunity—even at a funeral.
funerals aren’t the first place you’d expect marketing.
but jehovah’s witnesses know how to turn every moment into an opportunity to share their message.. during funerals, they weave in their teachings of hope and resurrection, offering comfort and, at the same time, presenting their beliefs to attendees who may not be part of the faith.
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Phizzy
Yes those elements are still there in J.W Funerals, the last one I attended was at least mitigated slightly by a few minutes that mentioned the deceased, of course mostly that contained the kind of nonsense where they say " So and So was a faithful servant of Jehovah". Spending minimal time on what the person was really like.
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BABYLON THE GREAT IS NOT FALLING ANYMORE? (NEW LIGHT FROM THE ANNUAL MEETING)
by raymond frantz inhttps://youtu.be/rsbfa_7lqv4?si=muuxmgtll1n1ifad.
the watchtower’s babylon the great: a shrinking reality?.
so this latest annual meeting introduced a new idea about babylon the great, and here is the part from geoffrey jackson's talk we real need to dig in and consider it's ramifications..... so you’ve got to hand it to them; they know how to keep things interesting with their ever-evolving interpretations and, of course, those classic "adjustments" in understanding.
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Phizzy
For an interesting overview of the direction organised religion is going, this is good :
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Experiences After Leaving
by Freeatlast2024 ini am writing to ask if anyone cares to share their experience and/or offer advice for people leaving.
i was raised in the religion, and both my parents died when i was very young.
i recently stopped associating because my conscience no longer allows me to preach or support the organization.
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Experiences After Leaving
by Freeatlast2024 ini am writing to ask if anyone cares to share their experience and/or offer advice for people leaving.
i was raised in the religion, and both my parents died when i was very young.
i recently stopped associating because my conscience no longer allows me to preach or support the organization.
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Phizzy
"You can check out any time you like,
but you can never leave"...
That is how the J.W Org. makes it feel, and tries to enforce, and of course it is true what we went through, both good and bad, more bad, will always be in our memory.
But if you expunge every J.W teaching, and every emotion they forced us to feel, from yourself, you then become the real "you", all fears and negative emotions are gone, one emotion I keep alive is my total disgust and hatred for what the org. is and does, as I find that keeps me motivated to oppose their nonsense and evil machinations wherever I come across them, in the hope that some J.W may find the Road to Freedom.
But please do the work to prove to yourself that everything they taught, including what they want us to do, and not do, in our lives, is False ! if you don't put that work in, you will never be emotionally free.
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The Question of the "Great Apostasy" and the Historical Continuity of Christianity
by aqwsed12345 in1. the continuity and visibility of the church.
the true church must be continuous from the apostolic age.
there is no room in christianity for a "gap" or interruption of thousands of years during which true christianity ceased to exist and then was revived in the form of another movement.
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Phizzy
If the Ancient Church did not remain within the truth – as various protestant groups maintain – then they have a serious problem. They place themselves in the predicament of acknowledging the authority of an apostate Church that ruled on the Canon of the New Testament! How can they trust the Canon of the 27 books of the New Testament, if it was composed by alleged apostates of the truth? How can they be certain that those involved had made the correct choice as to which books are divinely inspired or not, if they had apostatized from the divine truth? If the Church had apostatized, how can they be sure that those people hadn’t chosen the books that were considered expedient and rejected those that weren’t to their advantage? If, on the other hand, they trust the Canon of the New Testament, then they –unwittingly- also trust the Church that created that Canon!
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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Phizzy
I like this bit from the Article in Rivergang's link :
" If however, the Ancient Church did not remain within the truth – as various protestant groups and heresies maintain – then they have a serious problem. They place themselves in the predicament of acknowledging the authority of an apostate Church that ruled on the Canon of the New Testament! How can they trust the Canon of the 27 books of the New Testament, if it was composed by alleged apostates of the truth? How can they be certain that those involved had made the correct choice as to which books are divinely inspired or not, if they had apostatized from the divine truth? If the Church had apostatized, how can they be sure that those people hadn’t chosen the books that were considered expedient and rejected those that weren’t to their advantage? If, on the other hand, they trust the Canon of the New Testament, then they –unwittingly- also trust the Church that created that Canon!"
