A request to our members living in the USA - Time Magazine

by pale.emperor in

i have a request to our friends living in the usa.

im trying to track down an article printed by time magazine in which they interviewed fred franz.

in my local library here in liverpool they have a massive bound volume collection of time going back to the 1930s.

A request to our members living in the USA - Time Magazine

by pale.emperor in

i have a request to our friends living in the usa.

im trying to track down an article printed by time magazine in which they interviewed fred franz.

in my local library here in liverpool they have a massive bound volume collection of time going back to the 1930s.

mentalclarity

The perks of higher education - you have access to online library/digital journal database

14

A request to our members living in the USA - Time Magazine

by pale.emperor in

i have a request to our friends living in the usa.

im trying to track down an article printed by time magazine in which they interviewed fred franz.

in my local library here in liverpool they have a massive bound volume collection of time going back to the 1930s.

mentalclarity

Was that what you were looking for @pale.emperor?

14

A request to our members living in the USA - Time Magazine

by pale.emperor in

i have a request to our friends living in the usa.

im trying to track down an article printed by time magazine in which they interviewed fred franz.

in my local library here in liverpool they have a massive bound volume collection of time going back to the 1930s.

The End Is Near (Contd.)

His plain, ninth-floor Brooklyn office is painted in institutional green and has no air conditioning to reduce the summer heat. He gets a free one-room apartment and meals in the huge dining hall downstairs, plus the same $20 monthly stipend that the janitors get. He has been his religion's most important theologian for decades, but no one is allowed to know just which books or articles he has worked on. Though few people know his name, he has acquired more-than-papal power over 2.2 million souls around the world.

He is Frederick Franz, a short and spry 83, who on June 22 quietly succeeded the late Nathan Knorr to become the fourth leader of the Jehovah's Witnesses. For a century now, this most contentious of faiths has pressed upon an unwilling audience the message that mankind is nearing the End. Franz, a bachelor who has labored in the sect's headquarters since 1920, will not be surprised if he lives to see the destruction of the world's political order in the Battle of Armageddon, which will usher in Christ's 1,000-year reign.

Franz was planning on a career as a Presbyterian minister in 1913 when his brother sent him some tracts from the Watch Tower Society. He soon decided that the Watch Tower offered the one true interpretation of the Bible. The next year he dropped out of the University of Cincinnati without completing his junior year; he saw no sense in remaining because the movement's founder, Charles Taze Russell, had announced Oct. 1, 1914, as the date for Christ's Second Coming. Franz recalls with a wisp of a smile: "We expected the end of this system of things, that God's kingdom would take over the earth and that we would be glorified in heaven."

Russell's successor, Lawyer Joseph Rutherford, later explained that the "last days" had indeed begun in 1914, but that Christ's rule had been established only in heaven, and that his Second Coming had occurred, but as a spiritual event. Because Satan still runs the earth, the Witnesses persistently refuse to serve in any army or to salute any flag —even if they must go to jail.

Rutherford's rallying cry became "Millions now living will never die!" By 1968, the sect's magazine, Awake!, was proclaiming a new date for Armageddon: "Today we have the evidence required, all of it. And it is overwhelming! All the many, many parts of the great sign of the 'last days' are here, together with verifying Bible chronology." That complex chronology ran like this: Adam was created in the autumn of 4026 B.C., which meant that 6,000 years of human existence would end in late 1975. The 6,000 years would be followed by the Millennium, 1,000 years of "Sabbathlike rest," just as God rested after six days of Creation and established the Sabbath.

Asked about 1975, Franz now says that the 6,000-year chronology is correct, but the seventh day of Creation did not begin until Eve was created. Thus the date for the End has to be extended by the amount of time between the advent of Adam and of Eve—an interval not yet revealed (previous Witness publications had stated that Adam and Eve were created in the same year).

Publicity about the Witnesses usually emphasizes their phenomenal success at recruiting. Most of the movement's energies are poured into proselytizing. For each of the 196,656 people baptized last year, the Witnesses conducted 740 visits to people's homes and distributed 1,650 copies of their various books and magazines. The other side of the story is that the Witnesses suffer more back-door losses than other groups. Analysis of the sect's own reports indicates that 335,000 people have left the Witnesses since 1972. And since the End mysteriously failed to materialize in 1975, the number of new Witnesses being baptized has suddenly dropped by a third.

70

What made you stay "in" even when you knew it wasn't the "truth"?

by mentalclarity in

so i've been thinking a lot about why i stayed a jw for so long even though i had always had doubts about the doctrines.

i was born into the religion, left and came back as an adult for another decade.

some of the things that come to mind (besides the threat of shunning-and this isn't to minimize that very real threat) was:.

mentalclarity

@Rainbow_Troll that's terrible...my elder brother would love for me to study relentlessly until I "get it" but since I won't he has minimum contact with me.

39

How do you get over all the things that you missed? The stuff you can't get back

by JW_Rogue in

look my life is not bad but sometimes i just think about all the normal things i missed out on.

and no i'm not talking about christmas and birthday parties.

i'm talking about your first kiss happening in your twenties instead of your teens.

mentalclarity

So to answer your question of how do you get over it? I have done and am doing all the things I want to do now. I went back to college, I've travelled, etc. Anything that I feel just a tinge of interest, I explore without any guilt. The more I do that, the less I feel I've been cheated.

I was in my early 30's when I left so I know it's different for others who left much older.

Rainbow_Troll- actually universities in Europe have different tuition rates for non-EU students. It's much cheaper than the States a lot of times- but it's not free. I think higher education would have made a difference for a lot of JWs here if they went to good Universities- you build a network which will be useful/exposes you to research opportunities/internships in major corporations/study abroad. The sad part is there are many here who would have gotten scholarships to go to schools so I can understand why it's a big regret.

70

What made you stay "in" even when you knew it wasn't the "truth"?

by mentalclarity in

so i've been thinking a lot about why i stayed a jw for so long even though i had always had doubts about the doctrines.

i was born into the religion, left and came back as an adult for another decade.

some of the things that come to mind (besides the threat of shunning-and this isn't to minimize that very real threat) was:.

mentalclarity

@Rainbow_Troll and that's how it ends up being so hypocritical.

I've had this conversation with my JW mom several times where I tell her I can't be in a religion and teach something I'm not convinced of. I ask her if she'd be happy if I just stayed in and "pretended" and how much merit that would have. She usually just stays silent-but she doesn't shun me. Althoug I'm sure it's very disappointing to her, I'd like to think deep down inside she's proud she raised a daughter with some integrity.

70

What made you stay "in" even when you knew it wasn't the "truth"?

by mentalclarity in

so i've been thinking a lot about why i stayed a jw for so long even though i had always had doubts about the doctrines.

i was born into the religion, left and came back as an adult for another decade.

some of the things that come to mind (besides the threat of shunning-and this isn't to minimize that very real threat) was:.

mentalclarity

@Ucantnome I have a very good JW childhood friend who is still in (although probably considered a weak JW). She also tells me she doesn't know or not know if it's the "truth". It doesn't seem to make a difference for her. It's just a social club. She has absolutely no issues with me and we speak quite openly. If everyone was like that (allowing each other to have their own opinions/beliefs) there wouldn't be an issue with the JWs. Unfortunately that's not the case and we are ostracized and shunned for having moral integrity-standing up for what we believe which is ironic since that is what we're taught to do....

180

What is the most bizarre counsel you received as a JW, from a JW?

by Funchback in

there were many addressed to me.

for example, i once had a sister tell me i was gambling because i liked playing skill crane (the machine where you have to try to pick up prizes like stuffed animals) at the arcade.

i then fired back a her: "you saw the r-rated movie 'backdraft.

mentalclarity

I've really enjoyed reading all of these!

I was counciled for my knee length skirt because apparently when i would bend down to pick up my toddlers in the hall it would hike up in the back.

My husband who was a study at the time cheated on me and I went to the elders to tell them I was really having a difficult time with resentment/forgiveness. One elder said he "hummed" when he had unhappy thoughts and that really helped him.

After months of looking for a job my husband finally found something in a company where there was df'd exjw. He was told not to take the job by the elders, but when I pushed for them to show me where in the literature it said anything about that- they couldn't find anything so he was able to work there a while. He wasn't baptized.

I was told on by another JW when I smoked a cigarette at 15 yrs old and an elder came to the house and gave me the spiel about drugs and "spiritism".

52

What "Rules" Did The Elders In Your KH Make?

by minimus in

jw
friends

some congregations were known as liberal and others were considered very conservative.

back in the 1970s a nearby congregation made all speakers who gave public talks a white shirt to wear.

if a speaker came in wearing anything but white they were brought into the library and were given a white shirt!

mentalclarity

Sideburns for some reason were really frowned upon (this was in the 90's)

I know in some spanish congregations dancing latin music at weddings was also prohibited for a while (merengue/salsa) especially by cubans. I guess the way it was danced in cuba was alot closer body contact or something. I always found the spanish hall always had alot more rules and people didn't question it as much.

There was some talk about pokemons and demonism...haha...let's say japanese anime in general..It was an unspoken rule not to let your kids watch/buy the cards,etc

mentalclarity

Posts by mentalclarity

The End Is Near (Contd.)