Lost in the fog

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Posts by Lost in the fog

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  19

  Elder Arrangement

  by vienne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hi everyone, (including the person who down votes all of my posts).

  as some of you know, i'm working toward my master's degree.

  comments from those associated when the elder arrangement was introduced would help me with a research paper.. what was the reaction among adherents?

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  Lost in the fog

  I remember that when the rotational elder arrangement came in in the early 70s it caused a lot of frustration for some very organised brothers.

  You're the Secretary, as a highly organised person you create a perfect filing system for the congregation paperwork. But, at the end of the year you have to hand it over to a brother who works as a car mechanic, he in turn hands it on next year to a window cleaner, who hands it on to a pig farmer, who hands it back to the highly organised brother. He opens the file, and everything is muddled up, utility bills mixed in with letters or committee meeting minutes. Dirty greasy fingerprints on publishers record cards making some them illegible. It takes him 12 months to get his filing back to perfection. At the end of the year he doesn't want to hand it on, and is verbally critical of the others who can't see what the fuss is about! Nervous breakdown pending.

  A circuit overseer I knew well (no longer with us) told me that it was one of the reasons why the WT stopped revolving the Presiding Overseer, the Secretary, and the Field Service Overseer. He said he knew of congregations where the super efficient brother literally came to fisticuffs with others on the body or a shouting match where non-Christian language was used to describe other elders resulting in the CO having to get involved and delete some of them as elders.
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  27

  I’m a current elder ex bethel in London

  by Mikejw in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was in bethel for years early 2000s and was heavily involved with brd from start to finish .

  im current elder in one of the congregations in london.

  what i’ve noticed is huge changes since covid .

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  Lost in the fog

  I wonder what will happen when door to door witnessing resumes?

  I've heard on the grapevine that locally many new publishers were created during the Covid pandemic, both reactivated baptised publishers and a large number of unbaptised publishers.

  I'm sure for them it was dead easy to sit on their comfortable sofa and write letters copied off a template and send them anonymously to strangers in the mail.

  But it's a different ballgame entirely if they are expected to get dressed and go out knocking doors and be seen in public identifying themselves as JWs.
  

  Who wants to bet that lots of those people will start to drift off into obscurity rather than go house to house?
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  6

  Mark of a true Christian

  by Lost in the fog in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as most of us on this site have experienced firsthand when we were in, there is a lack of love in the majority of congregations.. i was talking to a pimi person recently who said that love was the identifying mark of true christians (in their opinion the jw organisation) and that is why the watchtowers they study continually tell them to show love to one another.. i said that if their love was genuinely practiced they wouldn't need to be told to show it because it would arise from their heart and soul and be evident in believers which is what jesus was actually saying.

  recognising the needs of the community with rising food prices some local churches where i live were moved to start food banks and offer free meals to families on the breadline.

  to me that is spontaneously shown and is genuine love in action.. needless to say the pimi disagreed with me.

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  Lost in the fog

  As most of us on this site have experienced firsthand when we were in, there is a lack of love in the majority of congregations.

  I was talking to a PIMI person recently who said that love was the identifying mark of true Christians (in their opinion the JW organisation) and that is why the Watchtowers they study continually tell them to show love to one another.

  I said that if their love was genuinely practiced they wouldn't need to be TOLD to show it because it would arise from their heart and soul and be evident in believers which is what Jesus was actually saying.

  Recognising the needs of the community with rising food prices some local churches where I live were moved to start food banks and offer free meals to families on the breadline. To me that is spontaneously shown and is genuine love in action.

  Needless to say the PIMI disagreed with me. But I know which one I would be attracted towards, a group of people who are moved from pity to help others regardless of whether those people agree with that group's beliefs or not; over a group of people who have to be told what love is meant to be and who even then won't lift a finger to give assistance unless the needy person commits to studying a book.
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  22

  Society's list of publications to trash ASAP!

  by RolRod in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

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  Lost in the fog

  I can't figure why they want to hold on to the Reasoning Book? Most of the quotations from secular publications and encyclopaedia contained in the RS book as I recall were so vastly out-of-date, it used to be embarrassing making reference to them when I used to share in the door to door service.
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  71

  Wrong Religion

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we brainstormed a while back on this forum and pooled our knowledge on how to recognize false religion.

  i think the list is worth reviewing and adding to if possible.

  please feel free to correct and or add insights of your own to this list:.

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  Lost in the fog

  Going back to your original post could I add this one to your list.

  You regularly attend well-known sports stadiums in the summer but have never seen a sports match or game in any of them.
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  9

  The attorneys gave us bad advice.

  by Lost in the fog in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  the attorneys gave them bad advice, and when contacted the wt says we don't comment on specific cases.

  what a cop out!.

  https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20220521/jehovahs-witness-elders-who-failed-to-report-child-abuse-got-bad-advice-say-local-pastors-attorneys.

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  Lost in the fog

  The attorneys gave them bad advice, and when contacted the WT says we don't comment on specific cases. What a cop out!

  https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20220521/jehovahs-witness-elders-who-failed-to-report-child-abuse-got-bad-advice-say-local-pastors-attorneys
  
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  15

  Homeopathy and Jehovah's Witnesses.

  by jojorabbit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  years ago, the jws did not like modern medicine.

  vaccines and other things were all deemed bad.

  this gave rise to a lot of jws getting into alternative medicines.

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  Lost in the fog

  The late Jan de Vries who was a UK protege of Dr Vogel said in an interview that Vogel's wife had been a Bible Student and later a Jehovah's Witness, but Dr Vogel was not. That's what he said.

  I know a lot of people in my former cong who embraced homeopathy and wouldn't go to a general practitioner.

  But as well as Vogel's medicines quite a number were taking Dr Bach's Flower Remedies until an elder who was into personal research (which also probably explains why he's no longer a JW) discovered that Dr Bach was a spiritualist who asked the spirits to identify which flowers went with which illness, and admitted that he never actually went near the flowers himself.

  Lots of sisters were in a panic after he said it in a public talk one Sunday morning because they all swore by the stuff and had told everyone including their Bible student's to use it. I think they all rushed home from the meeting to bin their collection, and probably got the elders round to exorcise their houses in case of demonic entities hiding in their medicine cabinets in the bathroom. Lol.
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  7

  Missionaries in Mali.

  by Lost in the fog in

  1. social
  2. current

  i don't think the gb at wt will pay for their release like the pope did for the nun.

  they better say their goodbyes.. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/story/2022-05-20/3-italians-1-togolese-abducted-in-southern-mali-says-mayor .

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  Lost in the fog

  I don't think the GB at WT will pay for their release like the Pope did for the nun. They better say their goodbyes.

  https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/story/2022-05-20/3-italians-1-togolese-abducted-in-southern-mali-says-mayor
  
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  49

  Jehovah's Witnesses: remembering the weird and wacky!

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  do you remember some of the weird and wacky stuff emanating from the watchtower society?

  let's make a list from memory that we can use to inject a little humor into our discussions with jehovah's witnesses.

  - venus may be an enormous jurassic park.. - germs don't cause disease.. - no beards allowed.

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  Lost in the fog

  How about the the articles that dancing the Twist was as bad as performing a Ba'al worship fertility dance! Lol. Took me a while to find it.

  https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/library/r1/lp-e/all-publications/watchtower/the-watchtower-1972/september-15, page 567.
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  17

  TIME MAGAZINE -Cult article - singles out Judge Rutherford

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,738983,00.html.

  big, blue-eyed judge joseph frederick rutherford, 60, lives in a ten-room spanish mansion, no.

  4440 braeburn road.

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  Lost in the fog

  I can remember my mom telling me that at the 1950 Yankee Stadium assembly the speaker (I can't remember who it was now) saying "What would you say if I told you that we have princes here among us today!?" that a sizeable amount of the audience rushed forward to the edge of the stands to peer down into the baseball diamond expecting to see the ancient worthies resurrected there in front of their eyes.

  You think "were they really that gullible or stupid?" and the answer is yes, because it's what their leadership had been telling them for the previous 25+ years.