john.prestor

Joined

• started 29 topics
• posted 900 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Topics Started by john.prestor

• 
  6

  Do Jehovah's Witnesses "target" non-Witnesses they want to convert?

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i took a break from posting, but i'm back, and i wanted to share a story.

  i grew up in a fundamentalist baptist church, i was never "one of jehovah's witnesses.

  " what i know about jehovah's witnesses i learned from books, from attending services as a researcher, and from ex-witnesses like the posters of this site.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 
  22

  One of the points of conventions: obedience training

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i think a lot these days about people who train you to be obedient without telling you that's what they're doing.

  the thought occurred to me that that could be part of the idea of regional conventions.

  it's not like they present much of anything new to the audience, it's the same old talks year after year, the same old information, yeah, repackaged a little, different themes, different illustrations, but the same information, obey the faithful slave, armageddon is imminent, go door-to-door, the usual.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 
  17

  Observed at the Memorial

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i went to the memorial the other night, there's a kingdom hall on the bus route back from a local college where i was doing some research and admiring the architecture.

  i'm in my street clothes, i look nice but i stood out like a sore thumb.

  i went in as it started and got a seat in the back.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 
  18

  Jehovah's Witnesses: A Coercive Organization?

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so in sociology we divide organizations up into three categories or types, you got utilitarian, voluntary, and coercive.

  utilitarian means people join to accomplish some purpose like selling food or making furniture, voluntary means they join up just for fun or to hang out with people like the freemasons or a lot of churches, and coercive means they don't really want to be there but they gotta because someone will punish them if they leave, so labor camps, armies, or prisons.. in a paper i wrote for a class a while back i argued that jehovah's witnesses should be seen as a coercive organization.

  yeah, people join up and they do leave, nobody beats you up if you stop attending or preaching, nobody imprisons you, shoots your dog, kills your kids that kind of thing, and nobody makes you join up either.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 
  11

  Awake! No. 2 2018 on marriage

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so i'm sitting here at the laundromat waiting for the bus, there's a kingdom hall across the street and somebody must come in here regularly cause i found about five different magazines hanging out on a counter by the door and three different jw.org business cards pinned to a bulletin board.

  i picked up an awake!

  for the hell of it, i could use a good laugh, and i ran across this right away in the article '12 secrets of successful families', yeah, you can probably tell where this is going:.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 
  7

  The Baptist version of "Listen Obey and Be Blessed"

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i share stories from time to time on here from my childhood in a fundamentalist baptist church, which sounds pretty damn similar to some of the stories i read on here from ex-witnesses, the fear and guilt-tripping, the sexual repression, the world being a dark and wicked place, i even went door-to-door once in a while to hand out chick tracts (wish i was kidding) and try to get people to come to our church... so they could pay the pastor's salary, but i digress.

  anyway, i don't remember a lot of it because my parents started bringing me to sunday school as soon as i could walk, so on sunday mornings my family dressed up and headed out the door bright and early to services.

  my parents stayed upstairs for adult classes and me and my brother went downstairs where all the kids met to sing songs together before we separated for "age-appropriate" activities.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Signs of company men

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  anybody seen a sign posted in a kingdom/assembly hall or another 'spiritual' place that made them laugh?

  i saw a sign in a janitor's closet at one assembly that said something like.

  'make sure to return your key to this supply closet.. 1 corinthians 14:40: 'do everything in an orderly fashion.'.

• 
  15

  'Spiritual food' and the global south

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i'm watching john cedars rebuttal of the annual meeting, and right at the start stephen lett starts going on and on about spiritual food, how nutritious it is, how filling it is, it comes across as weird but it doesn't help admittedly that the guy looks like bozo the clown forgot his act.

  but the thought just came to me as i'm eating dinner.. not everybody gets dinner.

  not everybody gets three meals a day.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 
  5

  Confidential

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i wanted to share a short story from my time studying that congregation (not studying with) where the elder told me 5 years to armageddon i thought some posters might enjoy, little mid-week chuckle that's what i'm going for here.. so this one elder in particular came across like he saw himself as a 'spiritual giant' (weird term cause i thought the nephilim caused all the problems before the flood but thats how jws talk about 'spiritual' people so hey, when in rome).

  it just came across in how he held himself and the kinda cold, superior way he looked at you... well, until one sunday at least.. so i came into the hall for the sunday service and i saw him strutting around by the 'information board' (not bulletin board, god forbid) with a manilla folder he'd scrawled confidential across enormously in black sharpy.

  he posted a couple letters and then strut into the sanctuary, where he got on stage to read for the watchtower study.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 
  27

  Infiltrated Elders?

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i'm watching john cedars commentary on the annual meeting from this last october, and at one point he shows a clip of garrett loesch talking about the struggles jehovah's witnesses faced decades before in the soviet union.

  he claimed that police officers, maybe the kgb, infiltrated congregations which met in secret by studying with jehovah's witnesses, getting baptized, and then working their way up to becoming elders.

  ceders jokes that this shows what kind of role holy spirit actually plays within body of elders, but another interpretation came to my mind just now.

  1. 
  2. 
  3.