russia's fsb raids jehovah’s witness office in occupied mariupol.. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/01/15/russias-fsb-raids-jehovahs-witness-office-in-occupied-mariupol-a83726.
In a world view, where its all about them, its very easy to see how this is going to spin up in the Watchtower world. However, the reality is that Jehovah's Witnesses are not the only religion attacked by Russia's FSB. The Bihai, The Church of Latter Day Saints and other local minority faiths are also on the list of prohibited faiths.
Why? ... because Russia is at war, and any group that is not supporting the state ... is an enemy of the state. Its that simple.
i know of a lovely old sister who has been a jw for several decades now who openly expresses doubts about jw interpretations.. she does it in such a lovely way and everyone loves her.
she is such a sweet old soul, makes everyone happy around her.. she has said things like- even if we have got it wrong about this and that i still believe the bible is gods word”.
she answers up regularly and she goes on ministry groups but like most of us she is definitely jwlite, we don’t really do door to door work anymore.
Lovely old sisters with different views, are viewed as harmless eccentrics ... provided they are not actively promoting their personal opinions. However, I don't think that there would be many congregations, where they would give such ones a totally free hand. In the end, she'll get an initially kind shepherding call, to tone it down ... but it will get harder the next time, the Elders have to come calling.
So Elena ... sadly ... unless you want to get given a loyalty test by a couple of Elders as well, its far better to keep your views, your own. It the part of the high cost of being a PIMO.
are any or all of the gb from jewish descent?.
why are they so fascinated with following ancient jewish 'principles' ?.
isa 43:10, 44:8 ' you are my witnesses ' which they based their religious identity on, jehovah's witnesses, yet those verses address the jews, not christians, which they profess to be.. jesus said in ac 1:8 'you will be witnesses of me ', .
While I value the comments of others, this time I'd like to differ, to state that the Governing Body has deliberately made our religion into a Judain sect ... with a light painting of Christian overtones. And my proofs is seen is not what is written, but what is done.
For example, consider the balance of teaching time spent between talking about OT topics and characters and NT topics and characters. What do we see? It is obvious that the ratio is at least a 75/25 split, in favor of Jewish themes. Yet we know that in the NT story, there is at least 25 faithful men (not counting the many women) who God kept their names alive for our benefit, whom we NEVER hear of, bar one or two.
What about the actual message we hear from the platform? What do we hear all the time? Answer ... the negative and degrading topics of sin and judgement. How Samson killed all the Philistines because they worshiped false gods, how King David murdered women, children and the elderly on his righteous raids in the Jordan ... or how Jehovah is going to kill literally 99.9% of the world's population very soon, just like he did in Noah's day. Conversely, let us think about Jesus' most important message to mankind; the sermon on the mount. Does his words of hope and triumph over weakness, mesh with all the killing and violence we normally hear at the meetings? It doesn't of course. Nether do we hear about Jesus condemnation of his previous rule based faith.
Why?
Simply said, people in a rule based religion are easier to control, it demands unity of thought and purpose ... and in our case, it was important that the Jehovah's Witnesses religion, looked drastically different to the classic Christian faiths in the world today.
future gb: "please come back!
all is forgiven!".
would it work?
If the Governing Body only let you, me and the rest of the guys on this forum onto the Writing Committee, we might just be able to produce a halfway decent religion out of it.
future gb: "please come back!
all is forgiven!".
would it work?
You know NotFormer, its actually quite an interesting thought that could have some traction.
Imagine a WatchTower study articular discussing Disfellowshipping, introducing a comment like ... "should a disfellowshiped person be separated from the truth for some years, it is likely they have suffered immensely being in the world and are already in a repentfull condition. Like the prodigal son, should not an extraordinary measure of forgiveness by congregational Elders be shown, when they consider the nearness of the Great Tribulation" ... or words that effect.
Imagine all the parents of disfellowshiped children that night, they'd be hot on the phone to their wayward kids.
Tie this all to confidential letter the body of Elders ... and boom ... an easy in.
the kingdom hall is still empty.
even with amalgamation of 2 congregations.
the elders are handling the microphones and there was only one comment from zoom at the watchtower.
The thing is ... all the changes that are blowing our minds at the moment ... mean nothing to people in the world.
the kingdom hall is still empty.
even with amalgamation of 2 congregations.
the elders are handling the microphones and there was only one comment from zoom at the watchtower.
Of course beards are not going to make 'Jehovah's Witnesses' more attractive.
Just as the move for the congregations to look more modern by requiring publishers to bring ipads to the meetings didn't do anything, wearing suits, beards or bathers isn't going to make any difference to worldly people either. In actual fact, it might be more off putting, for a newly interested person to visit a meeting for the first time, only to see a confused bunch of tablet holding Mennonites.
Has beard wearing Jehovah's Witnesses cracked the news cycle yet?
No ... it just another non even.
for those of you who are pimo, how do you feel it may be effecting your mental and physical health?
is it easy to pretend to be what you are not?
how do you feel about falsely supporting the pimi which builds them up and therefore an org you don't believe in?
Talking from my own experience as a PIMO, I'd say that there is an emotional cost in being one.
The lack of being able to express yourself or talk about troublesome doctrines for me has been hard. As to, is the fear of being outed by somebody I may know. HOWEVER, it was part of the calculation I made and accepted, in view of my own family circumstances.
But in actuality I understood, that there is no pain free option for people like us. Deliberately sinning to get disfellowshiped, disassociating oneself or just walking away, all come at a cost, too. And for some in their own unique situations, they might have chosen one of them.
Ultimately though, I believe that not playing the victim and accepting the responsibility of my own decisions, whatever they may be, is the key in keeping stable mentally.
Hope it helps.
so, i finally saw the annual meeting video part 2.. this is the one with the “new light” on who might survive armageddon, vs. those who do not.. in summary, for those of you fortunate enough not to have to sit through it, it’s something like this:.
old light: once the “great tribulation” starts, that’s it for non-jws.
the “door of the ark” is closed.
A few years back I had an interest in unreadable psyphers and communications, from the likes of number stations. And while no one other than the recipients can decode these messages, an important thing that can be not hidden is the frequency messages are sent. When messages are sent regularly, most intelligence services are not that interested, however if the tempo increases, then they become concerned.
You could apply this thinking to what is happening now, regarding our 'new light'.
Typically, a doctrine or view changes every now and then, and we get informed through a letter, a District convention talk or at a AGM. However the last 18 months has seen a level of change not seen since the 1980s and to me, this is the clearest indicator of a turmoil existing within the Governing Body.
Now, while we may not not know the real reason why the Governing Body has really flooded us with this quite radical 'new light' (at the moment), the volume of it, for me is more telling than the actual messages themselves..
to all those on this students on this forum, i would love to know what your view is?.
Gavindit, if this is a serious question, a better question to ask would be ... When does the 1000 year reign begin? This is because, it has moved over the years with the dates involved in the establishing of Christ's Kingdom.
