This video re-enactment of the 1975 debacle is troubling on several levels, as many have stated here in this discussion. It seems the most disturbing, offensive area we all agree on is the blatant dishonesty, in view of all the recorded articles proving that the WT leadership created this teaching and endorsed it right up to its abject failure.
Of the 7 GB members, Mark Sanderson being the youngest would have made him about 10 years old in 1975; therefore, it had no real impact on him a young kid at the time. However, the other six men range in age from Samuel Herd around 82...down to Geoffrey Jackson about age 62 and various ages in between. These men would all have full knowledge of the teachings from GB 1.0 and lived through the feelings and reactions in the congregations.
What I find disturbing is how galling it is that they can try to distort the facts that are irrefutable as to the origin of this teaching. Are these men that claim a special spiritual enlightenment and a future “brother” of Christ so far fallen in their decency? Seriously, can they look themselves in the mirror each morning and really feel no shame for these fabricated and fraudulent videos?
On another note depending on where you lived and how much a “true believer” you were, 1975 did receive a variety of responses. Some continued living their lives as usual working, raising families, waiting to see what would actually happen.
I remember a brother, a friend of mine telling me when he was a kid, his father bought a new house in early 1974. The response from the congregation including his PO was scathing, along the lines, “Are you crazy? Aren’t you listening to the talks and counsel coming from the organization? You will never live in that house it’s only going to be a distraction, where’s your faith? A few short years later that chastised so-called “faithless” brother became the new Presiding Overseer, raising his kids in that nice new home. The original PO who was involved in the ridiculing fell away due to the 1975 fiasco.
Also, I personally know of two family men each with young children at the time (11-14 yrs. old) who felt compelled due to their faith and interpretation of things to sell their houses in 1973. The end never came. Over the years, they both exhausted their savings by renting and day-to-day expenses and were unable to re-enter the housing market. One is deceased the other is 87 years old still paying rent from a measly government pension.
The GB leadership whether today or 80 years ago has a lot to answer for; they have indeed ruined a countless number of lives of people who were mostly sincere and believed they were doing God’s will.