As another message said, I think they are sending mixed messages right now as well. More and more they are giving "Christians" more room to make their own judgments on "matters of conscience". Some of these are things that they would have just said were just plain wrong in times past. Even with the removal of the book study they are reducing the number of weekly requirements of the Witnesse rank and file.
At the same time, they are coming down on colleges and universities with a ferocity that hasn't been seen since the late sixties and early seventies. I would hardly call encouraging ignorance mainstream.
I think this attack on education is pretty much a last ditch effort to stop the bleeding, the people draining away from the Organization as they find out that their brains are actually good for something other than memorizing scriptures like Psalms 83:18 and Revelation 21:3,4.
With the economy getting worse, with no sign of getting better any time in the next 5 years or so, I don't think this will work. JW parents will NOT discourage their kids from seeking higher education. The reasoning will be that they are not "seeking riches" but that their college kids are trying to be self-sufficient.
When this last tactic fails, and the remaining elders are too old or too burnt out to successfully maintain entire congregations, they will have no choice but to open the flood gates, so to speak. They will have to become at least a bit more mainstream and change more of their doctrines, possibly even reversing some. I think they know that they will lose many current members to the changes but might gain even more by appealing to the masses.
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