How many JW's got disfellowshipped during 2011?

XPeterX

Do we know the number?How can we find out?

Iamallcool

well, thats a good question. my guess would be the usual 40,000 a year.

Black Sheep

Missing in Action can be calculated by comparing 2010 to 2011.

There are no DF statistics published.

00DAD

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." - Mark Twain'

The WT is very selective in what statistics they publish because they clearly do NOT want us to know what's really going on.

You or I will NEVER be able to get all the data one would need to do an accurate, detailed analysis of what's really going on with the WTBTS. The necessary data simply is not available to the public, including the R&F JWs. This is by design. The WT leadership clearly does NOT want us to know what's really going on. This is why they publish mis-leading BS like this:

"In some countries one marriage out of every two or three ends in divorce. But the above-mentioned survey indicated that presently only 4.9 percent of the Witnesses are divorced or separated from their mates." - Awake 1997 Sep 8 p.11 A People Taught to Love

Comparing the percentage of ALL JWs that are CURRENTLY married to an alleged statistic of DIVORCE RATES in "some countries" is a useless, deliberately misleading manipulation of data to push an agenda. It's comparing apples to orangutans.

Nevertheless, here are some websites you may find informative in regard to your question:

Jehovah's Witness Statistics - Paul Grundy's excellent jwfacts.com website.

Number disfellowshipped annually - 1.00%

This is based on the Watchtower 1992 Jul 1 p.19

"In recent years disfellowshippings worldwide have been approximately 1 percent of publishers."

One percent is a conservative estimate. For example, the Watchtower 1986 Jan 1 p.13 stated;

"It is to be noted, also, that during the past year, 36,638 individuals had to be disfellowshipped from the Christian congregation."

In 1985 average publishers were 2,865,183, so 36,638 represented 1.28%.

"Unfortunately, during the 1986 service year, 37,426 had to be disfellowshipped from the Christian congregation." Watchtower 1987 Sep 15 p.13

Of the 3,063,289 publishers in 1986, this represented 1.22%

World map showing net reduction in publisher numbers - JWN thread started by Cedars

Londo111

One too many OR seven million too few.

I was a statistic in 2011.

Gayle

of those df'd, about 1/3 get reinstated,, maybe that is on jwfacts.com

steve2

Gayle's right on the money. The Watchtower has reported that roughly one-third come back within a 2-year period (but I do not remember the reference). Beyond that time frame, it's anybody's guess. I'd say that, on average, the longer you stay away, the less the chance you'll go back - unless you're an outlier. It's the same with leaving an unhappy marriage - it can take a while to think beyond the dreary "comfort" of a bad marriage. Getting a life often comes later.

The number disfellowshipped is pretty steady from year to year - allowing for statistical fluctuations. Most expulsions are for "sins of the flesh" so we can conclude that a good number will serve their sentence, try to clean up their act "before Armageddon" - an excellent incentive for good intentions - and get their shameful bums back on the rear seats at their local kingdom hall.

Any criminal worth listening to will talk about how salutary their sentence was for them. For many, getting kicked out kick-starts a new round of conviction - unless they somehow engage their sleepy brain cells. Some chance.

Relatively few are expelled for apostasy. Most JWs - active and inactive or in transitional states of commitment - harbor some kind of deep belief that it is the truth.

I've often thought that the real threat to the Watchtower is not reasoned discourse, but membership apathy. Believer in personal responsibility that I am, I do not lay the blame for this creeping apathy at the door of the Watchtower Society but rather the very human tendency to become settled into the most convenient routine they can find.

Anony Mous

Well, it's fairly simple to calculate:

Take last year peak number of publishers, add this year number of baptisms (given they still publish those) and substract a .883% mortality rate (which is a global mortality rate) that should give you what the number SHOULD have been.

7,508,050 peak + 263,131 baptism - 68,619 natural death rate = 7,702,562 (what it should've been) and it's 7,659,019 so 43,543 'disappeared', Wikipedia says WT quotes 7.4M average so about 150,000 each year is 'churn' where people switch status between inactive, disfellowshipped or don't turn in frequent reports.

Technically we should compare last year peak with this year average but they don't publish those anymore

EDIT: Miscalculated the natural death rate, corrected.

just Ron

Not nearly enough

steve2

Technically we should compare last year peak with this year average but they don't publish those anymore

Thanks Anony Mous for the formula - it makes sense. Regarding your above comment, they do continue to report average numbers of publishers - see the annual Yearbook of JWs so it's fairly simple to compare the peak number of publishers for one year with the average number for the following year.

How many JW's got disfellowshipped during 2011?

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