There is no doubt in my mind that the glory days of Jehovah's Witnesses are over. From my knowledge and experience with WT history, I would define the glory days as the decades of the 1950's, 1960's and early 1970's. With Knorr's great expansionary vision and discipline, dubs in the 1950's became a "somebody" in the 1950's. The grand International Assemblies got great press coverage and the cold war and threat of nuclear destruction provided rich fodder for Watchtower presses. In the 1960's we had yet another "end of the world" date to work for, the "Truth" and "Evolution" books, 6 month and then drop-'em accelerated Bible Studies, more huge assemblies and we felt good about ourselves, our religion and the work we did for our religion.
The GB and elder arrangement was introduced in the early 1970's and we all felt like the Organization was the place to be. We didn't stop to think that the WTS had the elder arrangement BEFORE Rutherford came in and gave fancy titles to all men who had power in his pet Cult.
Those days are long gone. No more can the WTS brag about being the "fastest growing religion" in the world. In fact, they might have the distinction of being the fastest DECLINING religion in the world as their cover-up of child molesters gains more momentum. No more can the WTS brag about how the US Military sends people to its assemblies to study dub efficiency in food preparation, handling and serving. Beautifully embossed books have been replaced with cheesy paperbacks. Bethels are downsizing. The WTS has been caught sleeping with the very whore they condemned for decades. The WTS has been caught being involved in a company that produces products for military use. The WTS has been caught lying to a government over their blood policy in order to have permission to peddle their garbage in that country. Their phony non-profit status has been exposed in France and they've been rebuked with a tax bill in the tens-of-millions of dollars. Researchers have caught the WTS lying and misquoting sources in their more important publications. Kingdom Halls are closing and being sold. Watchtower rules (especially over disfellowshipping) are changing almost daily in a frantic attempt at damage control. They've been caught lying on their very own web site. Important assemblies for elders are top-secret and require admission tickets. Elders are given marching orders through secret letters. Thousands of web sites and discussion groups have popped up in just the last few years which are devoted to exposing WT hypocrisy and fraud. Their good and honest members are quitting in droves leaving only not-so-good and not-so-honest people in their ranks. Their message of some sort of a "Kingdom Paradise" is not being heard as the din of their child-abuse policies drowns it out. Leadership in Brooklyn is clamping down HARD on its remaining forces, causing even more tired and worn-out people to leave their ranks.
They have no messenger to deliver their message, and their song is tired and old. Dubs slog from door-to-door in some sort of semi-coma, knowing they aren't doing anything worthwhile and are only fulfilling this duty to keep themselves from being bothered by their nosy local "glorious ones."
Dubs are now going to college and in college have their minds opened to critical thinking and real science. Once that happens, the Cult begins to lose their ever-needed grip. Every time the WTS speaks publicly about its problems, it shoots itself in the foot, but these days those statements are circulated around the world to hundreds of millions of potential viewers in mere seconds after they are uttered or written.
The biggest irony is that when things go badly wrong for them, their solution is to continue to do MORE of the things that caused them have things go badly wrong in the first place.
Yep. The glory days of the Watchtower are definitely over and they are sinking like a termite-ridden rotten top-heavy barge of garbage. It's no surprise to me, because that's what they are.
Farkel