Position on College Changed?

Maximus

Several have made outright statements and others have suggested that the Society's negative position on higher education has changed. 'The Society does not discourage higher education where I live.' Worse, 'apostates have made it all up--the Society has never discouraged education.'

Would you like to know the straight stuff? From "Our Kingdom Ministry" for June 2001 (km-E US 6/01, Vo. 44, No. 6, p. 2)

Service Meeting Schedule for Week Starting July 2

After Song 5 and 13 minutes of local announcements about turning in field reports, and encouraging shelf-clearing of overstocked Yearbooks.

15 min: Youths--Be Wise in Choosing Your Career. This is the first of three Service Meeting parts that will review Scriptural principles related to supplemental education. **Some Christian youths are pursuing secular careers through higher education, which is having a negative impact on their spirituality.** This part is a discussion between two parents and their teenage son or daughter. The youth is at a point where a serious decision needs to be made about future goals. Although some may want to pursue financial advantages, prestige, or comforts of life, the family examine the Bible to see what it recommends. (See Young People Ask, pages 174-5; The Watchtower, August 15, 1997, page 21, and September 1, 1999, pages 19-21, paragraphs 1-3 and 5-6.) The youth agrees that it is wise to pursue a course in life that will serve him or her well in achieving theocratic goals to advance Kingdom interests."

Should be an exciting three weeks. (Don't think you will hear, "Well, Randy, your mother and I don't mind the nursing home in our old age.") Would you like to be in this demonstration?

What do you think? Has the Society changed its position? Or is this just the old wink-wink, nudge-nudge game? Or ...?

Maximus

PS Oh, yes. There is a four-pager in this km titled "Can You Make Yourself Available?" All about Bethel service. A "special call is going out to those can make themselves available. Are you ready to respond with a willing spirit, similar to that of Isaiah?"

Farkel

Maximus,

: "This is the first of three Service Meeting parts that will review Scriptural principles related to supplemental education"

"Scriptural principals" related to supplemental education?" ROFLMAO!!!

: Oh, yes. There is a four-pager in this km titled "Can You Make Yourself Available?" All about Bethel service. A "special call is going out to those can make themselves available. Are you ready to respond with a willing spirit, similar to that of Isaiah?"

Well, there you have it! The society is definitely interested in having its younger members get a higher education! After all, pushing brooms and cleaning toilets for four years is the equal of an accredited college degree. Nate said that and he would have never lied to us, would he?

Farkel

think41self

Nope Maximus,

Sounds like the same old schtinky schtuff to me! peeeeewwwww [8>]

That is the thing that still has the ability to cause pain in my life now, the fact that I didn't go to college when I should have. You just touched a sore spot. OUCH!

But at least my kids will go...so hopefully I can stay with them instead of in a nursing home, eh?

think41self

peterstride

After graduating from high school, I was contemplating entering university. At the time I was living with my mom (she wasn't a JW), and she was married to a university proffesor. In the province of Ontario here in Canada, that meant that I could go to the same university that he taught at...for free.

However, the elders in the congregation I was attending, strongly discouraged me, even insinuating that I wouldn't be allowed to play baseball with them on Sunday afternoons, or hockey in the winter.

Sometimes I still feel numb from some of the things I went through while trying to be a "faithfull JW".

Peter Stride
Toronto, Canada

hybridous

I think that the official WT Society position is intentionally vague.

I live in an affluent area, and the local congregation is VERY tolerant of young JWs that aim for college. I would even go so far as to say...it is encouraged. I don't doubt that in other areas, congregations are very intolerant. I guess that the opinions of the local elders do a lot to shape the overall attitude of the congregation. Over here, the elders are either college educated or own very profitable businesses.

In terms of dollars and cents, I think that the WTS thinks it could profit more from educated JWs. More earnings mean that the JWs have more to give the WTS. Of course, this is a sword that cuts both ways: formally educated JWs are exposed to many ideas, and are perhaps likely to research their beliefs and WT dogma, therby spiraling head-over-heels into the realm of the inexplicable.

Copernicus

Maximus:

I appreciated your post – since I don’t get a KM anymore, I have no idea what current crop of crap is being served up in that not to be missed newsletter.

Several have made outright statements and others have suggested that the Society's negative position on higher education has changed.

Though your questioned was posed sarcastically, the answer is: of course they haven’t changed, and on this topic they never will. Highly educated slaves have never been in wide demand. Although there are exceptions of course.

In my area, the game for parents who want to see their kids get an education is the old “you can go to school if you pioneer” dodge. How sad to think that many will sacrifice their children’s future to avoid looking “weak” to the congregation. Even just a few years ago, it was considered an open challenge to the authority of the slave to seek a university degree. I suppose it makes you look like you don’t REALLY believe the end is near, or at least you’re hedging your bets, ha, ha.

Yes, the WTS is a rather all or nothing bunch. If the ship is going down, it’s going down with all hands on board.

Bon Voyage.

Had Enough

Hello peterstride:

My heart still breaks when I read posts like yours. I too wish now that I had turned a deaf ear to the rantings of the borg and bettered myself in the work-world through University or College.

It continues to boggle my mind, the control the elders, and on up the ladder, have/had over the lives of all us.

What a waste of a short life we have use of her on earth...to be dictated to by braindead, super-elder, robots.

Hello Maximus

Thank you for your topic. Your post has struck a nerve in me but I still appreciate it. I don't know now what the borg is trying to say about education. Just when I think I know what they think, something else comes out from them like this latest KM.

I thought they were trying to tell us before, it was OK to get an education to be able to support yourself and those in your care. I mean really...how many cleaning jobs are there out there?...

Then I heard about this KM and thought...Oh brother..here we go flip-flop again....What is it now?!!!!

Then I have to sit through a mother's obvious pride in telling me her son has been accepted to Bethel...all the while biting my tongue to grab her and tell her to open her eyes and "see" the real truth about what we've all been deceived by for so many years.

I care deeply for this "boy"...I've watched him grow up over the last 10 years...It just breaks my heart to think he will be so devotedly giving himself to the org. that will just use him and his youth for their own misguided purposes. He is such an honest and purely devoted boy who has struggled with his own inferiority feelings....being inferiorily compared to other naturally charismatic youths. Damn I hate these shackles I'm burdened with....

Had Enough (in so many ways)

teejay

Hello, Maximus (loved Gladiator, btw),

I'm with think41self on this issue -- this is a very touchy subject for
someone like me who was raised in the truth and has now reached
middle age. Although I finally enrolled in school last summer, it will
be years before I get a degree since I have so many other obligations,
and the degree is likely to do me no good. But hey, learning is fun, and
I love the classroom environment.

What I'd like to know is does the Society really expect the r/f to swallow
the direction to forsake a college education in this day and age? Has
there been no real growth in understanding over this issue? We have
entered the information age, and along with an economy that has forever
changed the way business is done globally, the days of getting out of high
school and going to work at the local factory is over. When I graduated
from hs in '76, there were places where one could hope to go to work and
feed a family, but many places like that have disappeared or readjusted
for the global economy. When once a hs diploma was needed, now a degree
is a must before one can even get an interview with a prospective employer.

Secondly, I wonder how the information will be received by young ones, or
by their parents. I wonder how widespread the notion is of "waiting on
Jehovah."

peace,
todd~who's been inactive for years

hybridous

deleted - off topic

hybridous

Whoops - wrong thread. My apologies.

Position on College Changed?

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