by Neo 91 Replies latest jw friends
Remember though, any growth is growth to them. .000001% is still seen as something to rejoice about. Personally, I think their religion is experiencing a great cooling off.
To add ... my father hated, hates and still can not stand Witnesses. Yet to shut my mother up, he went to the memorial each year. I don't think he was alone, and I know a percentage of that group is my father. He divorced my mother 16 years ago, and does not go to memorials now.
we always get the COMPLETE number coming in, but i wonder why there is never a complete number of those who left, became inactive, or got d'f'd every year. i wonder if there really is growth when the numbers are compared.
I'm not sure what constitutes a KH Bible study today. I compare it to High School graduation rates. It doesn't matter how many studies they have, but only how many studies actually end up becoming baptised publishers in the KH. It's a rare baptism that falls under the 6-12 mo JW indoctrination program. All WT statistics are subject to fraud and a type "ballot box stuffing" dishonesty in my opinion. Who could prove their numbers were wrong?- nobody at the KH, that's for sure!
Joker,
Growth rates do not prove a religion to be true, decline does not prove it false. There are relgions that grow faster than the JWS and relgions that are declining.
What people are concerned with here is to see that high control religions like JWs start to decline for the benefit of all the families that have been broken by their damaging disfellowshipping laws, and people that are having their lives manipulated based around lies.
Statistics over the last 10 years are showing a trend that should be of grave concern for the Watchtower Society, I doubt that you can deny that. To see over 1 billion hours being spent preaching and only 250000 baptised, mostly JW children does not speak well at all for the effectiveness of the Watchtowers out of date methods and teachings.
Thank you for the graph! We visual learners need that.
I would love to see a breakdown by country--3rd world countries in particular.
Figuring we all agree that most baptized are children and teens (which we know they love), then it just goes to show how manipulative they are. Those are ripe ages to mold, brainwash, and teach the mind to be a slave.
Among every four humans in the world, one of them is Muslim. Muslims have increased by over 235 percent in the last fifty years up to nearly 1.6 billion. By comparison, Christians have increased by only 47 percent, Hinduism, 117 percent, and Buddhism by 63 percent. Islam is the second largest religious group in France, Great Britain and USA (Muslims in USA are 10 million and Jews are 6 million).(year 2000 stats).....so with the population of the world at about 6 billion JWs make up about .001% and the USA population at 300 million JW's would be about .333%, correct me if my math is wrong but even if I'm remotely close the Witness numbers are very insignificant on the world-wide scale.........JW's have nothing on the big guys.
Thanks for the figures - higher growth than I expected. The poster tries to put a negative spin on it , but seriously , almost a 2% increase is not bad at all , and will cheer the suits in Brooklyn. It will be interesting to see a country by country breakdown. There is just so much momentum behind the Org and so much loyalty from most of the members that I just can't see any tailing off over the next few years. Only a schism , scandal or a WCG style "confession" is going to affect the WTS in the short term , and even that would have a minimum effect , similar to the post ' 75 blip. The figures probably mask a lessening of activity , however - although JWs are loyal , they aren't as zealous as they used to be.
No doubt third world countries still provide the bulk of the gains. Even in the more established lands , those who wish to see a decline in "High Control" groups like the WTS are likely to be disappointed - the trend in the West is definitely for a shift from institutionised religions to more "fringe" religions , like JWs , Mormons & Pentecostals http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=554452003 .
Bible studies are up because the rules for counting a bible study get easier and easier. Remember a few years ago with the doorstep bible study campaign announced at the District Conventions?
Converting those Bible Studies into publishers is the real trick. Do a comparison of Bible studies to baptisms for the past 20 years and you will find a sharp decline in the number of studies that result in a baptism.
If the increase is from 3rd world countries and not the industrialized nations then good. It means that the contributions will continue to dry up and the suits in brooklyn will sweat more. They will have more members and less ability to service them - which means those new members from the 3rd world countries will feel the pinch and begin to leave as well.
I look forward to the actual report and the country breakdown.
the doorstep bible study campaign
I forgot about that. There are plenty of high-hour literature distributors that regularly count these visits- even if they are only occasionally catching the person at home. As long as they reach him once a month, it doesn't matter that the study lasted 5 to 10 minutes, they proudly record a Bible Study.
If we (or they) were able to show the actual number of interested adults that allow a home WT book study in their home, the number would be staggeringly low.
Joker:
And this growth rate is still better than other religions'. Take the Catholic Church for example. Last year they reported a net loss of 305 parishes in the U.S.! They had more parishes 23 years ago than they do now!
You're missing the point here - would you care to compare, not with a denomination, but with christians, no matter what gathering place they attend? You see, the WTS makes the classic mistake (are they really so stupid?) of bbeing very selective in their comparisons. The situation downunder is that theere has been a shift, not away from christianity so much, as from the established churches into pentecostal and house churches. I suspect that you're seeing that in your land too, so the WTS is remiss in not factoring that into their own assessments.
