Slim:
You seem intent on quoting all these figures to prove something, but it isn't clear what. Is your message that JWs are really growing, despite the desire of many ex-dubs to see the organization crawl off and die? Or is it that the JWs are bucking the trend among all other churches and therefore they must be the "right" religion, which is the argument they themselves have often made?
We agree that organized religions are losing members at a rapid pace. There are lots of reasons for that, too many to list here. The JWs have been impacted by that same trend. They are no longer posting large increases year over year. Further, they are no longer bringing in large numbers of converts from the adult population, except in some third world countries where the promise of inheriting a trouble-free perfect world of material abundance in the very near future resonates with the masses.
There is a church here that has 5,000 members. Ten years ago, there were 150 congregants. A charismatic young preacher grew the church 30-fold. Does that mean he "has the truth?" California is full of brand new "warehouse" churches, attended by thousands of people every week. These churches did not exist a few years earlier. Is this a trend? Does it "mean" anything? Would you conclude that church membership is on the rise? And, if so, why are JWs in California not seeing the same kind of increase at their KHs?
Numbers are meaningless without context and can be used to prove whatever you want them to.
The numbers I like to use are these: All of the Kingdom Halls I've very been associated with have about the same number of members now as 15 years ago, despite the fact they are located in areas of the Western U.S. where the overall population has doubled or almost tripled in the same time span. I can only conclude that the dubs are losing their influence and, in fact, shrinking, even though if you took a census they might be up a point or two. They could post world-wide figures tomorrow showing 50% growth over last year, and it wouldn't change my perspective one bit. As far as I can see, they're in trouble in this part of the world.
And not just because their numbers are stagnant. The quality of dub life has eroded substantially. We recently had a visitor, a young woman in her late 20s who was raised a dub. Father a "prominent" elder, family used to be called "pillars" in the congo. She and her siblings have all left home and moved far away. All three of them have lived life on their terms, none of them is married to a dub, only one of them goes to meetings (sometimes) and her own children are not active at all, despite having been raised JWs. One of the young women's siblings is df'd, and the father will not allow his wife (the woman's mother) to go and visit her and her three grandchilden. As a result, their marriage is a sullen affair marked by constant fighting. The young woman sat in our living room and caught us up on "whatever happened to" all the young people she was raised with. One after another, as the soap opera continued, they have fallen into marginalized lives, and only a very few of them are "doing well in the truth," as she puts it. I listened to this history and could only think to myself: My God, what a tremendous failure this whole experiment was.
So, Slim, preach on! You lost me at "astonishing."
