by james_woods 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I remembered last night that the JW of old used to call certain members "Colporteurs". It probably meant roughly what we would now call pioneers.
I looked it up in my dictionary - and guess what? It actually means "door to door magazine sales person, or a person who sells or gives away religious tracts".
What a refreshing note of honesty! I guess it was a little too honest for a group as deceptive as the WTS, so now we have pioneers.
When I heard that word, I always thought of the American composer Cole Porter. He wrote songs like "I Get A Kick Out of You", and "I've Got You Under My Skin".
But I don't think the WTS sent out people to spread good music.
what an interesting question. I never thought about it before, so once I read your post I looked it up on wikipedia and found this:
"Colportageis the distribution of religious publications, books, tracts, etc., by carriers called colporteurs.
The term is an alteration of French comporter, "to peddle" as a portmanteau or pun with the word col (Latin collum, "neck"), with the resulting meaning "to carry on one's neck". Porter, is from Latin portare, "to carry."
The American Bible Society and the American Tract Society were among the largest organizations involved in colportage in the United States.
The term may also be seen referring to any kind of book peddling, not only the religious ones."
So they admitted to being book peddlers, eh? Thanks for bringing it up - very interesting
I looked it up when I first made contact with the JW's.
It's much more of an elegant term than "pioneer," don't you think?
Sylvia
| Thanks for that. I never knew. Did you notice that they used French and Latin words and terms, such as persona non grata? What other non-English words did the GB use? |
An old, old sister used to refer to the meetings for FS as a rendezvous.
Sylvia
Ah yes, the notorious "rendezvous for service"...we used to say that all the time in the 1960s, but then some CO came around and said not to use it anymore.
It sounded a little too much like illicit sex. Yes, I am being serious.
He further expleained that it would be called "meeting for service" from then on - but speculated that after the meeting for service, if more than one persons drove their cars, and you agreed to meet up out in the territory, then meeting that way after the first official meeting could be called a "rendezvous for service". However, as it still sounded kind of nasty, this was still discouraged.
This was about the time we were told not to say "bulliten board" anymore. It sounded too much like Bull, which could possibly suggest BS. It was to be called "information board" from now on the the newspeak.
My god, George Orwell could not have thought up some of the weird terminology the JWs have created.
Jehovah's Witnesses gather together at the Kingdom Hall for spiritual intercourse with one another. Also known as 'having a spiritual good time'. They refuse to do this with the shunned.
Well, going a little further on the "newspeak" - there is one group that has even the Witnesses outdone on making up their own special language -
Scientology. I printed out their glossary of special terminology - and it ran exactly 29 pages single sided. It makes for some really incredible reading.
Some little gems:
symbiote: a term which in Dianetics is extended beyond the dictionary definition to mean "any or all life or energy forms which are mutually dependent for survival." The atom depends on the universe, the universe on the atom.
third party: one who by false reports creates trouble between two people, a person and a group, or a group and another group. See also "third party law"
third party law: a law which states that a third party must be present and unknown in every quarrel for a conflict to exist. Or, for a quarrel to occur, an unknown third party must be active in producing it between two potential opponents.
truth: The exact consideration. Truth is the exact time, place, form and event.
and on and on - to the point of Tom Cruise style raving insanity. Barking at the moon mad.
"rendezvous for service"...James...
Wow...I had forgotten that...goose bumps...
