50,000 disfellowshipped, 30,000 reinstated

Gladring

As mentioned in the thread - http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/171251/1/JWs-on-BBC - on the BBC website under the beliefs section they state that "Elders disfellowship 50,000 to 60,000 Witnesses around the world every year. Each year, however, 30,000 to 40,000 are reinstated having "come back to their spiritual senses"."

Does anyone know where they could have got those stats?

How do those stats affect our interpretation of the annual reports - growth % etc.

Are the reinstated ones included in the growth? If so what is the true number of new recruits?

jeeprube

That's still a negative growth number.

sir82

Are the reinstated ones included in the growth? If so what is the true number of new recruits?

"Growth", as measured by the WTS, is strictly [no. of publishers this year / no. of publishers last year] - 1.

The "no. of publishers" amount is affected by:

-- new unbaptized publishers

-- newly reactivated publishers (used to be "inactive" per WT definition)

-- reinstated publishers (used to be DF / DA)

-- disfellowshipped / disassociated publishers

-- publishers who become inactive (turn in no reports for 6 consecutive months)

-- publishers who die

I have never seen any detailed accounting of any of those elements (although I am quite sure the WTS tracks at least some of them).

It would be interesting to know where the BBC got their figures from.

Seeker4

The disfellowshipping number roughly falls in the area that I've heard about for a few decades - and I can't imagine that that figure is going down! The saying used to be that c. 40,000 were DFed every year, but I'm not sure if that was just the US or a worldwide figure. I would guess it was just the US.

Reinstated is hard to say. That figure seems high to me, as from my experience most of those disfellowshipped never come back, and that indicates that over half are reinstated. My personal experience would indicate that maybe 20% come back - not 50%. But, I have no data to back that up.

I would also guess that fewer people seek reinstatement in this age of the Internet once they are out.

S4

slimboyfat

I think a yearbook from the early 1980s said that 40,000 were disfellowshipped for fornication in one year. That is the only time I have seen a figure published in the literature.

One would have thought the figure would be higher by now, but then again maybe not.

willyloman

Like seeker4, I too am skeptical of the reinstatement numbers - based solely on my experience. Of course, my experience runs 28 years, more than 20 as an elder who who tried to stay current with this type of information. What I saw: Significantly fewer than half came back.

The more telling statistic, however, is how many who came back came all the way back? Most reinstated people I knew came back wounded and never recovered. The vast majority (again, in my experience) came back because they were guilted into it by their families, who were generally pissed off at having to shun - or pretend to shun - them. So a lot of people limped back in, did their time in the back row, endured the silence and the humilation until the Thursday night that their names were read from the platform. Then they got the love bombing, and then they crept back under the radar and limited their JW involvement to the least effort possible. They got their families back, so it was all worth it. But afterwards, most of them were never fully committed.

wha happened?

Willyloman describes a very comman scenario. The guilt train back to meetings and reinstatement to gain access to family. I've been active for about 13-14 years b4 I fell out and I didn't see alot of reinstatements with a full time publisher as a result.

OUTLAW

50% re-enstatement is an unbelievable exageration..I agree with Seeker4 it`s much less....I read it was about 1in10 that come back.....Seeker4,figures 2 in 10...................2/3rd`s of all born in JW`s leave.......The exit rate of JW`s is staggering......Nothing like what the WBT$ publish`s.......................

Laughing Mutley ...OUTLAW

besty

my guess is 1% of pubs DF'd annually and 1/3 of those get reinstated - mainly for family sake I would think

SnakesInTheTower

I don't recall the reinstated number, but the 50K DF number was in a public talk outline. I went and looked at #115 ("How To Protect Yourselves From Satan's Snares) but it did not give a specific number. I do not know if that is because it was an updated outline that omitted the number or if I found the reference elsewhere when I worked that talk up eons ago.

It does match up with what we were told in elder's schools and MTS. However, I seriously doubt the 30K reinstated number.

Snakes ()

50,000 disfellowshipped, 30,000 reinstated

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