Witnesses increase by 44% in 7 years Study Finds: 2001-2008

by Joker10 59 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  sir82

  We have a fairly large hispanic community yet the local spanish congregation has not grown much in the last 20 years.

  Different zones of the US are very different.

  In the area where I grew up (Great Lakes - Midwest) there were a pretty big number of Hispanic congregations, but little growth in them. But in that area, there was very little immigration.

  Where I am now (Mid - Atlantic Southeast) there are (or least were, until the economic meltdown) literally hundreds of Hispanics moving in every week. Here is where there is big growth - not only from JWs moving in from their country of origin, but also dirt-poor non-JW immigrants jumping at the chance to join a ready-made community filled with people with similar backgrounds.

  It's not so much the ethnic group as it is the number of immigrants. Most immigrants to the US are Hispanic, so in the zones where they are immigrating to, there is a big jump in the number of JWs.
• 

  Finally-Free

  Any "increase", whether real or imagined, doesn't serve as evidence that they have the "truth". Any "increase" simply means that more people are being duped than in the previous year.

  If there is in fact an "increase" it's probably due to excessive breeding in the JW ranks, and the kids are not yet old enough to tell the cult to f*ck off.

  W
• 

  slimboyfat

  There was an article in the Review of Religious Research recently that discussed in part the immigrant contribution to JW growth.

  It says 12% of Witnesses in the US are foreign born, compared with 7% in the population as a whole, which would indicate to me immigrants have played an important but not overwhelming role in Witness growth.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/170794/1/Article-on-JW-growth-in-the-US
• 

  dinah

  IF there is an increase in America, they are reporting illegal aliens' field service time. Around here, the Spanish congregation is HUGE! BUT not counted in the official numbers (that the gubment publishes). Include the number of illegals in the country and there you have it. An increase. Well, I'll be damned.
• 

  drew sagan

  from my own non statistical analysis it seems as if the immigration of mexicans to America just might be a major factor. The Watchtower Society actually started a program in which it teaches english speaking Americans Spanish so they can join in on those territories (anybody familiar with this? I know a number of people who took part). Spanish congregations where also growing steadily and I knew a number of americans who started to move to them to "help where the need was great".

  My thinking was that if the WTS is going through the effort to set up language courses the potential for growth in the foreign language field must be very important to them.
• 

  sir82

  The Watchtower Society actually started a program in which it teaches english speaking Americans Spanish so they can join in on those territories (anybody familiar with this?

  Oh yeah - and it's not just Spanish. If there is a large enough group of immigrants in the region, there are also classes in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Sign Language, you name it.

  I expect that this will be a commonly repeated message in years to come. "Can't be a missionary? Well, why not learn another language and get missionary-like results?"

  It would have a very strong appeal to a significant subset of JWs. On the other hand, JWs are trained to be intellectually lazy, and the thought of learning a new language is overwhelming to many of them.
• 

  Joker10

  Sorry. I meant a 44% increase from 2001 and not 1991.

  And weren't you the one criticizing the Pew poll, the one about how 63% of people raised as JWs eventually leave the organization, for having a "too small" polling sample?

  Yes. I believe this latest survey is more accurate the Pew. Pew's study couldn't find any Witnesses residing in several states.

  The increase from 2001 to 2008 is 30.4%, or 4.3% per year. That is higher than the 2.5% cited by Farkel , and quite a bit less than the 43.8% cited by Joker10 .

  Leolaia, how do you figure? 583,000 people on top of the 1,381,000 is 44%.
• 

  truthsetsonefree

  The poll likely allows self-identification as the criteria to judge whether someone is a JW - which allows hundreds of thousands of disfellowshipped people, who still somehow belive "it's the truth", to call themselves JWs when an anonymous "worldly" pollster asks them.

  I think you have something there sir82.

  Isaac
• 

  shopaholic

  The poll likely allows self-identification as the criteria to judge whether someone is a JW

  Many people that have studied with JWs at any time, have JW relatives or were raised as JW will identify themselves as JW even if they were never baptized. They check the box of the religion they came the closest to joining or the most familiar one. The poll findings are skewed.
• 

  sir82

  Yes. I believe this latest survey is more accurate the Pew.

  Why? Because you like its findings better?

  Pew's study couldn't find any Witnesses residing in several states.

  "Couldn't find any"? Or used a sample that happened to concentrate on states having a higher JW population? Are JWs so evenly distributed that each state has the same proportion in it?

  Is a poll automatically invalid if it does not "find" all categories of respondents from each state in the US? Should it also include respondents from each county in each state? How about every street?

  Maybe you could take an introductory course in statistics from the local university, learn about random samples, bell curves, standard deviations, etc. etc. Oh, wait, never mind - I forgot how "dangerous" universities are.