This year, I again accompanied my JW wife to one day (Sunday) of the District Convention this weekend. For any who are interested, I offer these observations from the Sunday afternoon session:
A couple of things about the audience struck me as interesting. Usually JW audiences pretty much mirror the makeup of the general population in the city you happen to be in. This did not seem to be the case Sunday in two areas:
There were plenty of young people in this audience, but they seemed to be considerably outnumbered by the elderly by roughly two to one. I tried to be extra careful moving around at this convention because of the sheer number of infirm old people hobbling around with canes.
Also the session I attended was a pleasant 33/33/33 mix of African American, Hispanic and Anglo, which was far more integrated than the city we were actually in. This is not a criticism by any means, but it did become interesting during the drama.
The drama was a modern day 'Prodigal Son' parable. Compared to the abomination last year, this drama was well done and probably achieved the desired effect.
It starts off with a young man, apparently 19 - 20 years old. He wants to leave the family business, step out from behind his father's shadow and make his own way in the world. This of course, would involve sacrificing the flexible hours which would have allowed him to Pioneer. During the course of the family strife which ensues, it comes out that he is going to be working for a small software developer with 'Al' another young man, who misses a lot of meetings.
The next scene opens and you get to meet Al. At this convention, Al was African American. He didn't quite look like he had stepped out of the movie, The Matrix, but he was not far from it. Black leather jacket and shirt, black leather cap, cool sunglasses and a little bling. --From where I was sitting, I could see the backs of a lot of African American Witnesses go stiff when Al was introduced. The tension seemed to dissipate after a few minutes, but I was feeling distinctly embarrassed for awhile.
Things progress from this point. The protagonist, works longer and longer hours, starts dating a 'Worldly' girl, spends all the money his father had given him to pioneer, etc. Throughout all of this, his older brother is an absolute self-righteous, horse's ass.
The climax is reached when the two young men and their lady friends have too much to drink on the way to a concert. Al,who has imbibed the most, insists on driving and has an accident which he tries to pin on the main character. Both of them are arrested. The next scene parallels the one in the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life" where George Bailly (Jimmy Stewart) is tearfully praying for the alternate reality where he never existed to end. The young man gives a similar prayer for his old life back.
The two young ladies both state to the Police that Al was the driver, the main character is released, calls his father and begs to come home. The drama ends sometime later after he has been shown leniency by a Judicial Committee. It sounds schmaltzy to summarize it like this, but like I said, this drama was actually done very well. .
The concluding talk was given by an elderly Bethel gentleman named Samuelson. He devoted about 10 minutes to a review of the assembly which was fairly benign. Anybody who has ever attended a JW convention will know exactly what I'm talking about. --How happy "We" were to partake of this fine spiritual feast provided by Jehovah through the faithful slave; how happy "We" were to get four releases at this convention; how conventions were already planned for next year, etc.
I was starting to wonder if I would have to make good on a promise made to my JW wife; --That I would attend a regular congregational JW meeting with her if I could sit through an entire Sunday at the convention and not hear a single whopper told from the stage.
Samuelson came to my rescue when he started talking about how the "Faithful slave" had helped "Jehovah's people" to stay on the watch in modern times. He gave the usual dishonest nonsense about how the Watchtower had pointed out the significance of 1914 from the beginning of its publication and that the Gentile Times had expired right on time, as predicted in advance.. --Not technically lies, but statements deliberately crafted so as to deceive and hide what the true 'Significance' of 1914 had been.
Next he moved on to 1925 and the publication of the article "Birth of the [sic] Nation." He stated that, "They [The Bible Students] knew that Christ had started to rule in 1914, but it was not until 1925 that the fully understood what he had been doing up until then." He crossed the line here, as that is untrue. The truth is, it was not until 1925 that the Bible Students began to teach that Christ began ruling in 1914.
The next example of the faithful slave's faithfulness was the talk, Peace Can It Last? given by N.H. Knorr in September of 1942. Samuelson repeated the 1960 claim that Knorr predicted in advance that the Allied nations would win the war and the League of Nations would emerge from the abyss as the United Nations. I started a thread on this here:
..and one of my favorite posters, Leolaia stepped in and utterly demolished that claim. I can assure her now that the OP correctly summarized what was said at the conventions almost word for word. They really are repeating this tired old canard.