Wife just asked me to put up 2010 JW calendar. Theme text for year is 'Love endures all things. Love never fails,' I think. As I flipped through the pages of the calendar (apart from thinking, as stated in second Transformers movie, "Kitten calendar kitten calendar kitten calendar kitten calendar"), I assumed that since the theme was love, they might choose pictures to provide some evidence of the love JWs show.
So, what I found was: congregation meetings, Kingdom Hall construction, Ministerial Training School, Conventions & Assemblies, Disaster Relief, and...I forget the last one. It immediately struck me as curious that they did not show Field Service on this list of items that would provide opportunities to show love. Disaster relief was geared towards only those inside the organization, and the calendar clearly mentioned such (though I should hope that's not strictly true).
What I did not find was any evidence of love shown to anyone who is not one of Jehovah's Witnesses. With the amalgam of abilities available to a religion like this, the potential for doing real good for humanity is extraordinary. Imagine being able to build homes for people quickly, just as they build Kingdom Halls. Helping EVERYONE in a disaster scenario. Providing education facilities to teach EVERYONE, not just our own people. These are all things that other religions do.
The 'Come Be My Follower' book details that Christendom's efforts to help others are rendered irrelevant by the 'false doctrines and supporting of war'. Has the Society ever taught false doctrine? Certainly not...those were uh, "past truths". Did every other person in every other Christian religion blow the other guy up or pray for their deaths when war happened? There would be no way to prove that; that would be an assumption. Show us a picture with some random priest blessing troops, and that means every other Christian did the same thing, right? Of course. Right when this organization was being evaluated by Jesus Christ, supposedly, they were no cleaner than any other religion--if anything, they couldn't even hold onto the basic teachings of the Bible for holding onto Russell's false ideas ("wrong expectations").
Jesus said his followers would be known for the love they had amongst themselves. But he also mentioned that displaying kindness to your brothers only makes you no different from anyone else. Everyone does that. It is tragic that good people in this religion go through their whole lives believing they're the best, most loving people in the world. When in reality, their entire existence is mired in prejudice against everyone who is not them.
So...whenever I enter my kitchen, I'm reminded of that. Always a great way to start the morning.
SD-7