How much time have they bought themselves? How long can they stretch it now?

by Psychotic Parrot 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  OnTheWayOut

  I think within 40 years they are gradually going to lose members due to the unfulfilled expectations.

  Just my opinion, but I think the GB doesn't care about "the next generation" of JW's. These guys are all over 50 years old, so they are not really going to worry about how people will have to clean up their mess 40 or so years from now.

  When you are in crisis mode, you deal with just the crisis. No long-term planning is in place. They are realizing that they cannot maintain any "growth" without reducing the requirements for being a member. Back in my mother's day, a "publisher" had to put in a minimum 10 hours a month. In my nearly 20 years active, I rarely put 10 hours in. Now, one hour is okay and some put in the 15 minutes. They have parents claiming 4 hours simply because they drag their children into the religion and there are tons of fakers on the hours.

  Donations and baptisms are down- I believe the bulk of baptisms in the last 3 years came from post-1995 children of JW's- they saw the end wasn't so imminent and had kids. Those kids are now 12 to 14 and they already dipped into the younger ones for new recruits. Now, they are dipping younger and younger to get them to be "regular publishers." These ones growing up will leave and WTS needs a new doctrine to restore urgency so their parents will tell them "Just wait a few years for Armageddon."
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  not sure yet

  AllTimeJeff.- Exactly my thoughts on this. I've never seen those generations so clearly explained. On the board I feel I identify myself easier with those of 'my' generation in the organisation.
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  siy
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  agonus

  "When you are in crisis mode, you deal with just the crisis. No long-term planning is in place."

  Exactly. Which is why the WT in the long run will ultimately fail.
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  BluesBrother

  Like any good scam, the WT can continue as long as there are people willing to buy into it...I am not saying that the G B sit around planning the next episode of a deliberate scam - I suspect that they are the victims of their own false reasoning having been institutionalised so long.

  But scam it ultimately is and when one prophecy fails they just go back to the drawing board and come up with something else. The oldies have invested too much of their lives to dare think that they are wrong, and the youngsters never understood the past anyway.....and the New World sounds so good!
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  Borgdrone

  I asked my sister about the most recent Generation definition change, and she said we do not have much longer to wait for this system to end now. She said to me to talk to her husband because he could explain it better to me. He is an elder. I decided not to talk to him.
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  WTWizard

  Actually, even longer than that. All it takes is that one anointed who was born in 1914 and anointed sometime before 1935, living to the age of 120. Along that time, someone else is born and ultimately accepted as "anointed". If that person also lives to 120, it buys them until 2154--and that's if they don't string yet another generation to the garland.
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  Cold Steel

  This is fascinating indeed.

  Must we assume that something will happen "within" a generation that it must happen at the END of that generation? Many evangelicals started the "generation" countdown in 1949 with the creation of Israel. The JWs, however, believe that the gathering was all spiritual Israel and that other thing -- that Jewish state -- was only a coincidence.

  There must have been a lot of people who squandered their savings and their retirements over the last several decades. "Millions now living will never grow old!" That was the saying, wasn't it?
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  Black Sheep

  It's a percentage game.

  They are gambling that less people will leave because of the change, than would have left without it.

  For many, this change will be further than they can stretch it.

  We have to wait and see how much effect it will have. The bOrg will never disappear without the GB capitulating, even ATWA and Branch Davidians still have stragglers following them.

  Chris
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  TD

  They really haven't bought themselves a huge amount of time. They've simply diverted attention from deeper problems.

  A clock started ticking in 1935 when thousands of people were told that they were the Great Multitude of Revelation. That clock is still ticking and it can't be stopped without major doctrinal surgery. Few, if any who were adults in 1935 are alive today. In JW theology, those who fall into that category are neither the "anointed" nor the "Great Crowd".

  The development a third class of Christians who do not attain one of the two salvations that JW's believe Revelation 7 describes is a huge, huge problem. It robs the JW faith of all its meaning. Yet every day that group grows larger.

  What possible reason would anyone have to convert to the JW faith, if you are simply going to grow old and die in this "System of things" exactly like everyone else? What possible reason is there to maintain integrity if both those who do and those who do not both end up dead and waiting for the same resurrection?