When will the crashing and burning of this organization begin?

by easyreader1970 67 Replies latest jw friends

  • easyreader1970
    easyreader1970

    As I see it, there are three looming threats that all have the potential - individually or combined - to bring the WBTS to its knees, at least in the United States, anyway.

    1. Youth retention. The young people aren't buying it. The Watchtower will argue that faithless young people are giving in to demonic persuasion and leaving the Truth. I sumbit to you that this is not the case. Young people are just not stupid. We live in an age where we no longer have to take someone's word for something. Something can be questioned or verified within minutes. Immoral sex isn't causing young people to check out of the Watchtower Hotel, though that is what they would have you believe. Young people are smart. As time goes on, congregations (in the US) will become smaller and smaller.

    2. Fewer males able to teach. Thanks to Number 1, there are fewer males taking the lead. The elders and even many of the ministerial servants now are fifty or sixty years old. Existing men are being overworked and there is no relief coming. Unless the Watchtower suddenly allows for females to start teaching, in about ten years there aren't going to be enough brothers to successfully carry out all of the work.

    3. Science. Science and atheism are enormous problems for the JWs right now. They no longer publish science-like articles in the Awake! anymore. This is because, with a couple of searches on Google or Wikipedia, the Watchtower can immediately be called on their bull$hit. Immediately. This isn't 1981 when it took some effort to get down to the library where we likely wouldn't even find the sources that the Awake! used in their articles. This is also why they haven't had another edition of that lame Creation book since 1984 (or whenever it came out). It is becoming more difficult to reconcile God's creation with "how the universe actually works" so they will now begin ignoring it.

    As a side note, I have heard three separate talks (one at a convention) where they did not deny the creation of the universe in a massive explosion. They admitted that the universe is 14.7 billion years old, based on current scientific evidence. However, they do deny a random "big bang". The energy that caused the explosion would have had a First Cause, which was Jehovah. I had mixed feelings about the comment, but it's evident to me that some science is difficult to refute. It was their way of saying that they are not "behind the times" when it comes to science. They even acknowledged that the Earth took billions of years to form. But they're not budging on the "God created Adam from dust" business.

    My point, though, of all this is that the WBTS seems to be losing its grip - on everthing. Once the infrastructure of congregations starts to crumble, there won't be much else to do. Their only alternatives will be to:

    1. Allow sisters to teach. They will do this as a sign of progression but in reality it is a sign of desperation.

    2. Do like many other religions have done and stop denying science and evolution. If you cannot sufficiently explain why Jehovah would give man vestigal tail bones and ear muscles, you need to let go of the fairy tale. Allow for God to have caused the "big bang", but don't tell me that Eve was made from a spare rib.

    3. Stop driving away young people (and many older ones) with unscripturally rigid laws and regulations that don't even make sense 3500 years after they were written.

  • cantleave
    cantleave

    I think they will harden their stance. The GB mk II are in the mould of Jaracz, brow beating, despotic control freaks.

  • sir82
    sir82

    If you're looking for a spectacular crash and burn, odds are you won't see it.

    There is a significant portion of the world's population that needs to be directed, controlled, pushed. If the WTS didn't exist, the same people who are now JWs would very likely be part of some other, fundamentally similar organization.

    JWs are hardly unique in being a high-control group.

    That said, the organization has started to morph into something else. What that "something else" is, I don't think even the leaders have any idea. They certainly have no master plan.

    It is possible, though improbable, that some huge scandal may cause a quick downfall.

    A far more likely scenario is a peak in a few years time, followed by a gradual, decades-long slump into irrelevancy and/or mainstreaming, sort of like the Mormons, who are at least superficially accepted by the world at large.

  • straightshooter
    straightshooter

    I agree that it will be extremely difficult for the GB to bend. They feel that God directs them and that they are right. The majority of the rank and file will always stay loyal because that is what they have always been taught to do.

  • leavingwt
    leavingwt

    They'll be going strong, long after I'm dead, IMHO.

    7 million strong and growing. If Rutherford could see them now!

  • Meeting Junkie No More
    Meeting Junkie No More
    the potential - individually or combined - to bring the WBTS to its knees, at least in the United States

    I am probably in the minority here, but I don't think you have to wait too long, easyreader. I think the whole thing is a house of cards, and a descent into oblivion isn't too far off. With all of the closing of Bethels etc., I think the deck chairs are just being rearranged on the Titanic, if you know what I mean! It will be a MASSIVE AWAKENING, and EXODUS in my view, between now and 2014.

  • sabastious
    sabastious
    I think the whole thing is a house of cards

    I agree, but those "base-cards" are heavily guarded by many mental tactics and redundancies. I'd say hell freezes over before they allow those cards to be removed from the house.

    -Sab

  • LostGeneration
    LostGeneration

    Think of those who left in the early 80's during the so called "apostasy" they must have thought it was the end of the WT when Ray exposed them....

    Think of those who woke up in 95 with the "generation" revision. They probably thought the same....

    Everlasting Life and the resurrection are powerful drugs (carrots)....people will literally live to die for them. Sacrifice 70 or 80 years here and now for eternity later.....thats a no brainer

    As to the OP's original points, all three of those will lead to a slow and steady exit over the next hundred years, but no crash and burn.

  • Ding
    Ding

    Much as I would like to believe that the WTS is imploding, it didn't take internet-savvy people to figure out that the end didn't come in 1874, 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925, 1941, or 1975, yet like the Energizer Bunny, the WTBTS keeps going and going with Armageddon just around the corner.

  • undercover
    undercover

    The WTS will continue to evolve to survive. If a JW from 1935 were to be resurrected and saw JWs of today, he wouldn't recognize them. Hell, JWs from the 60s are much different than the JWs of today. In another 20 years, they'll be different than the JWs of the 90s and 00s.

    This is a group that survived the 1975 debacle. They're not going to disappear overnight.

    It does appear that currently the leadership is opting for more attempts at control, using fear and guilt. I think that shows that the current leadership is at a loss on how to deal some of the cultural changes and the new technologies that are damning to a lot religions in general, not just theirs. How they deal with that will result in either a smaller, but more dedicated group of followers or a mainstreaming and loosening their grip, but increasing numbers who at least identify themselves as JWs even if not zealous adherents.

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