How the Watchtower MELTDOWN fits in the stream of time

by Terry 23 Replies latest jw friends

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  Terry

  Because of the Internet and general osmosis, I think that JW's will overtime become just another mainstream religion that nobody notices.

  It can be done. It takes authority with a new sense of purpose. Leadership.

  Mormons are a good example of this. If you look at their origins, battles, weirdness and transformation over time you can see what is possible.

  The Worldwide Church of God is another example.

  Mainstream Christianity can handle End Times nonsense as long as it is kept inside a bubble of fictionalized speculation such as Tim LaHaye's LEFT BEHIND series or HAL LINDSEY'S ministry. Admittedly, Lindsey is on the fringe of the evangelicals, but he isn't considered apostate as such.

  Where the Jehovah's Witnesses are stuck and cannot move forward is in confronting the violent rhetoric of Judge Rutherford and the nasty tone

  of the era which made JW martyrs.

  The truly "successful" ministers right now are SELF-IMPROVEMENT pastors who make christianity about YOU and not God, per se.

  Joyce Meyers, Beth Moore, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren make you feel good about your life and your future. God is your constant pal and is rooting for you.

  The death and destruction scenarios are kept way back in the murky shadows.

  Let's face it, Jehovah's Witnesses achieve a lot of self-importance from condemnation of others. It would be a radical about face to suddenly become

  nicey nice.
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  Quentin

  But, as you point out it could be done. All the jw's need is another Nathan Knorr to take the lead, with a Fred Franz kept in a locked room, after all the wt IS an adventist group, yet even 7th Day Adventist have managed to become mainline. When we were active there were three MAIN points of contention; pledge of allegiance in schools, blood transfusions and military service, Otherwise, we used our CANNED Bible knowledge to hammer away at Christendom, the UN and government in general. Mostly done in a nice, quite, subtle way. Of course there were exceptions, like the time a HH jerked all of Jimmy Jones literature out of his book bag and tossed it in the yard. Didn't do anything but stiffen our resolve to continue rattling doors.

  There are a lot of Church's that go from door to door. All they do is hand you a tract, or business card and INVITE you to come visit "our" Church. I think door to door as we knew it is about over. I believe in future the wt will resort to knocking on a door with two invitations; invite to Public Talks and a tract to have a Bible study. Passing out a tract would let the tract do all the talking, no need to hang around and give a canned sermon. An invitation to the Public Talk would be even more simplistic. Car groups could cover a lot of territory that way. Wouldn't be surprised to see them pass the plate at Public Talks either. Most folks that go to a Church expect that.
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  life is to short

  As it was, Kingdom Halls were havens of misfits in the eyes of the community, the state and the mainstream christian milieu.

  You are spot on there, I always thought that as a kid, there were just so many strange people at my hall, but I was told Jehovah brings in the humble ones and sometimes they are a little different. There were so many times I would want to hide having to go door to door with some of the JW's because of how they acted in public.

  Your post Terry is great by the way.

  LITS
• 

  LongHairGal

  Terry:

  Thanks for another good post.

  exwhyzee:

  When I came in over 20 years ago, there were some of those "Old Guard" types around. While they weren't necessarily weird, they were arrogant sorry to say. If they experienced persecution of any sort during the WWII era they thought who the hell they were and they were in their own little clique. I guess they figured it was some "badge of honor" or medal and these people never fully accepted JWs like me who came in a few decades later.

  I saw old timers contemptuous of younger people. The thing they don't realize is that the world is a harder place to live in and in THEIR day people were more humane. So, I got tired of their judgmentalism.

  Some of these people and a few others acted as if me and others my age in the congregation "owed" somebody something or had to "prove" something. I suppose a working woman who came out of the hippie generation with an education and decent job isn't "spiritual" enough unless she was bleeding or imprisoned.

  That is the impression I got, loud and clear.