JWs and the General Public: A Tragi-Comic Paradox

by Room 215 3 Replies latest jw friends

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  Room 215

  It's bizarre to me for a religion as public as they are, and as obstensibly devoted to delivering the one and only Message For The Ages, with their tireless pounding on the public's doors, that they are remarkably averse to delivering their message openly -- on the air and in a public forum.

  I suspect they know most of their core beliefs are indefensible, and downright cartoonish in their unwillingness to come to terms with unassailable facts of sicence and history relating to evolution, the age of the earth, the flood etc. and know they would be laughed off the stage at any public airing.
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  Jeffro

  The modus operandi of JWs is to catch people off guard, and generally (at least) two against one. Turning up with a rehearsed spiel at someone's door unannounced gives them an advantage over the typical 'mark' - generally a person going through some particular hardship who might be 'responsive' to a sparkly delusional fiction.

  Trying to impart the message in more public forums provides too much opportunity for prepared rebuttal, which spoils their tactics.
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  jamiebowers

  Don't forget that the door to door "ministry" is busy work for the sheep. It keeps them out of trouble by not giving them a lot of time to think, educate themselves, and partake in recreation.
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  WTWizard

  I remember reading, right in their own Bible, that Jesus spent a lot of time preaching to people right out in the open. He could preach to a crowd of thousands of people, and get a good number of them to listen to the message. Very few, aside the rulers that were threatened by the message, actually objected. Many did have flimsy excuses to not move forward, but few actually protested.

  Compare to the witlesses. They have to go from door to door, usually in pairs. You get one householder that doesn't have time to prepare, and the witlesses place pressure on the householder to accept the littera-trash. Then they get put on the spot to let the witlesses return, usually before they have time to thoroughly cross-reference anything. Most of them are not very literate with the Bible, so they believe the scams that the witlesses have the monopoly on applying it properly. And once they get going, they are scared by "Satan is trying to lead you away from our message". They get pulled to boasting sessions--which are always held in closed buildings.

  Now, I bet that, if the witlesses held their meetings in the open like Jesus did, they would get plenty of walkouts and even more bad publicity.