What's The Biggest Difference In Today's JWs And The Witnesses From Decades Ago?

by minimus 93 Replies latest jw friends

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  DesirousOfChange

  As already mentioned by many, the vast majority do not believe or at least certainly do not live like The End is coming tomorrow. The old timers who have lifetimes invested in it hope and pray it comes "tomorrow" or at least before THEIR END comes. But even those who are faithful followers and die-hard JWs are not living their lives like The End is immenent. They are living comfortable lives; building homes; socking away in their 401K for retirement (if they are fortunate to have a good job); having children; many going to college and/or sending their kids to college (thus all the counsel on this from COs and at CAs). No one selling their home to pioneer. Pioneers are typically sisters whose husbands have good jobs and thus they do not have to work, or retired folks who have their fixed income and can knock on doors every day when no one is at home. Meeting attendance is dissmal. Field service is dismal, and actual hours reported in FS is dramatically inflated over what is reality.

  DOC
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  Band on the Run

  Something else I noticed that is related to the Internet. Growing up as a kid, I did not have the tools to check the citations. Reading entire tomes b/c of a line quote would be ridiculous. I was very fortunate to stumble upon NT Studies in college. It was an accident. Pagels had to give us bibliographes. The books weren't that easy to obtain.

  People in general seemed to be addicted to academic New Testament studies today. It is a growth industry with some authors prob. making millions. You don't have to travel to a good seminary to get the books. They are plastered over Borders, B&N, and Amazon. When I studied the gnostics, they seemed a big secret. The country is now Gnostic crazy. People crave learning about what Judaism was like back in the first century. There is readily available analyses of how Judaism and Christianity interrelate or don't. The DaVinci Code.

  When I read English history concerning the Reformer advance into England, with events like a Bible in English, I read amazing stories of a country sruck wild with sheer access to the Bible for the first time. Well, you had to be literate. Latin was no longer needed. All these court ladies, including Henry VIII's wives, risked death to circulate pamphlets from Germany and Switzerland. There was sheer joy in it.

  I feel the Bible has such a strong pull b/c of its values, not its endorsement by authority. People want to know what the whole deal is about. Karen Armstrong is on PBS. The History Channel. It is an explosion. When I go to church in NY, people are reading and discussing Hans Kung, Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth --heavy on the Germans. They usually do some through informal groups started by lay members. I wonder where my addiction started.
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  truthseeker1969

  Great comments. Just a few weeks ago I sat and thought about how as a child going on service was an adventure, Elders were honest and happy and gave you all the time you needed. Tuesday meetings we would have fun and look forward to the cookies and stuff afterward but now the Elders I met were so serious and lack energy, those I see in field service seem happy but wat else can they do?
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  3rdgen

  I thoroughly agree that there has been a gradual shift in enthusiasm for a # of reasons. Outsmarthesystem's comments are spot on. I remember when it wasn't a crime to speculate or have Bible discussions with other JW's. In fact, the Truth book recommended taking the course of the Beroeans "carefully examining the scriptures daily as to whether these things were so." In the 70's I actually looked foreward to the Service Meeting. Our small cong was as close as a real family. We had domonstrations with props like cardboard cars, telephones, hard hats, aprons, big charts and graphs, to name just a few. We weren't afraid to inject humor either. One demo I'll NEVER forget was making the point of resisting the temptation to listen to gossip. Two bros sat on the stage facing each other so that we only saw them in profile. One was named Lip and the other named Tongue. When one starting harmful talk about a JW coworker, the other turned to face the audience and said "Tell me more!" He was sporting a GIANT (at least a foot long) EAR !!! It was made of construction paper with all the details of a real ear. And get this, it was ok to laugh, the prop was DESIGNED to be funny. The early 80's with the exit of Ray Franz and many others put FEAR into the GB and they put a chokehold on the elders after that. More and more rules and regulations. Less and less thought and creativity allowed. It's like all the "spiritual food has been dumped into a blender and been turned into mush.
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  Jeffro

  Modern JW literature deals less with specifics, because whenever they've been specific in the past, they've ended up with problems. This applies both to doctrine (particularly chronology), and social issues (e.g. blood transfusions was a 'disfellowshipping offence', but now it's considered 'an indication of disassocation by the person'). Their more recent ambiguous responses about 'who will be saved' are another prime example of making things more ambiguous, though after digging through their semantics, the answer is actually still 'only JWs'.

  With the Study Edition of The Watchtower, there have been some specifics. And where they have done so, it's been highlighted on forums and in the press, so I suspect even that will change. Either the Study Edition will become less accessible (maybe no more downloads, or requiring some kind of authentication [though this will ultimately fail because there are too many 'insiders']), or the content will deal even more in generalities.

  For the general direction I think they will go in in the future, see http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/134823/4/The-Great-Tribulation-is-picking-up-speed#4163800
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  fresh prince of ohio

  I joined the JWs in the early 90s. From what I can gather, these were the sunset years of the JW golden age (heehee). Fred Franz was still alive. The 'Live Forever' book was the primary propaganda tool. Quick-builds were still come one, come all, stand in a brick-line. The 70-80 year Generation from 1914 was still sorta in play, though not much as I don't recall it being discussed much. The internet wasn't widely in use. Maybe it was just me being a newbie and not seeing things truly as they were, but it seemed like there was real enthusiasm in those days.

  The Generations change in 1995 was when the sun set completely. After that, it just got colder and stupider in the Kingdom Halls with every meeting. I got out in 2001. I can't imagine how it is now.
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  discreetslave

  Disillusionment and no return on investment makes it hard to be zealous
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  Ding

  the vast majority do not believe or at least certainly do not live like The End is coming tomorrow.

  It seems to me that you can only keep people at fever pitch so long.

  JWs who were told they would never grow old in this system are now facing their retirement years with next to nothing. Their children and grandchildren are watching this happen.

  Many JWs are starting to realize that the overlapping generation teaching stretches out the 1914 generation at least a hundred more years. Given that, it's harder and harder to believe the end is imminent; even the GB is hedging its bets.
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  clarity

  3rdgen, you're so right! We put effort into the congregation then.

  Mind you, we took our kids to meetings even if they were sick{so sorry}.

  But when having a talk in the "school", if the setting was in a laundrymat ........ a basket of clothes was plopped on a chair along with a big box of detergent and we both had aprons on!

  Now .........I haven't attended for 4 yrs and seems like the bro's are looking at me like they're almost ............................................................ envious !!!!

  clarity
• 

  ScenicViewer

  "Hope deferred makes the heart sick..." (Prov 13:12)

  Generation after generation of JWs have had their hopes dashed, experiencing failed predictions for the years 1914, 1925, early 1940s, 1975, and by 2000.

  Add to that the constant harping by the WTS on what is 'just around the corner' by repeatedly using certain 'buzz' words, and it eventually wears people out.

  -- ...soon the earth will be a physical paradise.

  -- Christ will soon bring grand blessings to all obedient mankind on a paradise ear.

  -- ...we are at the threshold of the new world...

  -- What a shame it would be to lose out on the new world when we are now at its threshold!

  -- ...we face the imminent end of the present world system.

  -- In view of the imminent approach of the battle of Armageddon...

  -- With Armageddon rapidly approaching...

  -- Jesus will serve as God's Executioner during the rapidly approaching "great tribulation.

  -- execution of judgment at the battle of Armageddon must follow very shortly.

  -- ...God's kingdom is now established in the heavens and will shortly usher in a new world of righteousness.

  Jehovah's Witnesses the most disappointed people on earth. They have grown sick of hearing such things, even if they are not consciously aware of it.