When I was going in, it was almost a fad. Seems that just about everyone was becoming Jehovah's Witlesses during much of the 1980s. And, I can remember getting into debates with Pentecostals. No, they didn't go anywhere--but it was merely a wasted time issue back in those days. After all, if my faith was on solid ground, it should be able to stand up to whatever any born-agains or Pentecostals could throw at it.
These days, however, it is much more wimpy. You get into the wimpiest debate, you are supposed to cut the call short. Never mind that it is possible that your faith will be stronger than theirs. If things don't go exactly as they do in demonstrations at the Kingdumb Hell, the call is ended.
That isn't the only thing that has gotten wimpier. Back in the 1980s, I remember gatherings where the witlesses would rent a pavilion in a park. There would be something like 40 or 50 of them, and they would play various games. I have seen them play baseball and touch football. They would have a cookout (bees and all). The music would be what you would expect to find on a soft rock/adult contemporary station, but that is better than Kingdumb Maladies. Boasting sessions would have a touch more variety back then, and a rare slide show.
Now, it is all gone. There are no more of these gatherings--during the 1990s, the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger has narrowed them down. Invariably, an isolated incident of fornication or drug use was cited, and these gatherings have shriveled. The boasting sessions lost all their variety, as comments are now all virtually read from the paragraph. No more book studies as separate meetings, no more goodie nights. The format is virtually the same at every boasting session, and the material is always the same crap. Even the singing (if you can call the sounds of dying cats "music" or "singing") is wretched--just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.
