by minimus 85 Replies latest jw friends
I wonder what REALLY prompted them to publish this article?
I hope it's decling number.
It could be that, although they are still claiming a very slight growth.
My money would say that it has something to do with pushback on the idiotic new explanation of the "generation that would never die".
That is such an obvious cop-out on yet another false prophecy that I can imagine a lot of witnesses asking - what the heck is going on?
The boy who cried wolf eventually lost credibility.
They did this mea culpa before in the early eighties. It is so lame. But it proves the point, this isn't about truth, it is about cult allegiance. They have followers who's live are so entangled with the WT that they CANNOT leave. They have become hostages to a circumstance and it doesn't have a goddamned thing to do with spiritual truth.
Jesus said that a loving father would not give his children a snake or a stone when they asked for bread.
If you see this when you are young you can deal with it, i.e. - leave. But if you have spent decades in it and involved your children and g-children, etc etc
you might as well see it through...you're a victim.
I think the GB have so much confidence and glib arrogance in the way they mentally control what their members think, that they can
wash over their false prophecies and still insert that god is still directing their organization.
I'm not surprised that they are now taking this position since 2014 is approaching quickly and there's going to be a lot of questions
by many JWS why nothing has happened as the WTS. said it was going to, particularly from long time JWS which there are quite a few.
The Watchtower's own words kill them everytime!
There would be NO JW organization if it weren't for the false alarms.
I don't believe these dates were set with malicious intent but rather a natural result of mounting frustration as each generation wore themselves out and frantically tried to get some orientation. This is really like a drug. You center your life around a "fix". The date arrives and there is a big disappointment which drives you to create a new target.
The early Christians did the same thing. They thought Jesus was going to return "quickly". That belief was the force behind their intense preaching.
It seems you can only go through that process for about four cycles before there is no more enthusiasm for a date. The 1975 hoopla was the last BIG date. There have been a few death twitches with the passing of the 1914 generation and the transition to the new millenium. 2014 will be a big wake up for those who keep repeating the mantra "soon,soon,soon".
The early Christians lost their focus on dates at a comparable point in their history. By 200 CE Jesus and his promise to their great grand parents that he was coming soon changed their focus to organization building and establishing a power hierarchy. Jehovah's Witnesses have become focused on special honor for various levels of leadership. All the special "schools" are designed as incentives to keep up enthusiasm since there are no longer dates to act as a driving force. Expect these various schools to evolve into "certifications" for positions of authority and the firming up of a clear hierarchy.
They can criticize those who "served for a date" but they needed those dates.
"Jehovah’s Witnesses have had wrong expectations about when the end would come. Like Jesus’ first-century disciples, we have sometimes looked forward to the fulfillment of prophecy ahead of God’s timetable. ( Luke 19:11; Acts 1:6; 2 Thessalonians 2:1, 2 )"
WRONG expectations.....therefore since God does not err, they admit that they dressed up their own expectations as being "spirit directed. I see they cite 2 Thess 2: 1,2
"We request of you not to be quickly shaken from your reason nor to be excited either through an inspired expression or through a verbal message or through a letter as though from us, to the effect that the day of Jehovah is here"
So, the WTS is now likening itself to the impetuous members of the congregation who believed and spread rumours, rather than to the central Governing Body in the first century...strange ,but true as far as we can see. If those letters were "as though" from the apostles but were false then they liken themselves to apostates????
NB If a fire warden repeatedly gave false warnings he would be dismissed, not commended for sincerity....
As I told my mom yesterday, who wanted me to read it, that there was good news and bad news. The good news was that they admitted to being wrong regarding the dates. The bad news is that they STILL justified themselves!
I'm thinking this discussion group is gonna be very busy in the near future, I see a big exitius comming over this statement of the Governing Body.
"Jehovah's Witnesses have had wrong expectations about when the end would come."
Not a huge point, but notice they don't say the Faithful & Discreet Slave or the Governing Body got it wrong. Jehovah's Witnesses got it wrong. That could include individual JWs with their own unofficial timetables.
Again, not a huge point, but it does have a subtle effect on the meaning of the sentence.
om
I see your point. However, they would not have made such a statement in the post 1975 era.
