Be careful...

Vidiot

I don't think he’s dropped a link to it here yet, but Cedars has a new blog post up at JWSurvey:
http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/close-ranks-against-satan-watchtower-prepares-witnesses-for-2014-disappointment

Its title and content are pretty self-explanatory, and as always, it’s a fine piece of writing, but one section in particular stuck out to me; the part titled “Reaching out to inactive ones”, and it summarizes the apparent desire of the WTS to bring wayward sheep back into the fold.

Cedars finds it naïve and deluded on the WTS’s part that it would risk having active JWs come into more contact with faders, particularly since faders become faders primarily because they’ve discovered The Truth About the Truth…

…and he’s right; if the WTS a genuinely and sincerely “reaching out” to them, it would be naïve and deluded.

Which is why I don’t think that’s what it is at all.

Think about it for a moment…

…the anti-apostate rhetoric has been cranked up to 11, the pedo lawsuit floodgates are opening, and they’ve accelerated the Warwick timetable. Does anybody here seriously believe they’re concerned with anything even remotely resembling reconciliation?

Sure, they’d be happy to take back inactives who still believe it’s The Truth, but faders like us? No way. I guarantee you, they do not want more conscious-classers running about in Kingdom Halls amongst the loyal rank-and-file.

So what’s it all about then?

These days, the entity the WTS feels most threatened by isn’t the “Wild Beast” or “Babylon the Great”; it is - without a doubt - the XJW community, and I’ve made no secret that I suspect the GB would like to take further judicial action against faders (I know this sounds perverse, but I would if I were in their shoes).

However, the very nature of fading actually makes said judical action difficult; like most JWs, we became very skilled at maintaining pretense when we were still in, and social networking has enabled us to develop and gain access to effective defensive techniques against the more zealous elders who might otherwise be able to finger us.

Therefore, I submit that this effort of “reaching out” is a tactic to try and sniff out the faders who would otherwise be too hard to catch. How? By using faders’ still-in friends and family (who might be inclined towards reconciliation and thusly more inclined to "reach out" to said faders) as a means of manipulating them into letting their guard down and unwittingly exposing any hints of private “apostate” leanings that they would not normally reveal…

…giving the WTS a pretext to take judicial action against them, and neutralizing the threat they represent.

Thoughts?

jgnat

Or maybe the elders are too busy to run after errant sheep any more.

Vidiot

I never said this was the elders' idea.

Remember, the elders are compelled to DF an "apostate" when they come across one, whether they're busy running after "errant sheep" or not.

LostGeneration

I often wonder why they print stuff like this. So many people have a family that is ripped to shreds because one or more have left, whether it be official or not. Are they trying to give false hope to the ones "in" that maybe, just maybe, the ones who have left will come back? Do they really think that there are hundreds of thousands that are out want back "in", they just need a little ass-kiss and they will run back to the KH?

As you mention, there are risks in having elders run around and contact faders. Not that many will be receptive to TTATT, but they might just end up with another JC to bother with, costing the elders more time. Keep burdening the elders with more unpaid labor and more of them will throw up their hands and say "Screw this, I'm not going to be your slave anymore".

Of course all of this is what you get when you have a broken religion from top to bottom.

sir82

The "encouragement" to find "inactive" "ones" is nothing new. The WTS has been harping on it for at least a decade.

In my experience, elders give lip service to it, and within a week it is forgotten until the next CO visit.

I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Most elders don't want to be bothered with extra work, they already have enough. Skipping over the hunt for the inactives is usually the first thing to get cut because, hey, they're inactive - who's going to notice if we wait another 6 months or a year?

Splash

I can see them using the "They went out from us because they were not of our sort" scripture.

Splash

OUTLAW

In my experience, elders give lip service to it, and within a week it is forgotten until the next CO visit.

I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Thats the reality of it.. The CO is Gone..

It could be.. Screw It!!..

....................... ...OUTLAW

Julia Orwell

They have this appeal to inactive ones every year now. Irony is though, inactive people aren't going to be at any meeting when this is studied, so I think it's just eyewash. Nothing sinister.

Phizzy

I don't think they are wanting a blanket "reaching out", they paint a picture of the kind of soft target they are interested in, someone who simply drifted in to inactivity, I think the R&F JW's will never approach the likes of us, who show we know TTATT.

Mind you, I could be quite wrong, but my experience has been that the WT is not all that subtle, and does not plan ahead much.

If you are right, then the BE CAREFULL ! needs to be writ large, but we do know how to handle these things.

One thing I would love to say on this to an active JDub, but caould not I suppose, is:

"How can I come "back" to the "Truth", the "Truth" I left is no longer taught".

problemaddict

I would normally agree with this line of thinking, but I think the majority of people that have become inactive, have done so just because. i don't think they have taken a conscious action to "fade" because they no longer believe it. I think they just kind of left. i have spoken to many who have left that still believe on some level its "the truth".

So its possible they could accomplish both. Bring some more back into the fold, and also sniff out and dispose of trouble makers. I know that I won't be taking their calls.

Be careful...

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