by Julia Orwell 65 Replies latest watchtower scandals
" the organization's longevity is a testament to Jehovah's blessing"
Jehovah must be blessing the Baptists and Mormons, too. Their growth is oustripping WT's growth in the majority of countries. And they are doing it without Watchtowers and Awakes or a door to door ministry.
Go figure.
Welcome Stand for Pure Worship - from your initial post.... I just had to clarify - George Orwell is not a fictitious writer - he is a writer of fiction
Not clarifiying this would have bugged me all day.... words can be entire worlds
It is a big difference.... I hope you enjoy your journey.
searcher said....
Lehman Brothers were a bigger concern financially than WTBTS. What happened to them came out of the blue to everyone but those at the top - in the 'know'.
AIG, (needed major bail-out) Woolworths became extinct, and Greece, Italy, and Portugal are all surviving, thanks solely to the world banking system. The WTBTS does not have such 'knights in shining armour' ready to bail them out of a catastrophic financial crisis, and that's why I fully expect some drastic and out-of-the ordinary begging letters from HQ for cash in the coming months!
The 'Black Swan Theory' springs to mind!
I completely agree that you should never say never. Large financial organisations have crashed and the Euro crisis is a case in point about how quickly things can change. Each of these does have causes and the common thread in the type of crashes you have mentioned is basically down to long standing financial mismanagement - spending more than you earn and getting you debts called in.
Now, it may be true that the GB are syphoning off cash into offshore accounts and that they know there isn't enough money to go round. It may be the case that there is alot of "creative accounting" going on and the org is months or less away from pauperism but my gut says not. My gut (backed up by looking at the published accounts available in the UK) suggests they have significant assets and a significant income monthly from donations.
I am not saying they are not spending too much. I am not saying that the donations situation is sustainable. I not even arguing they will never be in financial turmoil. I am certainly not attacking Julia or her post. Check my earlier post to see that I am not knocking what is happening on the ground. I am just saying that their setup is not the same as the circumstances that lead to events such as those searcher has highlighted. I therefore suggest that unless something material changes they are unlikely to plummet into financial freefall.
The material change could be a large number of high profile and high cost child abuse cases. Even if this were to happen however, the society has a proven track record of spinning these type of things out for years and years. They could also play the persecution card, prompting the membership to donate more and entrenching a position that prevents a mass walkout.
Another material change could be a mass walkout (fundamentally what happened to Lehman, along with the subprime exposure) but all the evidence around cultish cog diss is that this simply does not happen. The majority stick around.
It is true to say they don't have world banks to bail them out but they do have millions of people. The only problem is they don't all contribute. You can bet your life however that if the WTS pleaded persecution and the need for support, especially at a special meeting, then they would be queuing up.
It probably depends on where you live.
Here in Southern England there does not seem to be any shortage of contributions. Ours is a relatively small congregation yet we send over £12,000 per year to the WTS (World Wide Work + Society's Kingdom Hall Fund) and the Local KH contributions far exceed the expenses.
We send money before the DA, CA and SAD and we have thousands 'on deposit' with the society.
George
As previously mentioned, the society is not becoming poorer .All theis operations are financed by the rank and file either money or voluntary work .They are very well off ,there's no money going down EVER ,it is always the other way around...
Hi George,
Location will make a difference. Our congregation was in similar situation, not quite as generous, but not bad.
Then we had a quick build. Our loan to the society is more than our income at the moment - and they will essentially own it at the end of process.
Regardless, the expenses are cared for by the minority of the congregation. I also know, from my accounts servant days, that very, very few (including pretty much no elders/ms) took advantage of Gift Aid. This was the anecdotal experience of other congregations where I spoke with the servants at schools/assemblies etc. I bet that less than 50% of any congregation donate reguarly. If your congregation is cash rich it is probably because there are a few wealthy individuals rather than due to the generosity of the majority.
You should take a look at the accounts for the Surrey Assembly Hall. They make twice as much as they spend. We should see a 50% reduction in the charge to use the hall but what we get is an accounts report each assembly that makes it sound like we owe them loads.
All the best!
For me personally, I found myself resistant to donating any money when I personally provided labor, trucks, equipment etc to assist with assemblies, conventions, and special assembly days. Picking up and delivering the baptism pool 3 times a year to different facilities, making sandwitches, pasta salad, doing pre- or post-convention work etc, was enough "financial support" for me.
I gave nearly 5 years of my life to the branch construction work that WTBTS have sold most for big$$$ on in their "spirit directed" downsizing. After I came home from working overseas for WTBTS I rarely ever donated, I always felt I gave at the office. Since I had not served at Brooklyn Bethel but just the branches, I was not used on the assemblies and conventions like other "real Bethelites" were that were literally worshipped. I began to feel they would "use" me and my connections for what they could get, but there was never any return token of even being a chairman for a CA.
I am somewhat enjoying observing their financial struggle:) although it is sometimes exaggerated.
Stand for pureworship
I am an active MS. I come here hear the other side of the argument. As a MS I get the "privilege" of auditing our congregation accounts. I also get to help collect the money out of the contribution boxes.
I can verify 2 things, at least for our local congregation:
First, most of our expenses are paid for by a small handful of donations.
Second, our congregation barely pays its bills.
The elders each donate about $50-100 a month. They write checks, that's how I know. We get another $100-200 a month in cash. Who knows who gives that. Besides the elders, the only other checks are from a) a 70 year old sister with an unbelieving mate. And ... Well ... Just realized it but all three sisters that write checks have unbelieving mates...Anyways, how is our congregation doing financially? Dirt poor! Last month we ended with $0.31 in the account. AND, we had to put off paying 2 bills till next month. But the accounts report doesn't mention that side point. It only shows money taken in - (minus) bills actually paid. So our accounts report showed we had a SURPLUS of 31 cents. In truthfulness we were in the hole around $300.
Last night we passed the resolution to pay the TOAA and KHAA fund. It came to $93 a month for our congregation. That was roughly $10-$20 more than we had already been paying per month. Because we had a similar resolution last year.
I asked the accounts overseer after the meeting if we could afford it. Remember, last month we were already $300 in the hole. He looked worried and said "I hope so."
So, how do we keep the lights on? Every month we as a congregation do not donate enough. It turns out that there is one sister in the hall that keeps saving our butts. She donated $20,000.00 two years ago to pay off our KH mortgage. Well, that should have certainly made it easier to pay our bills. NOPE! Because 6 months later RBC came and did a remodel. We had to get another loan! We got a $40,000 loan for the remodel. the actuall cost was only $30,000 WHICH THE SAME SISTER WROTE A CHECK FOR!!!
So, one would think that we would have no loan payments, right? I mean our first loan was paid off by a sister. The cost of the remodel was paid by the same sister. We could just give the rest of the money back, and be paid off. Right? NOPE!
When the brothers wrote the branch to give the money back, the following was the reply from the branch:
"Concerning the $10,000 balance left on the loan, it is recommended that instead of giving it back, it could be used as a donation towards the Hmong translation center in Sacramento CA."
So our congregation abided by this "suggestion" and instead of paying off our loan, donated the extra money to another building project.
End result? We are still paying off a loan for our "donation"
So stand for pure worship, just because an "elder" tells someone that thier congregation is broke, does not make him weak in the faith. It does not make him an apostate. He may just be speaking the truth.
Thanks for that syntaxerror.
Can you tell us what the " TOAA and KHAA funds" are please?
TOAA - Traveling Overseers Assistance Arrangement
KHAA - Kingdom Hall Assistance Arrangement
Here is a previous post that talks about the resolution to pay this.
