Last week, the circuit overseer came to visit my wife’s congregation and as usual their patterns change somewhat during this week. From my perspective, the meetings are held on Tuesday and Thursday instead of the normal Wednesday night during this week and they are more eager to go out in field service. Sunday came and my wife wanted us to attend the meeting. Normally, I do not bother attending meetings because I do not support their beliefs and practices. While I think they are sincere people who only try to worship God in the only way they know how their prohibitions on all holidays and birthdays and their murderous blood doctrine prevents me from ever considering joining this religion even if I could overlook all their other faults. In truth, it is their murderous blood doctrine alone that prevents me from considering joining this religion even if I were willing to give up the holidays and birthdays. I would never in good conscious allow a person to die due to a dietary restriction found in the Old Testament.
That said, since this was a ‘special occasion’ and since it was important to her that we all attend as a family I went with her to the meeting that day and did I get a gem from the CO. The circuit overseer gave a talk about the last days and what events in the world tie in with Bible prophecy. I thought, “Oh great, the usual apocalyptic clap trap that I used to hear at my old Independent Fundamental Baptist church.” One thing I notice about tying current events with Bible prophecy is that somehow the events that tie to specific prophetic claims in the Bible tend to change as time moves on and Jesus has not yet returned. In fact, I pointed out this to my wife when I told her later that while I am first to say ‘Jesus take the wheel’ in regards to His coming religions do a disservice by constantly instilling fear by always insisting that His coming in imminent. The signs of the end have been around for centuries going all the way back to Jesus’ time and Christians should take heed to Christ’s warnings regarding how it is not for us to know the date or the time of the end. I got enough of that crap from the IFBs and have since decided that I will just live my life as best as I can with as much honesty and integrity as I am able and if I am to be damned, let me be damned for who I really am.
But the gem I got from the circuit overseer that day came when he discussed the harlot and the wild beast found in the book of Revelations. The harlot was of course the churches of Christendom, “no surprise there,” I thought as it never fails that it would not be a JW meeting without at least one mention of those awful churches of Christendom. I was expecting that the wild beast would be either the world’s governments or the European Union as this is what I used to hear in my IFB churches. Close, it was the United Nations. The circuit overseer gave a brief history lesson of them and tied them into the wild beast. I wrote in my notepad and showed to my wife that, “The Watchtower Society used to be an NGO member of the United Nations.” I later confirmed this by doing a Google search and finding both a Wikipedia article on the subject and a page on jwfacts.com. Plus, the statement from the UN that I found on their website clenched it. From 1992 to 2001, the Watchtower Society was indeed an NGO member of the UN even though they had for years railed against them calling them the wild beast in Revelations. Learning what I learned about their association with the UN, I am surprised that the CO would make such a comment in his talk. Evidently, he never got the memo.
So are people like my wife hypocrites for adhering to a religion that preaches against the churches of Christendom saying not to associate with them while at the same time joining the YMCA and attending college at a Christian university? Would it be hypocritical for a witness to attend an office holiday or go with their spouse to a holiday function when they are told not to have any part of these events? How about the witness who attends a church wedding or funeral for their non-witness relative? Well, far be it for me to tell an individual to violate his or her own conscious but I find it very hypocritical on the part of the Watchtower to tell their witnesses these things when they themselves went against their conscious and signed on to become an NGO member of the wild beast for 9 years only to disassociate when they were caught doing so.