Hi all,
After thinking about Ozzies recent regrettable incident in which his college graduate JW daughter ``uninvited him and his wife to the commencement ceremony , I considered how integral hypocrisy and self-deception is to dub culture. Here we have a young woman who while professing a loyalty to the ``Faithful and Discreet Slave so intense as to accede to the shunning of the very parents who gave her life (and likely paid for her education), while at the same time retaining a prerogative to ``pick and choose among which JW injunctions she will either slavishly follow or ignore completely (in this latter case the WTs anti-higher education urgings).
Despite the incessant pressure to ``preach, preach, preach, their ``life-giving message zealously and at every opportunity, `in the short time left, what percentage of JWs routinely and proactively, if ever, preach to their workmates and neighbors, or even disclose their religious affiliations unless absolutely cornered? And what of JW youths, particularly the teenagers at school?
And so it goes through the entire fabric of JW life. At my local Kingdom Hall, there are nine elders; only two of which support dependent children living at home. Any one of them would be thrilled to get a letter on Watchtower stationery assigning them to deliver a keynote discourse at a District Convention on ``Serving Full-Time Where the Need is Greatest. As they thrust our their chests proudly and boast about their good fortune, will it ever occur to seven of nine of them that their personal circumstances are ideally suited to accepting that urgent invitation from Jehovah? Nossir! Thats for the other guy!
And theres the incessant request for new homes in the congregation that can host a Book Study; once again, all of the nine elders are homeowners; only two have dependent children, and but one of these just one has a Book Study assigned to his house. Yet any one of these can unblushingly urge the rank and file to ``open up their homes citing the ``innumerable blessings that attend those families that do so.
Add to all of this the oft-mentioned dawdling, clock-watching, aimless driving about and desultory time-wasting that passes for weekend ``field service and on and on it goes.