Visiting a few JW/xJW forums lately, I'm reminded of phrases that have been never been brought to mind for 25 years. (King of the North, Jonadabs, etc, etc.) I got to thinking again about that infamous old harlot, Babylon the Great.
It's based on the age-old JW idea that the harlot is the "world empire of false religion" but especially Christendom, and that beast (rooted in the U.N.) who finally turns on her. The prediction goes that the neutral JWs will be left because they are right, and the Beast, who can't stand to see JWs still standing, finally goes after JWs with a vengeance. But the JWs, of course, get supernatural protection which is the immediate precursor to Armageddon.
This may have very little to do with the image in Revelation, but if the harlot is Christendom, how does she get paid? Obviously, she is paid by 404(b), 170(c) or 501(c) type tax breaks that religions and charities get when they apply for non-profit filing status. The problem is that JWs also ask for this same harlot's wage for services rendered. But JWs don't put out. I mean, they rarely give anything charitable back to the nations. They don't build hospitals, run blood drives, give clothing to the poor, or give out toys for tots at Christmas time. They might have therefore rightly expected that the Beast-as-the-John of Revelation might just turn on JWs since JWs won't turn tricks for the John.
But now the JWs have opened up a Public Relations department and a couple of PR websites and begun to brag, left and right, about the fact that they've started putting out a bit more to everyone, and not to just "especially to those in the faith." And thanks to their own horns and printing presses, their left hand most assuredly knows what their right hand is doing. See the recent thread:
Are Jehovah's Witnesses Becoming More Outreach Minded?
However, if they start giving back to the community just like the rest of the Whore of Babylon, how do they ever expect the Beast to turn on them? Even with all the pressure so far this year, the United-Nations-as-Beast won't even turn its animal instincts against the decidedly unsexy Muslim religion in the original land of Babylon (Iraq), much less the freshest member of the Greater Babylon from Greater Brooklyn in its own back yard.
The JWs once played the feisty and ornery "bitch" especially under Rutherford, which nearly fed right into the hands of a self-fulfilled prophecy. But now they've turned a bit "sexier" with their new "public relations" (no pun intended, or course). Methinks, paybacks not a bitch anymore.
Gamaliel