I personally believe that those words regarding the Governing Body are a set-up for something.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are going down the exact path that the Worldwide Church of God did in the 1990s. According to the WCG doctrine, Jesus was to return to the earth before Herbert Armstrong passed away. After Armstrong died they floated around with a few minor adjustments for several years, still convinced it was the Truth even though the end didn't come.
Then WHAM! The new leadership stated that Armstrong wasn't necessarily the prophet of God that he taught he was. This was followed with massive changes to their doctrine. They believed in things very similar to the JWs at one time too, with a similar Armageddon/Paradise Earth paradigm, soul-sleep doctrine, no Christmas and Easter, that they were the one true religion and that the rest of Christianity was blinded by and under Satan's control, no Trinity, etc.
The new leadership took away every single "unique" belief away from the WCG, one by one. Eventually they adopted mainstream Protestant beliefs, stopped calling other Christians false, introduced holidays, and even accepted the Trinity as true. The majority of followers left.
Since Franz died and the 21st century began, especially after 2014 came and went (and with a growing number of Memorial partakers that has doubled in number since the days of Franz), the current Governing Body has steadily and strategically begun to introduce changes that will act as a foundation to introduce changes you never, ever believed would ever be made.
They have to. With the child abuse scandal and drop in funds and with no end in sight, the Governing Body is left with little choice but admit they have been wrong. About what exactly? That is what the set-up is for.
This doesn't mean that they will do exactly as the WCG did and adopt the same things. Even if they do decide to go mainstream (which I can't say they will), we can't be so naive into thinking the Governing Body took no note of what happened to the WCG. They know. They have not only studied it, it wouldn't surprise me that they have learned from their one big mistake.
The WCG once taught that Christians were under the Mosaic Law, and thus that all members had to tithe. When Armstrong died without Jesus returning and they began revising their beliefs, adherence to the Mosaic Law was one of the first things to go. With it went the tithing demand, and with that went all their money. More than anything else, the change to mainstream Christianity cause their financial ruin because their money collecting technique was tied to the doctrine that had to be ditched. Ditching the false doctrine meant ditching the collections.
The Governing Body of JWs began to introduce changes in order to prevent something like this from happening. Like the WCG, congregations of JWs once had autonomy, and funds collected went back to the group that collected it, generally speaking. Now all belongs to the Organization, and funds that get generally collected go to the Org before getting passed out to where it is needed.
The changes in doctrine up to this point have been mainly two fold: 1. Erase all detailed interpretation of Old Testament prophetic types and New Testament parables (which were used to prove that the Faithful and Discreet Slave was a class, a prophet, and that the end was coming in one literal generation's time) and 2. teach and demand allegiance to the instruction from the Governing Body, even if this instruction to come seems illogical to current Witnesses. Both have been done.
Now they are set for round two. They are in their new headquarters, they are past their "expiration date," too many of their mistakes have come back to bite them in the butt, and it is too easy with the Internet for people to see where their doctrine just can't float. Time for them to fess up like the WCG did.
Only now they won't be in dire financial straits when the exodus begins. They can and will stay afloat. They got everyone to swallow everything up to now, but obviously whatever they have next they know will be the straw thast that WILL break the camel's back for the majority. I may be wrong, but watching what has happened over the past 20 years from my vantage point, I see the WCG all over again. Except this time the group about to introduce the bad news has learned to hold onto its assets.
