by pale.emperor 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I was surpised to learn that many hardcore teachings being pushed in the 1980's and 90's as if "we always taught that," were radical changes.
Apparently, Watchtower has to keep changing their doctrines when the calender causes a problem or when money becomes the catalyst.
Now, I am pretty much immune to the constant changes. Let me know when they drop 1914 entirely or announce a definite doomsday date.
The R&F wouldn’t even notice when the 1914 fairy tale would change.
C.T.Russell was never a Jehovah`s Witness ,his emphasis was on Jesus ,with his magazine "Zions WatchTower and Herald of Christs Presence" first published in 1879 ? Obviously he was a zionist and believed that Jesus had returned in 1874. And that Armageddon was to happen in 1914 .
The governing body of Jehovah`s Witnesses and their revision of early history like to hide those facts.
Joseph F.Rutherford took a new turn by changing the name of C.T.Russells followers ,the" International Bible Students Association" I.B.S.A. to the new name "Jehovah`s Witnesses" distancing himself from Russell`s teachings and also christendoms religions and changing the name of the magazine to " The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah`s Kingdom " taking the emphasis of Jesus.
Where in the Christian Greek Scriptures / New Testament are followers of Jesus instructed to be witnesses of Jehovah`s Kingdom ?
Hmmmm...If I had to venture a guess (based on what happened to the Christian Science movement), I believe the org will eventually contract to about 20% of its current size, and level off there. How long that will take, I have no idea...
They will still have people doing more mindless busy work, but as long as they have some membership, they can claim to be a non-profit religious organization, and if they're smart about their money, won't have to worry about getting tons more from the slashed membership -- just manage their total asset portfolio properly.
Just my theory. I'd be interested in hearing others views on this.
I think the Org would manage to get by with about a million or so hard-core members.
I think they're actually working towards that goal, in fact.
They're downsizing everything else, why not the rank-and-file, too?
Maybe they will take a leaf out of Jimmy Swagart`s Ministries with his SBN television series he streams to various television stations around the world.
And he seems to be doing OK despite some scandals involving him.
After all back in the day Jw`s did have a radio station broadcasting their propaganda ,WBBR ? if I remember correctly ?
So why not a worldwide TV network ? They seem to be going down that path ,maybe soon that will come to fruition .
smiddy3 - "Maybe they will take a leaf out of Jimmy Swagart`s Ministries..."
Wouldn't be the first time.
Yes they did support Jimmy Swagart as a friend of the court some years back to do with taxes on sales of their products.
Recall WT filing a 'friend of the court' (re Swagart) in the 1990s - maybe around mid 90s. This was right before they implemented the 'donation' plan of literature.
