I was a child in the 60s/70s so my perception is limited, but let me paint you a picture of what I remember it to be like.
Remember the FLDS compound on Big Love that lived by its own sick set of laws? Yeah. Like that.
YMMV if you have a penis.
What was it like being a JW in the 1960's and 1970's
by UnshackleTheChains 68 Replies latest jw experiences
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rebel8
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Berengaria
It was bloody awful. Far more strict. -
Village Idiot
Was the society as strict as it is today?
Can't make a comparison because I was physically and mentally out since 1980.
Did you feel proud to be a JW back then?
Yes, but I started having doubts in the late 1970s.
Were the brothers more loving in those days?
Would not know about now but they were pretty decent back then A few of them helped me out when I needed it. It was the elder hatchet man and the Circuit Overseer who were the pricks.
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Village Idiot
Compound complex,
Very serious, deep stuff! BTW, the older brothers and sisters I knew were not kooky but had a deep knowledge of the Bible...
Same here but I think that they were more zealous in the 1950s than when I grew up in the 1970s. I remember having get togethers and conversing with brothers on doctrines. One of whom had an IQ of 170 and had a lot of non-JW literature that would have branded him a borderline apostate.
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Ding
From 1966 (Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God) on, the whole focus was on 1975. Lots of excitement and field service in anticipation of Armageddon and the imminent new system.
In early 1976, it was wait and see because maybe the 1975 date was just a little off (the Adam-Eve creation gap explanation).
As time dragged on with no Armageddon and no new system, there was confusion, disillusionment, and anger. JWs wanted an explanation and got none. Young JWs who had been told they would never grow old in this system of things found themselves growing old after all, just like everyone else, except they were unprepared for it. JWs who had confidently instructed "worldlies" that the end would come before 1976 looked pretty foolish. Field service and meeting attendance dropped.
Ray Franz tried to get the GB to show some humility and loosen its grip since it was obvious they didn't know as much as they thought they did.
Instead, the GB circled the wagons, blamed the rank and file for the 1975 speculation, purged Bethel, DFd Ray and others, and clamped down on everything.
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steve2
You may not believe this but back in the late 1960s through to the mid-1970s we were much closer to the end of this system than we are today.
Perception and reality of time are funny, funny things - there are no adequate words to convey to you how extremely close the hope/threat of the end had on congregations near and far.People knew what was breathtakingly close: The end. Nothing else mattered. Nothing.
And if you could time travel to that time of sickening, white-knucklrd rgency, you would grasp perhaps more powerflly than you ever could today just how irretrievably
deluded J
W organization is.
If you want a larger window into life in this organization in the 1960s, I recommend Barbata Grizutti-Harrison's book,"Visions of Glory" - perhaps one of the most powerful
books ever written on growing up in the organization.
Edited to add: Formatting difficulties arose when I went to post this and I could not rectify them.
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Wasanelder Once
In the late 60's everyone was on pins and needles that the next revelation, (district convention release) would say when the tribulation would start. All the convoluted interpretations pointed to 75. There was a camaraderie among JW's in the 60's that isn't there now. People knew each other from all over the country because of the common work we all did preaching. People didn't fake it then, they really went out door to door. They really were a "people" for God's name. I was young then and its the perspective of about 8 to 14 I am relating. Bookstudy's were hard to comprehend and therefore seemed magical. An adult probably would have seen it as silly.
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smiddy
My wife and I attended 4 congregations in Melb.Aust. in the decade of the 1960`s .They were pretty conservative and took the "truth" seriously,Not much socilising at all it wasn`t encouraged back then.
When the book "life Everlasting " came out in 1969 ? with the 6000 yrs since creation speculation was rife that 1975 would usher in te "New System of Things" and the special brochures that were to be distributed around the world that time in the early 1970`s rumours were abound that 7 were to be distributed with the last couple denouncing false religion and the Governments of the world that would bring on the Great Tribulation.
Of course nothing of the sort happened.
We were in Qld. by that time where the 3 congregations we were in were much more liberal and relaxed though we did have a couple of really loony Elders.
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greenhornet
Gary Buselmen is an old member of this site from years ago. He explained in how the old Jws were in the the 1950s
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UnshackleTheChains
I remember having get togethers and conversing with brothers on doctrines.
Wow, thanks for all the experiences and feedback guys.
Re the above. Conversation around doctrine is seriously lacking today at get togethers. You never hear brothers open up about 'their' take on doctrine. I wonder why 🤔