I was able to do a bit of “Reverse-Witnessing” to the folks that stand by the literature cart outside my office building on Thursdays.
I printed up about 10 pages of photos that included covers from old 1960-1984 Awake and Watchtower magazines that had bold claims about the closeness of the end and the year 1914, on their covers. I also printed out a few of the old “Millions now living will never die” advertisements from the 1920’s made by Rutherford. I circled the dates on the magazines to point out how long ago the predictions in them were made. I also included a print out of the most recent information about brothers being deleted from their positions in the Congregation if their family members attended University. I wrote on it “Is attending University actually considered a sin by JW’s?
The last page of the “packet” was a typed out message that said:
Millions of JW’s all over the world altered their lives based on what they read in these magazines. Many choose to forgo getting an education, getting married, having children and saving for retirement because the “end” was so close.
Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence.
Nothing of what you claim to be true, can be proven with any real evidence. Not one thing that JW’s have predicted since the 1800’s has ever happened. How could your leaders have been so wrong if they are being led by God?
Are you spreading information that will mislead a new generation of individuals the way you were misled?
I taped the packet to the wall next to where they stand each week. When I returned at 10:00 in my vehicle I sat at a distance in the parking lot. I saw two ladies standing there with their cart but my packet was gone. I figured they had tossed it in the nearby garbage can. As I was just about to get out of my vehicle, one of the ladies headed into the building presumably to use the bathroom, so I stayed where I was . As soon as she was out of sight, the other lady took the packet out of her bag and suriptiously began reading it. She turned toward the wall and literally had it hidden out of view between the wall and her cart. She kept looking over her shoulder, I assume, to see if the other lady was coming back. (see red arrow in photo below) I saw her reading each of the 10 pages and flipping them back and forth several times. She suddenly jammed it back in her bag and I then saw that her partner was coming out of the building .
About 30-45 minutes later when I was leaving the building again, I walked passed them and caught a part of their conversation. I heard the woman in red, who had been in the restroom say “….I know but I don’t always agree with everything they say”.
I couldn’t believe it, I’m sure they were discussing what they had seen and how it pertains to what they believe themselves, today.
The photos below came out badly because I snapped them quickly so as not to be seen but you get the idea.
