Report from Japan

by wifibandit 28 Replies latest jw friends

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  Diogenesister

  In fact I think I can think of a counter example. Internet access has taken longer to grow in Germany than the UK for example, despite Germany being more prosperous. Yet JW growth has been more sluggish in Germany over the past two decades than in the UK. It's weak evidence either way, yet if the Internet significantly slowed growth we might expect the opposite pattern, ceteris paribus.

  Actually I believe this is probably a good example of your previous point . Until *very recently* I'd be willing to bet there is a lot more net migration into Britain than Germany and with our colonial past a good deal of these people were from 3rd world Commonwealth countries, such as the Caribbean and Africa, with a traditionally very religious culture. I believe that's were you'd find the growth, rarther than from native Britons. Unless the birth rate of the two countries is significantly different.
  
  
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  HB

  I don't think the JW policy of shunning would go down well in Japan.

  I have a Japanese friend (not a JW), and he has explained how one of the strongest 'pillars' of society there is loyalty to family and duty to parents.

  It is a very strong and long standing tradition in their culture that grown-up children will physically care for and financially provide for ageing parents, and it would be a deeply shameful to neglect that duty. My friend is astounded and appalled to see that in the west, elderly people are often put into care homes and visited by their offspring once a week or less. He had no choice but to cut back on his working hours as a lecturer in Osaka University when his parents became frail, but did so willingly.

  I guess for Japanese JWs, cutting off communication with family members if someone is disfellowshipped would be an even more traumatising and problematic than in western cultures.
  
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  sparrowdown

  I think the internet provides something that the congregation doesn't and can't and that is a sense of connectedness. Connectedness to the wider world and the local community.

  WT can't compete, their website is not interactive, they don't give a fuck what you think or feel where as you can always find someplace or someone on the internet to relate to. Even casual interactions on the internet are more satifying than real world interactions with the shallow brothers and sisters at the fake-ass KH or with cold would-kick-you-to-the-curb-in-a-heartbeat fake-ass, conditional JW family.
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  mentalclarity

  Personally, I don't think it's an internet issue.

  I think any growth is coming from immigrants in developed countries wanting a place to belong and little education and underdeveloped countries (such as Latin America) with a large population of uneducated. It's all about the critical thinking skills. I'd assume this is why the Org has dumbed down the info/literature - I think they have to for the people they are attracting. The new ones aren't hard core bible students- they are the downtrodden looking for a "paradise" to end all their troubles and sadly it seems that there will be a never ending supply of new victims.
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  slimboyfat

  Well, despite millions of immigrants over the last few years, German JW growth is still among the poorest in Europe.

  Plus Germany had more immigrants than the UK even before the recent influx - 2010 figures in table:

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany
  
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  Vidiot

  Well, the Japanese have long been ahead of the rest of the world for some time, now.
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  mentalclarity

  @slimboyfat right- the immigrant population in Germany is very different from that of the US. That was an over-generalization on my part.

  I think JWs are honing in on immigrants in the US from underdeveloped countries and countries such as South America and Africa hence the pressure to learn languages to expand your territory. Even with access to internet, it wouldn't make a difference in the growth because it's not about the info. It's about the desperate situation they find themselves in and people seeming like they care and their need to belong to a community that accepts them ( we know this doesn't last). That's been my observation. If there is any growth from the outside it would appear it's coming from there.
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  James Jack

  Would love to read more of this Brother's experience in the Japan field.
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  Black Man

  This is GREAT! And what I LOVE about this is the report that WHOLE FAMILIES are leaving the cult together in Japan. They have a support system in place by leaving together and can rely on each other in picking up the pieces of their lives and transitioning into doing something else with their lives. Totally takes the power and the rug away from the JW cult as they don't have to worry about being on an island isolated from family (as do those in the U.S. or some of these underdeveloped countries where the JW-cult influence is strong).