So I'm watching John Cedars commentary on the Annual Meeting from this last October, and at one point he shows a clip of Garrett Loesch talking about the struggles Jehovah's Witnesses faced decades before in the Soviet Union. He claimed that police officers, maybe the KGB, infiltrated congregations which met in secret by studying with Jehovah's Witnesses, getting baptized, and then working their way up to becoming Elders. Ceders jokes that this shows what kind of role Holy Spirit actually plays within Body of Elders, but another interpretation came to my mind just now. Look, I can get paranoid sometimes, and I don't want to jump to conclusions, and that's part of why I'm even posting this. So give me your honest thoughts at the end.
What he's describing sounds ridiculous, I don't know how else to say that. Pretending to study so you can turn someone into the government, that I believe. I saw a video a few years back at a congregation I studied in which a Brother imprisoned for his faith in China described just that happening in a believable way. But what would be the point of even infiltrating and then working to become an Elder? I guess you could contact other congregations and turn a bunch of them in, so maybe the spy goes for the long con, the long game, it's not out of the question, it just sounds contrived and bizarre. Does anyone know of any proof whatsoever that something like this happened anywhere in the world within this organization?
I ask for this reason: we all know the Governing Body communicates with the faithful through implication, they imply things they don't wanna say directly, like we all know Armageddon's right around the corner implies Armageddon will come within a couple years at most, we all know that. But they don't actually say that, so you can't hold them accountable for the couple years part, because what Armageddon's right around the corner means actually depends on how you interpret it, even though they know how you'll interpret it.
So here's my question: does Gerrit Losch mean to suggest to his listeners that some Elders could secretly work for the government? It's not a statement you can make likely in and of itself, saying that sets a precedent that goes beyond this historical example and could easily raise suspicions about Elders, something the Governing Body doesn't normally do. I could totally see Jehovah's Witnesses who hear about Elders covering up child sex abuse, Elders molesting children, tell themselves or to each other, Nah, that's actually undercover police trying to make us look bad. That's a question, not a statement. I suspect that's what he's trying to do or at the very least opening the door to, but I can't be sure. It's just a weird thing to say, so I'm wondering why he said it to begin with. Why pick that story out of all possible stories to share, even if it is true?