Question for SBF (page 5)

Drearyweather

Looking at the cutbacks and predicting the end of Watchtower is like looking at the natural disasters happening around and predicting the end of the world.

JW's hear about earthquakes and hurricanes and start thinking that the end of the world is near. Ex-Jw's look at the yearbook stats and predict that the end of WT is near.

The greatest asset that WT has is believers. No matter what happens, no matter how many fade away, a core group of strong and true believers will always be there to prevent the org from collapsing.

Lol for god sake they have multiple times predicted the end of the world and gotten past it!!! They can do and say anything they want. They wont call it a tithe but thats what it will be. Hell the goddamn kingdom hall perpetual mortgage scam is a tithe! As dreary just said, as long as they have believers in their brand of cult they have survival.

sparky1

"The whole thing is a fragile, hollowed-out mess, liable to collapse any minute." - slimboyfat 8 days ago.

"I think all this could happen within 10-20 years." - slimboyfat 1 day ago.

Which is it?

slimboyfat

The second one, as explained above.

Drearyweather

SBF,

you will need to keep your stats ready to incorporate the cutbacks that will be announced at the upcoming Annual meeting on October 7.

sparky1

"The second one, as explained above." - slimboyfat

Apparently, Jehovah's Witnesses don't have the market cornered on new light.

slimboyfat

I'm getting brighter and brighter. ;-)

no-zombie

Let calm down a bit and consider the facts,

Firstly the people western world is quickly becoming more and more secular, with the power and influence of large churches long gone. And I'm strongly of the belief that the situation in Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist countries the situation is much the same, held together by custom rather than spirituality... which means less and less people interest in the BS and obligations the Watchtower is offering.

Secondly, as I've mentioned before, the western world is aging rapidly with countries like Russia and Japan actually worried about their actual existence as a nation. Which again underscores the rapidly falling conversion ratios due to less and less children (from both inside the congregations and outside).

Thirdly, the global economy has not swung out of the funk that its in and there not much hope that it will soon. In fact, the whole world is in a depressional spiral with cash values, stocks and properties viewed now as over-valued. And the second and third worlds aren't doing any better. The lesson here ... money for the organization is going to get tighter and tighter, guaranteed.

And we haven't even begun to think the other financially draining issues others have mentioned. And they must be bleeding money because even running a TV empire without ads will sent you broke.

The summery here is that the Society will not reemerge like a Phoenix thanks to the new blue paint job and 21st century bling. No, it's day has past and will continue to contract. When it falls apart, no one know. But one thing we must remember, the more changes we see in the Organization, the more desperate the Governing Body must be. Because changes costs money, it creates uncertainty and it generally never fixes the root problems anyway.

ScenicViewer

Lol for god sake they have multiple times predicted the end of the world and gotten past it!!! (Sparky1)

Absolutely true! Watchtower has managed to weather most storms by shape shifting and re-branding itself, then claiming 'we never said that,' which most of it's followers swallow hook, line and sinker, and the religion goes on. They have been skating by like this for over a hundred years.

As dreary just said, as long as they have believers in their brand of cult they have survival. (Sparky1)

True again.

The one bright sign that exists is that the core of believers that Watchtower now has will likely dwindle in the future. As the old, non-thinking, hard edged Witnesses die off they will need to be replaced by the younger generations, and it appears that there are fewer and fewer young ones sticking with the Organization these days. And in the advanced countries of the world there are precious few being converted from the field. This makes the future look bleak for Watchtower.

(Thank goodness for the widespread availability of information on Watchtower, mainly via the internet.)

Watchtower leaders can see this as clearly as anyone. I am in the court that believes the Organization is flush with cash, considering the recent sale of major properties in the past several years (World headquarters, British headquarters, branch facilities, and Kingdom Halls), the raiding of congregation bank accounts, the back door 'tithing' arrangement of congregations making perpetual monthly payments to headquarters, and the serious cut backs in expenditures because of cutting the Special Pioneer, Gilead Missionary, Bethel volunteer, and District Overseer programs.

So where is the money going? That is anybody's guess, but it has the feel of being socked away somewhere for the future. I honestly believe that Watchtower sees a serious decline coming in future decades and is preparing financially for it.

What about Lett's cries that the money coming in is less than the money going out? All things considered I don't believe it because there is always a heavy dose of Watchtower spin in what they say. For example there may have been some months where voluntary contributions didn't meet expenses, disregarding other sources of income, but when all sources of income are considered they are financially fine. Lett's presentation was simply to move the faithful to dig deeper and give more.

I hope that, at least slowly, a significant number of Witnesses will wake up to the constant cries for more cash, become offended by it, and pull back on contributions.

For Watchtower to crash quickly would be nice, but I think it will be more of a steady decline until it reaches a certain level that it can maintain. It's heyday is past and whatever type of decline happens in the future will be a welcome thing.

I am as curious as anyone to see what happens over the next 15 years or so.

_Morpheus

slim, please dont misunderstand me, i see where they reconized the need to retool and make cut backs because they couldnt sustain it which absolutely means they were going to fail if they didnt change and i dont begrudge you or anyone else the hope that it happens. I just want to be clear that although we dont see this the same we are on the same team, so to speak

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