2017 Convention Video Remember The Wife Of Lot (page 2)

Londo111

This is so over the top, I almost wonder if some of those involved in this video are awake.

undercover

How do y'all stomach sitting through this? I've tried twice, and can't get past the 5 minute mark.

I should really try harder, so that I'm knowledgeable about it when JW family are tortured with it during the convention. But - it's just so bad.

StephaneLaliberte

Pale Emperor: 1:27:24 - has anybody ever received welcome like this from your KH? I never did in the 32 years i attended.

That's the way it was in a few KH of mine. Especially at the Memorial. That doesn`t mean it wasn`t fake love though. I mean, most of them (including me actually) gave smiles, handshakes and hugs, and never actually cared about the others. Its was just the thing they do. Like guys in the mafia. They'll call you brother, hugs and kisses and then, drive an ice pick in the back of your head. "Joe Pesci style"!

jp1692

How ironic that "Uncle" tries to manipulate the woman using exactly the same threats and control tactics JWs use. @1:26:15"

Gorbatchov

We miss the convention because of other priorities: 4 week holiday in California...

G.

Witness My Fury

I refuse to click on Watchtard propaganda.

I let someone else take one for the team and tell me how bad it was instead.

David_Jay

This video is a perfect example of a "straw man" argument. There are also significant problems in how the entire video swings away from the exact reason for the expression in Luke 17:32, not to mention how it's a tell-tale earmark of the Jehovah's Witnesses that is giving others another reason for calling them a cult.

Refuting the World, Success, and Financial Stability

This is the "straw man" part of the argument. The claim is that outside of the Jehovah's Witnesses there exists a world that will not let you participate in your religious observances, a situation that makes a person have to choose between financial success and being "saved" by God.

At the very end of this video, the uncle states to our main character: "If you leave now, you will lose everything." What is our "heroine" having to choose between? The story tells us it is a choice between Jehovah and having a career, perhaps even one that has you working for non-Jehovah's Witness family members (making the choice even between "Jehovah" and blood relations). The ultimate choice at the end is between "everything" and going to the Memorial. "I almost ended up like a woman in the Bible I would never want to imitate," the woman states at the end. The woman in the Bible? "The wife of Lot," she states.

The congregation is obviously one in the Western world, as it is filled with multiracial people and the meeting is being started by a caucasian male. While I am sure this video might be altered for different world circumstances, this version demonstrates that the lesson trying to be taught is not universal.

The Memorial occurs around the same time Passover and the Holy Triduum occur (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday) as well as Easter, all in the same week. Most Western countries have short work weeks when this occurs as the majority of people will be taking advantage of the holidays, religious or not, Christian and Jewish or not. Stores will empty, people will not be shopping for homes and apartments, even television programs will not air new shows as it isn't likely people will be watching. Many Western countries also have strict laws prohibiting employers (even if they are your family) from forbidding people to engage in their own particular holy days, especially those considered the most important of one's religion.

This situation would likely not happen, even though it is demonstrative of a pattern our protagonist has created for herself. Who would be shopping for real estate during this week? Brokers, bankers, and others like them don't work on these holidays. People of all types of backgrounds are busy, busy preparing for traveling, holidays, special meals, religious observances, or just using the time off to get away for a vacation of their own making. Believe me this situation would not be happening, especially after hours! (Isn't the stereotype that "the Jews control all the money"? It's Passover time, which lasts 8 days. Believe me, nobody with high paying jobs is working, at least not after hours.)

And speaking stereotypes (and perhaps a bit of fact), Jews are considered to be quite successful people career-wise and financially. On the night of Nisan 14 they are at home taking a candle and hunting around their homes in a traditional "search for leaven," and making final preps for Passover seder the next evening, Nisan 15. We have lots of doctors, lawyers, bankers, real estate brokers, and other professionals at my temple, and believe you me none of these people are at their jobs. Most stop working from Nisan 12 until at least the 17th, if not all 8 days. Then they go back to their careers. If they can do it, so can the Witnesses. We even pay for seating on holy days at synagogues, sometimes $200 or more per seat (this is how we raise money as Jews don't have a need to attend their houses of worship as regularly as Christians). We obviously can make money and worship God at the same time if we do things like that.

This is all made up, including...

"Remember the wife of Lot!"

This verse from Luke 17:32 is referring not to turning away from spiritual things to choose others things like material wealth or social status. The very brief reference is to one thing: the need to act and avoid judgment.

The verses before Luke 17:32 are about avoiding becoming like those who either perished in the flood of Noah's day or Lot's wife. (Luke 17:26-31) What did these two groups have in common? Materialism? Love for careers more than God? No. The only thing both have in common are a failure to act. The people in the narrative of the flood do not save themselves by taking the means of escape, the ark. The same thing for Lot's wife. She does not save herself by the only means of escape, running away.

If "looking back" was the problem, then where did the people of Noah's day "look back"? They didn't have that option, and neither did the people who perished in the narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The teaching is that action is required. Lot's wife '"looking back" is not the issue, thus materialism or a good career have nothing to do with this.

Of interest is that the Jewish view on Lot's wife's punishment is due to herself being as unwelcoming as those in Sodom and Gomorrah. Another view has to do with what the Hebrew reads in Genesis 19:26: Wattabet chistow miha-arah. This literally reads "Lot's wife looked from behind him." The text reads as if she was destroyed not for "looking back," but "looking around" someone who was in her way. Jewish scholars suggest this might imply that the angels were protecting Lot and his family from the Shekinah, the Divine Presence of God that had come down to destroy the cities. Lot's wife may have lost her life by stepping away from the angelic protectors and thus exposing herself to the Divine Presence during the destruction. There is no mention of materialism or having to choose between career, family and God.

Cults: "The World Will Make You Choose"

This straw-man argument is common to cults that argue: "The world will make you choose between us and them. They will give you no middle ground. You must choose us, the cult, to survive!"

Of course, cults won't admit they are cults, but the earmark is the same. They will invent scenarios that you will mistakenly identify with certain circumstances in your life. A friendly invitation to join the family for a celebration will become this "predicted" situation: "Us or them!" Working late or on a day that you may have to sacrifice going to a church meeting (most Christians have one or more each week, claiming all are important to attend) will be this situation the cult "warned you would happen," another "us or them" scenario. Rarely if ever will you be told you can't celebrate a holy day of prime importance to you. And if you didn't have the cult telling you to reject your family, you would see that telling your family to no longer expect you for Easter, Passover, Christmas or the like is you, not them, telling them that you don't approve of their celebrating days and occasions that are important to them.

This is a video production by a cult. It is is telling you a lie. It is giving the impression that one needs to be the "opponent" of financial success and material stability, proving its "argument" with a melodramatic story, but all the while it is refuting an argument that has not really been advanced by anyone. If you want to be religious, you can be very faithful to your religion and be financially stable, even wealthy, and not have to choose one or the other. Not every rich person is evil. Not every wealthy man is unholy. Not every financially successful wife will turn into a pillar of salt for bringing home a good paycheck.

Besides, the "heroine" is a bad example of a Witness. People will likely gossip about her for coming late to the Memorial, for barely making it on time, when we all know that faithful Witnesses would have been early to make sure not only they had a seat but to welcome and assist newcomers. This is the best protagonist they can come up with?

ctrwtf

Okay, one more comment about this. If I were to remember the wife of Lot, I would remember that her husband pimped out her daughters to protect mighty spirit creatures. Then, in a perfectly normal human response to gaze upon the spectacular destruction of one's home, she was mercilessly put to death by an angry, jealous, pitiful spirit creature that couldn't put up with her shit.

That's what I would remember.........

jp1692

DJ: Cults say: "The world will make you choose between us and them. They will give you no middle ground. You must choose us ... to survive!"

Which is tragically ironic because cults hypocritically do exactly the same thing!

Normal, healthy relationships are not threatened by other appropriate relationships.

daringhart13

LOL...I just lost brain cells and only watched a few minutes.

Aside from how dumb it all is.....I can't help but think "wow, this get's elders out of having to give talks".....90 minutes of staged drivel...... no one has to think anymore, come up with illustrations or motivate. Just pop in the movie.

But even better... I want them to take this little drama further and show the dad getting hammered and see his daughters taking turns having sex with him.... you know, like good old Lot did.

I'm guessing they aren't going to show that part in modern day terms, right?

LOL......

2017 Convention Video Remember The Wife Of Lot

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