I have kept on asking myself WHY the JW's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own Doctrines?
Mainstream Christianity has FIXED teachings. As you might expect of utterances of an Almighty Deity, no changes are necessary!
Can the same be said of Watchtower teaching? (Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)
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I have a conjecture to offer
1. The Doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses (Post 1931) began as perversions of Russell's theological opinions.
2. Russell's writings were perversions of mainstream Christian doctrines.
That's 2 strikes already!
3, Finally, what was published during the Rutherford regime was what Fred Franz was ordered/forced/cajoled into producing to prop up his good friend J.F. Rutherford's crackpot schemes, notions, and tomfoolery. After the death of Rutherford, Franz set about trying to "correct" the Judge's strange, unorthodox and just-plain-weird interpretations.
4. Fred Franz's transformations became his private Theology--much of which didn't stand up to practical everyday wear and tear in the real world!
We might say without fear of error, THE TRUTH was pretty much whatever momentary whim Fred Franz coughed up like a hairball.
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I would assert this set a foundation of principle:
EVERYTHING is up for grabs
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Brother Raymond Franz has told us he believed that all the Watchtower leaders were "captives of a concept" which he explained was circular reasoning. "We are guided by Jehovah's holy spirit. We are the only TRUE religion."
With that self-belief, these men just could not help but trim-the-moustache constantly trying to even out the imbalances.
It would be like a poor mother with too many kids and hand-me-down clothes in constant need of repair. Watchtower Doctrines are basically just that: Hand-Me-Downs! I'll fitting, awkward, and always out of fashion.
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FREE FOR ALL
After the death of the Watchtower Society's "oracle," there was a free-for-all approach to just about anything that caught a GB member's personal fancy. Much of it centered on discipline, enforcement, and a proliferation of hardcore pronouncements (rules) leading to disfellowship.
So many patches have been sewed on the same fabric, there really is not any "there" there!
The entire constructed Doctrine is held together by assertions of authority and appeals to intricate fallacies. Each new GB member can have a go at it.
What then?
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YOU'VE GOT IT ALL WRONG
Very smart outside JW's all over the world have been writing and mailing treatises CORRECTING the errors of the WT leaders for decades.
These "corrections" annoy the hell out of the GB, of course. It's clearly no vote of confidence to be told, "You've got it all wrong."
So, the GB go into defensive / offensive overdrive.
Result?
Those outside (helpful) critical writers (Carl Olaf Jonsson, et al) are made out to be enemies and everybody in the respective congregation who has read a copy of the "corrections" got singled out for quarantine, Inquisition, and possible extinction.
Afterward--the writing committee went into overdrive again and again gently tweaking, repairing, "adjusting" and obliterating the (now) obvious mistakes. All of this silently, stealthily, of course.
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FORCED CHANGES
The most recent GB's overhaul of this religion is proof positive of at least one thing. THEY ALL agree it was a mess that needed cleaning up!
This is why a steady drumbeat has been pounding for 45 years or so. LOYALTY
LOYALTY, fealty, solidarity and unquestioning obedience is demanded.
This makes it impossible for a "thinking" JW with curiosity about ridiculous changes (overlapping generations) to stand up and ask for clarification. They are soon marked.
I would go so far as to say, most of the BLOOD doctrine changes have been driven by two things:
1. Letters and phone calls from desperate people.
2. Legal problems in foreign countries.
You can be certain too of the obvious need for forced changes stemming from the lawsuits and investigations into Pedophile cover-ups.
If JW's had genuine Divine Truth directly from Scriptures and Holy Spirit--ask yourself why it would ever be necessary to amend, adjust, correct and flip-flop any of it?
We change our underwear for obvious reasons.
Maybe the Watchtower Truth doctrines keep changing for a similar reason. They all amount to a brown, fragrant stain on the reputation of Jehovah.