by theliberator 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Dear Liberator.... yep, I remember anxiously awaiting the KM that would come out each year, and prove to us that the annointed numbers were falling....
This was proof to me.... However, I kept waiting for that exponential rise in believers.... It was a no show!
I pioneered all through the 80's. It was a time of boom! especially since we all thought the end would come before the end of the century.
As to the good quality books....looking back now, it is so clear how full of nonsense they were.
I fully agree. I was baptized in that decade. There were a lot of quality JWs - at least in my area. Smart people were still coming in from the outside.
Yeah, 1975 had passed and was a disappointment, but we still had the "generation" time limit that indicated that the end was imminent. And really, there seemed to be more scriptural support for that than the 1975 stuff.
There really seemed to be depth in JWdom then. We had the publications you mentioned, plus at that time, the older, deeper prophetic books (by or mostly by) Franz hadn't been abandoned. There was still boldness in the ministry. We almost wanted to encounter controversy, challenges, and questions.
It is actually very sad when a true believer reflects on this. It was a time of excitement and hope. But like a dream, it had to end. If only it were true.
I feel exactly the same.
I felt some dismay and anxiety that I didn't have bible studies galore, but I was comforted by the hope that I was planting 'seeds' so that when the end was nigh, people would jump into Jehovah's congregation for safety......and life.
I suspect around the mid nineties when the generation teaching started changing to 'fit' the numbers, many felt some despair.... It wasn't that we were not prepared to serve God no matter how long in this world, it was just that we had taught ( at the time I had studied) a definite, end times 'date range'........ 1975...1914, 1874 or whatever were in the past.....
Funny, I remember somehow I must have got wind of something happening around 1975 re a proclamation re the 'end' - a 3 rd gen elder, ex bethel, PO etc being someone who we thought of as a friend, poo-pooed this and said it was just a few who whipped up false fever.
He told a big fib - didn't he?
I used to angst over not being more productive in the field - so glad now that I couldn't convince anyone that the WT is God's only channel !!!!!
Yes, I definitely agree that the 80's was the crescendo of a high for the org. The 90's really took a dip. The videos weren't of the same cinematic quality of the first few, but were made by television standards. The audio dramas went down the tubes drasticly. In the 80's we had the epic 'Egypt to the promised land' trilogy, with multilayered rich soundtracks, scores of skilled actors and full orchestra music, but the 90's dramas were basically cheaper than Disney channel shows with synthesized music, and cringe worthy acting. That decade also saw hardcover books replaced with softcover to save money, and many were made cheaper than they are today with a short life span and production defects. I'd say the next organizational high started in the late 2000's, and we're now cominh down from it starting last year.
For me the period post 1975 and just before was a time of hype, 1975 forgotten by the crowd but for me the pathetic blame put on us for expecting too much was a clear signal. That and news that the Revelation book was to be studied for a third time at the group, as I got to know not so we understood this drivel but because the society had a large inventory of the book and an opportunity to sell more (we paid for literature then)
Brothers more involved, active then. Did not just see each other only at mtgs but lived much more closely Cannot remember date WT blamed US for 1975 fiasco but years before really were enjoyable.
