by Sea Breeze 9 Replies latest jw friends
I find the WT buzzwords to be fascinating. The one that bemuses me most is "fine". As in Jehovah's fine arrangement ("arrangement" is another buzzword that they seem to love peppering things with). Even to the point where Jesus is the "fine shepherd" (!) in their rendition of John 10:11 and 10:14! They can't even bring themselves to call Jesus "good"??
They started out differentiating between themselves and mainstream Christianity by rejecting standard terms, and having to find substitutes. So, information boards instead of bulletin boards, talks instead of sermons, all their different terms for office holders to not sound like they have a clergical hierarchy, Kingdom Hall instead of church and so on.
They found themselves in a dilemma whereby they wanted to appear religious, while not being identifiably like any religion. Over the years they have had to sometimes walk that back to appear more mainstream. It is my understanding that they rejected the label "Christian" , until they felt the need to change that stance. I heard that they were allowed to claim to be born again when mainstream protestants challenged them on this on the doorstep (that may not be true, it was something I was told by fellow Pentecostals during the 80s. Is there any WT ruling on claiming to be "born again"?
I think the video above is a recent mix on the original. I believe this is the original song....sounds English. Pretty funny. I think I heard him say something about "sugar coco pops".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8&ab_channel=LePietreRotolanti
I heard that they were allowed to claim to be born again when mainstream protestants challenged them on this on the doorstep...in the 80s. Is there any WT ruling on claiming to be "born again"?
I been out since 1996. So, hopefully, someone who has been in more recently can respond with something more current.
When I was in, I had no idea of the concept of Justification and that it meant the same thing as being "born again". So, I would have probably ignorantly answered that I was born again when I was an active JW.
However, the WT came right out and plainly said that the average member wasn't Justified in the early 1930's when they officially kicked off the two-tier salvation message (one with the New Covenant and one without it) that JW's are infamous for.
At some point they stopped using the term Justification altogether and replaced it with the term "underserved kindness", which furhter muddied the waters. It all sounds very religious and biblical, but is actually the opposite of bible teaching. ... Kinda like the funny Italian guy sounding like he's knows English in the song above and made millions of dollars while having a bit of fun.
I thought "undeserved kindness" was their term for "grace". But it's a great example of the way they change things for the sake of difference.
As for the the video clip, some of it sounds kind of English; it's quite an amusing exercise. I remember a lot of stuff from the 60s and 70s where foreign languages were represented. They never got someone who actually spoke a language to coach the actors in what to say, but would just rattle off something that they thought sounded like the language. As much as I loved Scooby Doo Where Are You, I always cringe at the bit in the episode Mystery Mask Mix-up where Don Messick (Scooby's voice) is supposedly speaking Chinese (Cantonese?) to a bloke in a Chinese laundry in San Francisco, and he's just making a lot of Chinese sounding noises. 🙄
I suppose that all aligns with your original point, that the WT tried to create a religious "sound" that was unique from the the other religions of the time. So the WT buzzwords are just them making a lot of religious sounding noises.
On the "born again" issue, I looked through some old posts. It appears that only the "anointed" 144000 could claim to be born again. So what I was told by WT outsiders in the 80s was probably a misapprehension on their part.
Not Former, you are more correct after thinking about it. Guess I'm getting tired.
In the JW world:
Grace was changed to Underserved Kindness
Justification was changed to "Declared Righteous"
I am interested if anyone else heard that it was OK to refer to oneself as born again as a JW after 1996 when I left.
It is my understanding that they rejected the label "Christian" , until they felt the need to change that stance.
Not sure about that one. But for sure they used to claim that they were not a "religion", just a society. They changed that when they felt the need to get "religious" protection$ afforded to them under law.
They used to also deny that they had any "clergy" .... that is until they needed clergy/laity privledge afforded to them under law$.
The WT has played word games since their inception because they are expert liars. And most if not all JW's lied for them on occasion. For instance, when we were at someone's door and were asked whether or not we were there to change their religion, we would deny that we were there to do that and insist that we were only there to encourage bible reading.
A significant part of recovery from the JW religion is admitting that we all helped further WT lies. We were all perpetrators as much as we were victims.
They were great perpetrators of the lie, Seabreeze. Many people of talent and intelligence were caught up in it. And then that talent and intelligence was trained to be focused on sales and sales recruitment. While being told that it was doing God's work. The lie was enabled by the sound of religious noises. It's a bait and switch tactic. You're told you're joining God's true religion, but you're actually a salesperson for a publishing company.
It reminds me of Amway's bait and switch. Amway is a business, and tells you up front that you're in business with them, although you are an (IBO) Independent Business Operator (it used to be "distributer" back in the day, compare that to "publisher"). They tell you that the Amway business revolves around selling product, to avoid accusations of being a pyramid scheme (pyramid schemes sell distributorships, not product, you see!) But the real business model of Amway is that you, the IBO, buy and use Amway products and recruit people under you as your "downlines". That means pestering friends and family to take a look at some mysterious "great business opportunity".
Once you sign up as an IBO, you begin to be immersed in the real world of Amway. The emphasis shifts from selling and using the products to buying the marketing "tools" from your upline. These are various self help books and tapes that supposedly help you set up your downline businesses. The secret of making the big money in Amway is in selling the motivational stuff to your downlines. The Amway myth is that you make the big money by being "rewarded" for the business volume of the product being shifted by you and all your downline organisations. Those rewards come with titles, such as Gold Producer, Emerald Distributer and so on. It's when you hit around Diamond Distributor level, that you hit the big time.
The compensation you receive from Amway itself at this level is OK, but it's not the licence to print money that you were told it was. The big money starts when your downline businesses are spun off as a separate Amway Motivational Organisation. This is when all sales of the motivational materials are by you to your downlines and you get all the profits. Unlike the selling of Amway product, your downlines see no part of that action. The real money in Amway is made by these AMOs, trading off the back of a somewhat successful product marketing enterprise.
This is the bait and switch. You are told that you are creating a downline business that sells Amway product. But what you are doing is buying books and tapes from your upline, and encouraging your downlines to do it too.
And when you join the WT, something similar happens. You start off attending "Christian" meetings, reading the Bible, saying prayers, attending home study groups. But you soon find that the emphasis is on Kingdom Business, selling magazines and books. The Theocratic Ministry School is a sales course, and the Kingdom Hall is a distribution warehouse.
Or at least, that's how it was. As the publishing business fails, they are ironically finding themselves morphing more into the form of a religion. Time for a different method of bait and switch?
