1995 generation change

Gorb

Now, many years later, I remember the 1995 generation change, very well.

Since early youth, hearing my father explaining in field service the 2520 years. It was his main theme in the field.

With the change my doubts started. With some jw friends we did not trust the organization anymore. Also because of the jw writers accused the jw rank and file of believing it and speculate.

It was a difficult time with fear, a lack of trust and headache while visiting the kingdom hall.

Did you had this trilling experience also?

G.

I remember someone putting a newspaper clipping of an article covering this on the congregation information board back in 1995. The writer quoted a woman who stated she was a Witness, but quit when the doctrine change happened. I hate to admit it, but the change didn't phase me. I was a born-in Witness at the ripe old age of 20 when it happened.

slimboyfat

Yes I remember it too. We had a sister in our hall who was disfellowshipped and “out the truth” when the change occurred. She was reinstated some time in the late 1990s and had to be corrected a number of times when she gave the “old understanding” in comments.
I think it shook a lot of people. Many on this forum have expressed the same over many years. It wasn’t the same dramatic shock as when 1975 failed, but it was a slow burn that was perhaps more impactful on the growth of the organisation in the long run. Most of all I think it dampened people’s enthusiasm for trying to convert outsiders. In the 1980s there was a confidence and a swagger about some JWs that the end must come very soon because of the “generation” teaching. When that was gone they lost the “urgency” of their message. At a subconscious level I think some lost their appetite for converting other people to the “truth”, because they harboured increasing doubt about it themselves, and didn’t want to drag more people into the mess.

joe134cd

I wish it had been the thing that woke me up. It vouldnn be if saved me a further 30 years of listening to nonsense.

Freemail

Yep. Woke me right up. Took a few more years after to get out safely and without too much fuss, but this started my slow descent.

20 years out now thankfully.

Sea Breeze

I remember where I was sitting when the article came out. The heat started in my gut and slowly rose to me chest, then shoulders and then finally my ears. I thought I was going to explode. I called my mom and told here that it was ridiculous how we were lied to for some many years.

It was the last straw for me. I never went to another meeting after that article came out. I rented my house out and attended university at the age of 31 as a proud agnostic. Slowly, I began to understand that I had never been a Christian and that generations of my family had been hoodwinked.

waton

Can someone post the article or abstract of it? There were so many changes I dont know which is which, lived through them all since 1957.

Ding

They had to make some sort of change.

The "within one generation" of 1914 (remember the arrow illustration?) clearly wouldn't wash any more.

Instead of admitting they don't know what they're talking about, they bought the organization more time with the overlapping generation explanation.

A lot of people didn't buy it, of course, but a lot did.

mickbobcat

This was the final nail in the coffin of my getting out. I had had doubts for many years. I kept saying that either the JWs are wrong or the end will come before those of the 1914 gen were gone. Then those lying bastards did a while E coyote and pulled a magic Acme hole and escaped by cheating. I threw the magazine on the floor and said thats it I am out. And never looked back.

nowwhat?

From what I remember in 1995 they sneaked in the generation change in a couple of paragraphs in a study article that was kinda irrelevant. I was the only one that caught it in my circle of friends