JW Ranking System

by NotFormer 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  NotFormer

  It's fairly evident to little old outsider me that the organisation has a class system, perhaps even a caste system.

  From what I've read, there seems to not only be an official ranking system (M.S., elder, C.O. etc.) but an unofficial one. Has anyone ever sat down to figure out what the unofficial ranks are and how they affect the pecking order? For example, does a Bethel toilet cleaner visiting his home congregation outrank a M.S.? Is "elder's wife" an unofficial rank? What rank is a pioneer?

  What outranks what, officially and unofficially, all the way up the chain?
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  enoughisenough

  pioneers are definitely put on a pedistal! Bethelites-yeah, I think rank more than MS. Of course the CO wife was looked up to over the other sisters. Goes without saying, the men are more important than the women. I have watched several videos where the families may have been hard up and sort of living on the fringes and so they were excluded from certain activites- so the really poor are at a serious disadvantage.
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  blondie

  There were lists like this drawn up by ex-jws, maybe some posted on jws. But I don't know how to search for them.
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  NotFormer

  That's pretty well what I am fishing for, Blondie. I would imagine something like that has been listed on here, probably decades ago, and probably more than once, but like you, I'm not sure how to search for it.
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  Balaamsass2

  endless ranks. Most are based on being male, and the degree of testosterone.
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  road to nowhere

  Money plays in. Pioneers, elders wives, eloquent speakers.
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  TonusOH

  That would vary from congregation to congregation. For the most part, the more dedicated you were, the more that people would look up to you. Any sort of privilege or service was seen as praiseworthy. But how they stacked up against one another was probably not consistent from one place to another.

  In the congregations that I attended, Bethelites were usually very well regarded. The understanding was that they had to be worthy enough to serve and it was seen as a bit of a sacrifice for the younger members (unless they were locals). It was like being allowed to serve in the temple; everyone else was going to regard you with a sense of wonder.

  But they were usually not local, and thus not as well known, so it was easier to focus on the service and not the person. Pioneers, ministerial servants, elders, and so on... they were locals and how much they were liked (or disliked) depended on how much of an impression they had made. COs and DOs were more like Bethelites, in that we only knew them superficially, so they were held in higher esteem.
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  FFGhost

  A (slightly obsolete) oldie but goodie:

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/2671/updated-list-watchtower-ranks-classes
  
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  blondie

  Thanks for finding that FFGhost, I knew there was something older on JWN.
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  Pronger1

  We had several Bethelites join our congregation. They were always appointed to either MS or Elder immediately based upon age. Younger than 30, MS. 30 or older, Elder.