They said get ready to begin a more hard hitting message. Even had a video about it. Then a week later. They talk about a new kinder, gentler Jehovah and Jesus that will give people an opportunity to repent during the GT. And then the no reporting hours now. So what is it?
Actually, the two are not incompatible.
Remember the account of Jonah. God gave him the commission to give a judgment message to the Ninevites. He went (eventually) and did that, and to his surprise they listened and repented. He was annoyed about that, but God accepted their repentance.
So the preaching message might "toughen up" into a judgment message, but that does not mean that God is not open to "pardoning the error" of those who listen.
With the "no reporting" change - if the org had been following the Christian model properly from the start, that should always have been the case:
1) The Christian ministry is supposed to be about people and their experiences not hours and numbers
2) It's also supposed to be about being motivated "from the heart" to preach, not prodded by numbers for productivity, or competition for position
3) it sorts out who is doing it out of genuine belief and interest - anyone not really motivated or who doesn't believe it will stop or ease off now, and that's for the best all round.
As for "leave the judgment to Jehovah and Jesus" message, that's also how it should have been if the org had really been following Christian principles from the start (rather than throwing shade at anyone who is not already a baptised Witness, which has been common behaviour in many congregations).
The bit of this meeting programme that intrigues me more is what BluesBrother highlighted.
In my opinion, the GB are entirely right (albeit very late) to say explicitly that only Jehovah God and Jesus can determine who is resurrected. [Assuming the viewpoint that one believes all this in the first place, as the GB supposedly do.]
But it opens a huge can of worms on a similar, but perhaps even more important point that challenges the GB's very own self-proclaimed status. To extend BluesBrother's quote from Splane:
"We shouldn’t be dogmatic about who will and who won’t be resurrected" ... to heaven
I have always thought it arrogant to assume that individuals who
say they are anointed are
definitely in heaven once they've died. For decades, the org has said things like
"So-and-So .... has received their heavenly reward"
If the GB are now openly acknowledging that
only Jehovah and Jesus determine who will be resurrected
to earth, surely the same is true regarding who is resurrected
to a heavenly place [given that JW teaching is that not all go to heaven, of course]?
They have already recently spelled out clearly (in an attempt to explain the surge in partakers) that a person "believing sincerely" that they are anointed is not proof they a
re actually anointed (although that somewhat undermines Romans 8:16). Coupled with this "clarification", that openly calls into question the organisation's assumption that every member of the GB past and present - and various faithful 20th Century oldtimers - are guaranteed a place in heaven
If it's
"above their pay grade" to decide about the earthly resurrection, surely it's even moreso with the heavenly resurrection?
