Watchtower Fallout (page 2)

onacruse

RR, thanks, and please extend my thanks to James; that was a lot of work.

edit to add: Also, I want to be clear that I did some format-edit to that info, and omitted a couple of sections that I felt weren't relevant to this particular thread.

imallgrowedup

And the winner for the longest post in JWD history goes to......

ONACRUSE!!!!!

LOL! Seriously, this is great information! I bookmarked it for future use! Thanks for taking the time to share it!

growedup

Faraon

gitasatsangha.

I think that the link you are looking for is:

http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/contents/history/jp%20history.htm

Faraon

gespro

I have seen this information through my searches just a couple of weeks ago. It definitely needs to be here!

There are some stories about the African divisions and (like Romania) used the JW name but wasn't JW. I'll try to find it and post it here...

g

PS. This must be the longest post! LOL

onacruse

Faraon, yes, that's it! Thanks!!!!

LOL...I think I'll have to push on that PayPal button to pay for the bandwidth I just used up.

Farkel

git...,

: I'm trying to come up with a list of various non-JW and Russellite groups. It's already pretty much established that the JW claim of being unified is hogwash

Good God, man! Why would you want to do that? If Russell's stuff is hogwash (it is) and post-Russell stuff is hogwash (it is), why are you interested in "sub-hogwash" or "splinter group hogwash?"

You can't start with crap, and break away from that crap and then use some of that old crap and mix it with new crap to make the OLD crap somehow go away or get better.

I've always said: it's better to toss all that crap away and start over with a clean piece of paper, a pen and fresh ideas.

Unless you are an objective historian who is only interested in documenting a sordid history of a failed religion.

Farkel

onacruse

Fark:

Unless you are an objective historian who is only interested in documenting a sordid history of a failed religion.

How about an angry survivor who is trying to get an objective history of his sordid religion?

I remember when I first saw an ad in a paper (back in the late 70s) about Dawn Bible Students. It was a tiny little box on a back page, but omg, it practically hit me in the face! "What?????? I knew these guys had spun off from the Society decades ago, but I thought they were all long since dead and gone!" So I ordered the Studies reprints; fascinating! But I was still a brain-dead dubber, so I read the stuff with the usual "ah, old light, new light" mentality.

And then, several months later, a guy comes to my door; early 30s or so...he got my address from my mail-in order, and wanted to see what I thought of the books. LOL...I thought "I'm getting a 'follow-up' call!" Turns out he was a great-grandson of VanAmburgh...but as soon as he knew I was a JW, well, the conversation pretty much died.

And then, a few years later, I found out about Chicago Bible Students, and ordered a couple of CDs.

And then, later, a mutual friend of ours informed me about other groups, like the Laymen, etc.

I had no idea.

And then, a few years later, I was DFd.

So I'm finding it quite interesting to review the actual history of the WTS...vs. what I was told in the QM book, the Divine Purpose book, and the Proclaimers book.

gitasatsangha

Farkel,

A good question. I'm not religion-shopping, if that is what you are thinking. I am actually trying to do a bit of trending. I suspect that the WTBS goes through cyclical purges every so often, though not necessarilly at a regular rate that can be pinned down with any accuracy. I have a hypothesis, and it is only that, that the pressure cooker that occasionally causes this, is about to reach a boiling point and cause another schism. However the JW/Russelism splinter groups have never been very large or successful.

Huxley

Interesting thread..I had no idea there were so many splinter groups. You don't hear that at all in their official history..

Huxley

Farkel

git...,

: I suspect that the WTBS goes through cyclical purges every so often, though not necessarilly at a regular rate that can be pinned down with any accuracy

I see. However, the purges are well documented: the major ones occurring in post-1914, 1925, 1932, 1938, 1975 and 1995. All for various reasons but mainly: failed predictions and forced control of the membership. The last one in 1995 was a major blow: the WTS could no longer sustain the hope that the generation who saw 1914 would also see the Paradise Earth(tm). It cost the WTS leadership dearly, but they had no other choice: they were fools to say so in the first place. Then again, they've been fools from the beginning.

There are many fine documented examples of these "cyclical purges" and why they occurred that you might want to investigate before you go around and try to re-invent the wheel!

Farkel

Watchtower Fallout

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