by Big Dog 77 Replies latest jw experiences
It may involve only a difference of weeks or months, not years.. thousand years of man's existence will soon be up, yes, within this generation!Are these lies or false prophecies?
I remember an elder in his enthousiasm: "In those days we will see the angels fight, thunder, lightning across the skies. Yes, our generation will see all this, as Jehovah has spoken".
Reality is: " There is life after '75."
Andy
I remember being in school, and receiving corporal punishment with a big thick leather belt (it never did me any permanent harm, he says with a squint).
My mum clearly remembers being approached by a sister, in about 1968, and being excitedly told that they'd released the date of Armageddon.
I became a JW in 1971 at the age of 20.
I studied with an Elder who never mentioned 1975 in all the time we studied together, even the "Life Everlasting" book were it spoke about mans 6,000 years since creation. In the years up to 1975 I very rarely heard anyone say anything about what it might mean or go out their way to do extra preaching etc. I think we were fortunate to have Elders who kept a tight control on any speculation. One Elder who was in his 80's and one of the "anointed" even remarked in words like "Why does Brooklyn always come up with things like this. I wish they would stop trying to out guess Jehovah."
One sign you could say that brothers/sister in the congregation had 1975 in the back of their mind, was the fact that in 1974 there was about 15 weddings at the KH. Also that it was 1976/77 before anyone of those, bought a house.
But I know from speaking to others who were around at that time that some JW's did take it seriously. I recently spoke to an ex-JW from the South of England who was about 10 yrs old in 1970 and how his father sold up and moved to a rural area so they could "save" as many as possible who would normally never have a JW call on them. When 1975 didn't happen his father was disappointed , but decided that Jehovah must be giving more people a chance.
Its those who have become JW's say in last 10 years or so. That when you mention 1975 they look at you blank. It seems anything pre-1990 just didn't happen.
My parents gave up everything in anticipation of 1975.
My Dad was in air-traffic control. He gave that up to go pioneering. Then my parents sold their house and rented one in Matlock, Derbyshire so's they could serve where the need was great until the end came.
Years later, when my Mum came across a person who'd left the JW's over the '75 business, she exclaimed "Oh! Are you another sevent-fiver then?"
She's gone full circle and now denies that '75 ever had any importance in her life.
Selective memory, I guess.
Englishman.
The WTS is a master of making people believe and act in certain ways without explicitly printing it. Sometimes, they print things that read one way on the surface, but which they expect members to interpret totally differently.
You are totally right. Although I think the 1975 issue is one of very few exceptions to that. The 8/15/68 article does say that the End is going to come within days or months of 1975, not years. That is very directly telling people it is going to be in or around 1975.
David2002, Most other issues are difficult to prove, a lesson I've learned all to well. The literature says one thing, taking a less harsh standpoint on an issue. Then you hear the hard line stance from the elders and anyone giving talks or at assemblies. Most of the hard line stuff is said orally, not in writing. The literature hints strongly at it, then ultimately says <fill in an issue here> is a matter of conscience. Elsewhere in literature and orally, the dubs are instructed to not use the "it's a conscience matter" as an excuse to do something....those with the harshest conscience are considered the most spiritual and strongest in the troof. You know all these things if indeed you were/are a jw.
From a business standpoint it was an incredible move. Paying members doubled.
LOL at Garybuss - but oh so true
What a lot of the JWs who claim that 1975 was never a big deal forget is just how tied in it was with the 1914 Generation Doctrine. This "Generation Doctrine" was well understood by any JW worth his salt. It (1975) clearly was the real upper limit of time for the official W.T. Society teaching about the 1914 Generation back then. That Generation who saw and understood the importance of the signs of Christ's Presence in 1914 were said to have been adults and at the very least teenagers then. This would have made even a very young 14 year old from 1914 a ripe old 75 in 1975. A Biblical generation (as taught by the W.T. Society then) had a limit of about 70 years. I remember clearly that the talk in the late 1960's and ealy 70's was that we would, in all likelyhood, already be past the big "A" and living in "the New World" by 1975. This kept getting pushed back and revised as nothing happened so that by about 1973 the start of the "Great Tribulation" was said to begin somewhere before 1975. This was revised again as the date was rushing upon us and some wiggle room was allowed by reducing the low end age of "The Generation" and by claiming Eve may have been created later than originally thought. Eve's creation date ties in the other key "evidence" used by the Society to pin point the "Time Of The End" and that would be how the length of Jehover's resting period of 6,000 years was coming to it's end around 1975 so Christ could rule as Lord of the Sabboth for the last 1,000 years of this 7,000 year "Day".
Any JWs back in the late 60's or early 70's who claim they were not expecting anything were either not very well aquainted with their study material or were just flagrant Apostates. I find it impossible to believe that any "spiritually mature" JW from this time period was not expecting a huge event of some kind in the early to mid 1970's. I think Englishman is right in saying that many now have "selective memories" when it comes to the immense disappointment surrounding 1975. Only very "unspiritual" brothers who were not "close to the fold" would not have understood the Society's not so subtle warnings about the mid 70's. This really was the whole essense of the entire JW movement! If they were not expecting the "Big A" then we all might as well have been Methodists. Otherwise, what was the point of being a JW? Knowing we were in the "Time of the End" is what we were selling for the Watchtower Society!
Liberty II, you summarized it perfectly, absolutely perfectly. I just love these people that say, oh it was no big deal, I was there, it was a big freaking deal.
I may be in the minority but I did not think Armageddon was coming in 1975 and said so emphatically to people I met in service and fellow Witnesses. I did not meet any Witnesses who thought 1975 was the end until years after 1975.My thinking was that since the Jesus said that no one knew the day and hour it was unlikely that Armageddon would come when so many people would be expecting it to come. Instead of viewing the Watchtower as back peddling on 1975 I thought they were correctly telling people not to read too much into what others had said. Yes that included Fred Franz.
In 1979 or 1980 when the Watchtower apologized for not explicitly telling the brothers not to expect Armageddon in 1975 I was outraged since I did not think they had anything to apologize for.
Interesting take on the situation. But...you remember 1975. You knew what 1975 was all about.
Does anyone remember 1977? What about 1966? What about any date twenty years in front of or behind 1975? Nothing significant in any of those years was expected. But we all remember 1975.
What is amazing is that nowhere does the WTS ever say "Armageddon is coming in 1975" in print. Never. Not once. It's alluded to. It might be read between the lines, but it's not emphatically stated. So some might want to say, "the WTS never said it" or "They were just warning us that it's close", blah, blah, blah.
Which leads me to ask, "If the WTS never said Armageddon was coming in 1975, why do all of us, from all around the world, remember 1975 and the expectation of what was to happen?" Did we all have some kind of cosmic telepathy that mislead us into looking to 1975 as the end of the world? I think not. All of us who remember 1975 and the talk of Armageddon have one thing in common. We were Jehovah's Witnesses or associated with them. It came from the governing body of the JWs. They promoted 1975. Whether it was in print or not, we were lead down the path of believing that 1975 was special.
1975 ended up not being a significant year of any kind. It was a complete bust. But somebody somewhere lead us to be that it was going to be significant, there's no doubt about that or else we all wouldn't be sitting here thirty years later talking about it.
Thanks BigDog,
I suppose the same thing happened after the big disappointments of 1874,1914,1925, and the 1940's (WWII marked the start of the "End" to Rutherford). The JWs always manage to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. I'm just baffled by their ability to hold two exact opposet thoughts as true at the same time: "we never predicted the End was coming but we are here to warn you that the End is coming soon" or "my congregation never made a big deal out of 1975 but we sure preached the Good News to save lives" . If the End is not near how are you saving lives? If the Big "A" isn't imminent what is the Good News and why is it urgently being preached? How can you be a good "lockstep" JW who supports the "Worldwide Unity of the Brotherhood" and then claim that a basic important teaching directly from the leadership was something you never believed in?
