Posts by slimboyfat

22

The ineffectiveness of the Watchtower Society preaching work

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

how can the watchtower society claim effectiveness in their 140 years of preaching the ''good news''..... spending billions of hours in ''field service'', having the ''faithful and discreet slave'' lead the preaching work, passing out billions of watchtower literature since the 1870's, while the pentecostals have been more effective using other evangelical methods?

congregations.

119,954. members.

slimboyfat

I think there are a few things to bear in mind with this comparison.

How many actually congregations do Pentecostals have? I doubt there are as many times the number of congregations of Pentecostals as there are adherents when comparing them with JWs.

The number of JW congregations worldwide is actually pretty impressive. Only the Catholic Church and a couple of other church organisations have more congregations worldwide than JWs.

And you are treating all Pentecostals as one group. Pentecostals consist of a huge number of different organisations with variations in belief and practice.

Plus Pentecostals are considered by most to be a denomination of Christianity, with mostly orthodox beliefs, so conversion to Pentecostalism is not as great a leap as it is for those leaving Christian groups to join JWs.

A huge part of Pentecostal growth has been in Latin America where millions of Catholics moved over as part of a wider political and social phenomenon that involved breaking up traditional power structures including the Catholic Church. There has been a trend for some who joined the Pentecostal movement to go back to the Catholic Church as the church attempted to address the concerns of many who had left.

My own observation of Pentecostal churches in the UK is that the long-standing groups such as Assemblies of God and Elim Pentecostal are subject to decline as all mainline churches. The only Pentecostal churches continuing to enjoy any growth are the ones supported by immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. In my town the Assemblies of God Church closed a few years ago and the Elim church has declined significantly. There is a local variant of Pentecostalism which is peculiar to the area, and resulted from 1950s and 1990s (Toronto blessing) revivals. But this small group has declined over the last 20 years from around ten churches locally, to three small churches.

Pentecostal churches generally are characteristed by temporary bursts of activity and expansion, followed by decline and closure.

18

I thought this comment was interesting from the LDS

by joe134cd in

here is a you tube video made by a ex-lds member.. the comment made at the 5:48 min mark i found very interesting.. https://youtu.be/hjw4nazuzzy.

slimboyfat

It’s interesting she says the Mormon church is worth around $40 billion and they collect around $8 billion from the membership each year. That sounds possible to me, and if it is remotely true, it puts firmly into perspective the windfall of around $1 to $2 billion Watchtower received from the sale of Brooklyn properties.

Presumably a lot of Mormon income comes from investment of various kinds. In the UK a lot of churches derive substantial income from letting out property they own. I don’t think Watchtower does any of that, which puts Watchtower at a distinct disadvantage. On top of discouraging education and historically denouncing churches that collect tithes or collections during services, it’s no wonder that Watchtower is in financial trouble. Add in the fact that literature production is now a net drain on resources and increasing legal fees and payouts, Watchtower faces serious financial challenges to say the least.

25

A Question for Born-ins Who Had a Parent Leave the Cult Before They Did

by jp1692 in

question: have any of you that are now exjws had a parent leave the religion before you, and you shunned them because of that?

if so—and while you were still in the cult—what, if anything, could your parent have done to reach your heart and begin a reconciliation?

it’s been almost ten years since i left the religion and my two sons continue to shun me and rebuff all efforts i make to reconcile.

slimboyfat

I’m sorry for your predicament jp1692. The only thing I can think might work at this point is to stop trying. If you are periodically contacting them, then each time you try to contact them they are confirming in their own mind their decision to shun you, and it gets lodged deeper and deeper. There is a sunk cost fallacy too, where each instance of shunning becomes more costly to overturn because of all the previous investment in shunning. So perhaps it would be good to remove the opportunities for them to actively shun you by stopping contact. It may just give them enough space to wonder, reconsider, and react differently sometime years down the line. (In order to make them wonder it would be important not to announce it either, saying “this is the last time I’m going to contact you, and I hope you stop and think about it”, but instead abruptly halt attempts to contact)

I’m sorry there are no good solutions in this situation.

35

Do You Think The Bible Teaches A Trinity As Religions Teach?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i’m not asking whether you believe in the bible.

i just want your opinion as to whether you think the bible teaches it.

i don’t, for what it’s worth..

slimboyfat

John 1 doesn’t teach that Jesus is the creator on any reasonable reading.

1. It says the Word was “with” God.

2. Verse 3 says God created “through” the Word.

3. The Word is described as “god” without the article not “God” with the article.

4. Verse 18 says that the Word is an “only begotten god”, not almighty God.

5. The rest of the gospel teaches that Jesus owes his life and is obedient to God, such as John 6:57.

6. Early interpreters such as Origen said that John 1 presents Jesus as a “second God”.

7. In John 8:58 Jesus was claiming to be older than Abraham and identifying himself as the messiah. He is not claiming to be eternal. In fact he elsewhere stated that he is not eternal. (John 6:57 and elsewhere)

8. I admit that John 20:28 is a problem and I don’t know what the answer is. But given everything else the book says about Jesus I just don’t think it makes sense to conclude that the author believes Jesus is almighty God.

35

Do You Think The Bible Teaches A Trinity As Religions Teach?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i’m not asking whether you believe in the bible.

i just want your opinion as to whether you think the bible teaches it.

i don’t, for what it’s worth..

slimboyfat

Certainly not. Even many proponents of the trinity accept that it’s not taught in the Bible as such, but claim it's implicit, compatible with, or that the trinity can be derived from scripture. Catholics don’t even need to prove it comes from the Bible since they allow that God used the church to lead them to the truth beyond the close of the Bible canon.

13

Will the Russian brothers start to wake up?

by nowwhat? in

if i was a russian brother i would be wondering what exactly is the gb doing to help us out.

they are sitting in their lakeside corporate country club doing nothing while outside worldly agencies are making known our plight.

i found it puzzling that they flew out of russia like a bat out of hell as soon as the court rendered its decision leaving us high and dry.

slimboyfat

If I could give your comment 100 thumbs up, I would slimboy. I agree..

As they say in Clash Royale, “sparky doesn’t know the meaning of overkill!”

Anyway, if I could give you one thumbs up I would do so also, sparky1, but my thumbs don’t work here!

13

Will the Russian brothers start to wake up?

by nowwhat? in

if i was a russian brother i would be wondering what exactly is the gb doing to help us out.

they are sitting in their lakeside corporate country club doing nothing while outside worldly agencies are making known our plight.

i found it puzzling that they flew out of russia like a bat out of hell as soon as the court rendered its decision leaving us high and dry.

slimboyfat

Imagine if Mark Sanderson had been arrested and imprisoned while in Russia. I can’t help thinking the response of the other GB members to the persecution might have been different than it has been if it was Mark Sanderson languishing in jail. They might have been less likely to antagonise Russia with “king of the north” speculation, and their diplomatic efforts to secure release might have been more energetic and focussed on success rather than grandstanding.

On the other hand, maybe the GB could have lived with Mark Sanderson in jail. Maybe he was sent to Russia by the GB because he was in some sense the most expendable in case anything went wrong. Surely not, just some idle speculation.

9

Rough Draft Chapter

by vienne in

a few of you are interested in our historical research.

newly posted to our history blog is a mostly complete, rough draft of a chapter that will appear on separate identity, volume 2.

[we are getting close ...].

slimboyfat

Thanks for the information. I wonder if there is anything at all to the claim that Russell encountered Christadelphians while visiting Glasgow. The Christadelphian movement was strongest in Scotland in the late nineteenth century. If Russell was to engage Christadelphians anywhere, then that might be the place for him to do it. But what year would it have been?

I got a bit confused distinguishing two apparently different John Thomases.

Despite Dr John Thomas (founder of Christadelphians) disapproving Benjamin Wilson, I noticed in conversation with them that Christadelphians continued to make use of the Emphatic Diaglott until recent times.

I have a copy of Zydek’s biography. He writes well, but there is not a lot of supporting references. Knox’s new book I think is good.

I noticed that the presentation of early Watch Tower history in this new book on early Bible Students in Vienna makes use of your work, with an interesting graphic which depicts the chronology of Watchtower development as follows:

1600-1850 - Literalists

1850-1879 - One Faith/Age to Come/Abrahamic Faith

1879-1886 - Watchtower Movement

1886-1931 - Bible Students

1931- Jehovah’s Witnesses

I guess you know the author and about this book since you are mentioned in the acknowledgements.

https://www.amazon.com/Die-Anfänge-Jehovas-Zeugen-Wien/dp/1725925508/

9

Rough Draft Chapter

by vienne in

a few of you are interested in our historical research.

newly posted to our history blog is a mostly complete, rough draft of a chapter that will appear on separate identity, volume 2.

[we are getting close ...].

slimboyfat

Thanks that’s a really interesting analysis. I look forward to reading it as part of the book. And especially interesting to see how the detailed work combines to support this presentation of early Watch Tower history.

I wonder if “Age to Come” believers is a title that early Watch Tower adherents would have applied to themselves, or others generally.

I notice that the founder of the Christadelphians, John Thomas, published a magazine called Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come. So I wonder if Christadelphians and early Watch Tower adherents both come from common “Age to Come” stock, or what is the relation between the three.

When you say:

Their roots are in traditional millenarianism. We connect Russell's history to the history of the times in which he lived. This is almost never done, and in the few occasions where it has been attempted, the result is, in my opinion, very poor.

I would be very interested to know explicitly what are the previous attempts you are referring to.

20

Fearmongering : The greatest ploy the Watchtower Society uses against its faithful members

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

"shortly, within our twentieth century*, the "battle in the day of jehovah" will begin against the modern antitype of jerusalem, christendom.

" (the nations shall know that i am jehovah; 1971; 2nd ed.

fearmongering or scaremongering is the spreading of frightening and exaggerated rumors of impending danger or the habit or tactic of purposely and needlessly arousing public fear about an issue.

slimboyfat

I’d need to analyse the corpus, but it does seem to me that pictures during my formative encounters with Watchtower artwork (1980s and 1990s) tended to depict JWs emerging from Armageddon chaos, whereas recent imagery tends to depict JWs caught up in the midst of Armageddon chaos.