Posts by slimboyfat

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

Disillusioned JW I think you are right that people who don’t believe in Watchtower anymore are likely not contributing any money, so it wouldn’t be a loss to Watchtower financially if they stopped attending.

Every religion has a significant proportion of ambivalent or marginal members, it is in no way unique to JWs. Sociologists have sometimes discussed this ‘free rider problem’ in relation to religious groups. However some argue that free riders are actually essential to the overall well-being of a religious community because they perform a number of crucial functions: such as presenting a variety of ways of being a JW to outsiders and potential converts, being used as examples not to follow by the leadership, and free riders often convert into zealous members themselves, if their circumstances change, or go back and forth in their commitment levels, so they provide a pool from which hardcore support can be sustained over time.

I don’t think the legal pressure on Watchtower to change their disfellowshipping practice is all that great. We’ll see how it plays out in Norway, but even then it’s only one small country, and even if other countries follow, Watchtower can describe it as discrimination. I wish Watchtower would change, but disfellowshipping seems to work for Watchtower so why would they change it?

Nondenominational churches are often churches that have split from denominations. Many churches are disaffiliating from the Methodists in the United States at the moment over the gay marriage issue. In Scotland a congregation split from the Church of Scotland over the same issue, calling itself the ‘Tron Church’. Conservative members from other congregations joined them, producing a measure of ‘growth’ for their small group. But considering these members came from a number of congregations, and the church going population as a whole is going down, I don’t think it's all that accurate to describe it as growth. It’s more like a temporary cluster for conservatives to gather around amidst overall decline across all churches.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

slimboyfat

a lot of churches are growing

Can you name some? I don’t know of any in Scotland and the census numbers from Australia posted above show churches in decline there too, the exceptions being JWs and Seventh-day Adventists.

It is true that JWs in some countries are growing slower than the overall population, so that is a relative decline. But even where this is true it is a very small relative decline. In 2002 the ration of JWs to the population in the Britain was 1/470, and in 2022 it was 1/474, slightly down. In the United Sates it was 1/280 in 2002 and in 2022 it was 1/272, a small overall improvement.

Other churches are declining in membership numbers even without taking into account population increase, and this is what people are usually referring to when describing the membership of a church as growing or declining.

I was an active JW in 2000. It’s not true that you needed 10 hours to count as a publisher in 2000 - one hour was enough. As I pointed out above, if anything other churches are more prone to dilute the criteria for membership in order to improve the membership numbers. Even so they are declining by their own measures as well as outside measures.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

slimboyfat

Unlike the years of growth that are now far behind them in the rearview mirror, WTC faces a near impossible uphill slog to recover - THE INTERNET.

ThomasMore I can’t understand that. How can you say: “the years of growth that are now far behind them” when they literally grew by 0.4% this year. They have grown every single year, except from one pandemic year, of the last 40 years.

Since the Internet became widely used around the year 2000, they have grown from 6 million to over 8 and a half million. Even in the United States and Europe they have grown in the Internet era.

To talk about JWs being in decline when they are practically the only church that is still growing is bordering on delusional. Maybe in people’s minds “decline” means “lower growth than in the past”, or else it means “decline that is certain to begin any day now” (a bit like Armageddon). In the plain meaning of the word, other churches are declining, JWs are not.

I don’t know why stating facts seems to upset some people here, while inaccurate statements about JW “decline” are wildly popular. Growth or decline doesn’t correlate with “truth”, and it doesn’t make your decision to leave or join any group right or wrong.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

slimboyfat

He’s in no position to moralise to anyone. And I don’t think Serena Williams’ religious choices detract from her career in any way. She always thanked Jehovah whenever she won. Whatever she understood by that, it evidently didn’t do her career any harm.

I see Richard Carrier went on his channel. I wonder how many people have turned him down for interviews in the last year.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

slimboyfat

I wonder what’s going on in Mozambique with the large jump in congregations.

Reservations, I wonder why you think JWs will decline in 10 to 15 years when the “old guard” die off. Isn’t there always an “old guard” dying off? Why hasn’t there been a mass exodus today, or ten years ago, what the previous old guard died off?

The general idea that religion declines by generational cohorts is indeed supported by sociologists such as David Voas. (He’s got articles and a YouTube video on this topic)

If there was any generation that could represent the “old guard”, after which there would be decline, I would have guessed it would be the group that joined in the run up to 1975. But a large number of those will already have died. At least locally, a number of those that joined in the 1975 excitement have already died, and yet there hasn’t been a mass exodus so far. Many of their children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren are still JWs.

Suggestions why JWs keep growing while other churches decline have included: their preaching activity and the threat of disfellowshipping.

I wonder if a bigger factor might not be JW rejection of higher education. There is good evidence to show that less educated people are more religious, as well as people who are economically precarious, which can accompany lack of eduction. Rejection of higher education is also a factor that makes JWs distinct from most other groups including Mormons, Adventists, mainstream churches and evangelicals.

In additional to lack of education being correlated to religiosity in general, there might be significant psychological factors at work too. Because it is a big decision for an adolescent JW to decide to comply with Watchtower pressure to abandon education at a crucial juncture. Having made that decision as a teenager probably weighs heavily on an individual for the rest of their life. A person might feel compelled to stick with the religion, while in other circumstances the might not have, in the coming decades in order to maintain psychological consistency with the decision not to pursue higher education as a teenager. Getting a job and married early probably cements other pressures to remain in the the religion too. So altogether I would argue that JW rejection of higher education might be one of the most significant factors producing comparatively higher growth for JWs than other religious groups. If Watchtower reversed its stance on higher education, or if young JWs started ignoring it en masse, that might be portentous of future decline.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

slimboyfat

Looks like he’s angling to transition into make money from entertainment industry in Zagreb. He’ll string along his patrons with token videos and Zoom calls until he’s satisfied with the alternative income.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

slimboyfat

I don’t have a problem with using JW figures because I think they are generally reliable. It’s because you cast doubt on Watchtower figures that I pointed out the same inference about the relative growth of JWs compared with other groups can be verified from outside measures even if you disregard Watchtower numbers entirely.

Watchtower aren’t the only ones who inflate their numbers in various ways. Other groups, if anything, are worse than JWs at this. So any genuine comparisons, looking at the limitations on both sides, and not just the JW side, may produce a favourable picture of growth for JWs compared with other groups.

The most extreme example of inflating numbers is the Mormon church because they routinely add all baptisms to their membership total but do not remove inactive members from the total, so they have ended up with millions of phantom members. Even if they lose touch with individuals they still include them as members until they would be 110 years old. In recent years there has been a movement by former Mormons to request and get their names removed from the membership roll, but even so the majority of inactive members don’t go to these lengths and are still counted.

Other churches, I know, keep members on the books for years ‘hoping they’ll come back at some point’ too, even waiving usual membership criteria such as a small annual donation.

On the topic of disfellowshipping you are correct that Christadelphians do not shun as JWs, but it would be inaccurate to say that disfellowshipping has no social consequences for Christadelphians beyond the breaking of bread meeting, and practice varies between ecclesias with some being stricter than others. In some cases fellowship is withdrawn from entire ecclesias and, while they don’t practice hard shunning, it is fair to say that social contact is curtailed in such circumstances. As for the Exclusive Brethren, I don’t know if they have truly reformed in recent years, but traditionally their shunning practices were every bit as severe as JWs. There are testimonies from former members to this effect.

I suspect that the leaders at Warwick are probably quite alarmed by the figures in the latest report. They are probably inclined to compare it with past performance and see a dramatic downturn. I don’t think they would be much comforted by my point that other religions are doing much worse, because they don’t see themselves as comparable to other religions.

If I was in their position, I would be most concerned about the drop in baptisms because lack of new members will impact overall numbers for years to come. Young people who didn’t get baptised during the pandemic may end up never getting baptised and will be lost forever as members. No wonder there has been emphasis on getting baptised and this will likely increase in view of the latest numbers.

I hope the don’t find the numbers this year so bad that they stop publishing them next year.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

slimboyfat

She would no doubt be awarded support but LE is definitely the kind of person to avoid paying it. He resented paying for his own daughter’s haircut for goodness sake. He thinks other people are obligated to pay for him and his family. He even said he contemplated writing to individual who cancelled their Patreon to explain to them that they were wrong to do so. There is no way he’s going to hand over any money to his wife or for his kids if he can possibly get away with it.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

slimboyfat

I wrote:

The JW numbers look “bad” … until you compare them with most other Christian groups which are in severe decline in the west. Compared with other Christian groups the growth of JWs bucks the trend of decline.

And you responded:

Apples and oranges, just like this time last year. The way JWs count membership inflates their growth rate at the expense of the stated number of members, as explained last year.

I pointed out that census results show JWs growing more than other groups - it’s not just Watchtower figures. So do you still deny that JWs have better growth than other groups? That was the only claim I made. I didn’t make any claim about the reasons for better growth.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

slimboyfat

I can see the point of correlating baptisms. But what happens to the trend line of the ‘hours required for additional publisher’ line if JWs begin declining overall? Wouldn’t it tend toward infinity? So what are you really measuring there? And how could it be used to compare with the outreach programmes of other churches that are in decline?

Jeffro you seem to have two basic responses to JW growth. The first is to deny that it exists and say the Watchtower data are wrong. The second is to say that even if the data are correct (the Australian census, for example) it doesn’t count because: disfellowshipping and North Korea. If you believe that Watchtower growth doesn’t count then why are you interested in tracking it anyway? If you can dismiss all favourable comparisons of JW growth with others groups as either factually wrong, or inconsequential if true, then there is no way the data can ever contradict your starting assumptions.

I have been very surprised by the continued growth of JWs over the past few decades. I became inactive in the early 2000s at a time when JWs were still reeling from the fallout of the ‘generation’ disappointment in 1995 and most western countries were in decline. In Britain the publisher number had dropped to around 122,000 from a high of 132,000 in the mid 1990s. I fully expected JWs to continue declining just as practically all other churches were in decline. If you had asked me in 2002 how many JWs there would be in Britain in 2022 I might have guessed less than 100,000. Instead here we are in 2022 and there are around 140,000 JWs in Britain, despite the fact that most other churches have continued or accelerated their decline. To paraphrase a famous quotation: when the data change I change my opinion, what do you do?

People are good at coming up with reasons why not every JW in the official count is a true believer, and the threat of disfellowshipping is indeed a good reason to suspect that not every JW is a true believer. But people raising this issue rarely seem to reflect that questions could be raised about the membership of other religious groups too. The issues may not be the same but there are obviously members of other churches who are not true believers either. For example, it is noticeable that local and national politicians tend to be members of the national church at a higher rate than the population as a whole (current and former first ministers, deputy first ministers, leaders of the opposition, local councillors and so on). Is this because politicians are an exceptionally godly bunch of individuals, or is it because membership of the national church still conveys a certain status that they find useful in their careers. Anecdotally I know of members of other churches who are members for social reasons rather than purely religious reasons. On the other hand nobody joins JWs in order to gain respectability locally or politically. So this phenomenon of non-true-believing members is not unique, or even particularly distinctive of JWs. In fact I suspect it’s probably lower among JWs because of the social costs involved in membership that don’t apply to other groups. So just as there are some factors that may inflate the membership of JWs there are factors that inflate the membership of other groups that don’t apply in the case of JWs. So to dismiss any JW growth with the wave of a hand is to ignore the wider picture of religious phenomena in general.