Posts by neverendingjourney

48

Why are some of you guys calling this new arrangement tithing?

by neverendingjourney in

at the risk of being shouted down, i thought i'd point out that "tithing" means giving 10 percent of your income to a church.

it comes from the old english word teogotha meaning tenth.

i've seen nothing that establishes tithing in the watchtower.. while i'm all in favor of pointing out the watchtower's lies, hypocrisies and faults, the language we use matters.

neverendingjourney

Really? When? (not saying you're wrong Apognophos, just curious)

I know you didn't direct this question at me, but I remember as far back as 20 years ago slips were being passed around in my hall for the local assembly hall project. It was the same drill. Write down how much you think you can contribute. The slips would be passed down the rows and an attendant would walk by to pick up the slips. It was supposed to be anonymous and you were instructed not to write your name on it. The justification for this was that HQ needed this info for budgeting purposes.

48

Why are some of you guys calling this new arrangement tithing?

by neverendingjourney in

at the risk of being shouted down, i thought i'd point out that "tithing" means giving 10 percent of your income to a church.

it comes from the old english word teogotha meaning tenth.

i've seen nothing that establishes tithing in the watchtower.. while i'm all in favor of pointing out the watchtower's lies, hypocrisies and faults, the language we use matters.

neverendingjourney

What Apognophos said.

Nobody is obliged to donate anything yet. There is a definite shift in emphasis but so far there is anonymity and no method of tracing individuals giving.

To Cofty and Apognophos' points, there's a lot there already to criticize without the need for overstatements. Nobody's denying that there's been a shift in how donations are being emphasized.

A tithing arrangement is on one end of the spectrum. Never mentioning money at all is on the other end. This new arrangement is somewhere in between, but a shift in degrees on that spectrum is not the same as moving all the way down to the extreme end of it.

48

Why are some of you guys calling this new arrangement tithing?

by neverendingjourney in

at the risk of being shouted down, i thought i'd point out that "tithing" means giving 10 percent of your income to a church.

it comes from the old english word teogotha meaning tenth.

i've seen nothing that establishes tithing in the watchtower.. while i'm all in favor of pointing out the watchtower's lies, hypocrisies and faults, the language we use matters.

neverendingjourney

I can see your point about how the pedantic WBTS may seek to distinguish this arrangement from tithing based on the percentage amount.

It's not the WTBTS or your ardent Witnesses I really have in mind. You can't reason with them anyhow.

I've been away from this religion for so many years now that I don't come on here very often anymore. When I have, I've seen repeated remarks about tithing and I thought I'd point out that from an outsider's perspective this new arrangement of theirs doesn't match up with what the common understanding of that word is.

48

Why are some of you guys calling this new arrangement tithing?

by neverendingjourney in

at the risk of being shouted down, i thought i'd point out that "tithing" means giving 10 percent of your income to a church.

it comes from the old english word teogotha meaning tenth.

i've seen nothing that establishes tithing in the watchtower.. while i'm all in favor of pointing out the watchtower's lies, hypocrisies and faults, the language we use matters.

neverendingjourney

Many Christians support their churches and pastors with monetary contributions of one sort or another. Frequently these monetary contributions are called tithes whether or not they actually represent ten percent of anything.

The problem with this definition is that it's so broad that any monetary contribution is a tithe. If that's the case, the Witnesses are now and have always been tithing.

48

Why are some of you guys calling this new arrangement tithing?

by neverendingjourney in

at the risk of being shouted down, i thought i'd point out that "tithing" means giving 10 percent of your income to a church.

it comes from the old english word teogotha meaning tenth.

i've seen nothing that establishes tithing in the watchtower.. while i'm all in favor of pointing out the watchtower's lies, hypocrisies and faults, the language we use matters.

neverendingjourney

I've don't have any experience with using the words "tithe" or "tithing" where it meant anything other than compulsory donations of 10 percent of your income. Within Mormonism tithing means 10 percent of your income. Every time I had this discussion (mostly door-to-door) with people of assorted Pentecostal churches they always understood it to mean 10 percent. That doesn't mean the term doesn't have flexibility, but I've never it encountered it.

But what would you call it?

That's a fair question and one that I haven't given great thought to, to be honest. It seems like this is more akin to passing around a collection plate. They're becoming more aggressive in putting the issue out in front of the members. They're taking steps to have members establish a set amount of money on a periodic basis.

48

Why are some of you guys calling this new arrangement tithing?

by neverendingjourney in

at the risk of being shouted down, i thought i'd point out that "tithing" means giving 10 percent of your income to a church.

it comes from the old english word teogotha meaning tenth.

i've seen nothing that establishes tithing in the watchtower.. while i'm all in favor of pointing out the watchtower's lies, hypocrisies and faults, the language we use matters.

neverendingjourney

At the risk of being shouted down, I thought I'd point out that "tithing" means giving 10 percent of your income to a church. It comes from the Old English word teogotha meaning tenth. I've seen nothing that establishes tithing in the Watchtower.

While I'm all in favor of pointing out the Watchtower's lies, hypocrisies and faults, the language we use matters. If you claim they've established tithing and they've done nothing of the sort, you instantly lose credibility.

18

How did HQ handle the increase of new JWs leading up to 1975?

by Zoos in

this new donation arrangement under the pretense that so many new halls are needed to accommodate the worldwide increase has me wondering.

the numbers in the current annual reports don't show anywhere near the increase as there was leading up to the 1975 debacle.

so how did the gb of the time handle a genuine need for more kingdom halls?.

neverendingjourney

Now here we are in 2014 with publisher growth somewhere between 1-3%, and yet there's this UNPRECEDENTED, EPIC NEED to build more shit.

In my opinion, this is the single most important aspect to keep an eye on. If the Watchtower moves increasingly in the direction of being real estate flippers, it would signal to me that a new type of leadership has emerged.

From an outsider's perspective, why not convert your labor force from door-to-door literature salesmen to a no-cost construction crew? Makes all the sense in the world. The only obstacle, presumably, is decades of focus on the preaching work as the hallmark of the one true religion. That hallmark, however, is no longer paying the bills.

10

Surprising how WBTS became EXACTLY what Russell was against.

by Fernando in

*** jv chap.

15 p. 205 development of the organization structure ***.

however, brother russell emphasized that they were not attempting to set up an earthly organization.

neverendingjourney

Brother Russell emphasized that they were not attempting to set up an “earthly organization.”

Remember the "Religion is a Snare and a Racket" signs from Rutherford's days? That was a carryover from that view. Religion was bad. But they weren't a religion. They were a group of god's true servants gathered together to warn mankind before Armageddon arrived...shortly. Nowadays the Watchtower claims clergy status for elders in certain instances. The pretense is gone.

103

That does it ! I'm leaving ! ! !

by Billy the Ex-Bethelite in

jw
friends

leaving the university with my degree!.

exams are finished and it's just a matter of days before i walk.. i was certainly stressed about doing this.

i'm older than my classmates and armageddon was sooooo close!

neverendingjourney

Congrats!

27

MTS & Gilead: Can we talk about how much of a FAILURE these 2 schools were/are?

by Black Man in

jw
friends

i know quite a few from both of these schools who basically crashed and burned once they got into their assignments.

graduates of these schools would be thrown into foreign territorities or remote areas without a good visible means of support and would get emotionally, mentally, financially burned out.

post your experiences or of those you know that went to these pitiful excuses for educational institutions..

neverendingjourney

There was a guy from my old hall who went off to MTS. He was an MS/Pioneer who had enormous self-esteem issues and was a bit of a wreck. He was a nobody in the real world. Nevertheless, he knew how to play the system. He applied to MTS and was accepted. When he returned he tried to use his influence to get back at elders who had passed him over for an elder slot. He made sure everybody knew he'd studied the top secret elders book while he was there.

He was sent off to an assignment in a rural part of the U.S. and didn't last very long. He was the type who wanted the title but didn't want to put in the work. I started fading around that time, but I heard there were one or two more assignments he found ways of getting out of. Eventually I lost touch with almost everyone I knew at the hall. I talked to an active Witness a year or two ago and he told me the MTS grad had eventually been disfellowshipped. Not sure what for, though.