Posted by J.H. [JH] on April 05, 1999 at 15:47:00 {6.uz.4vynMHSG.vl05doHR5JhS9/hc}:
In Reply to: ***Opinion About Reform posted by Kinsman on April 05, 1999 at 14:39:23:
Kinsman,
: What you say is now true of the Catholic Chruch but obvisously this was not always been the case. The Catholic Church in the "past" has been as much and more authoritain than the WTS is today.
It was not internal but external pressure that reformed the RCC. The corruption in Rome, and many other things, was the reason the Reformation was so successfull and took away Scandinavia, most of Germany and Switzerland from the RCC. The RCC was a political factor, and always had to take into account the power of kings and emperors. Finally, the people in France became so sick and tired of the corrupted leadership, including the clergy, that the revolution totally demolished RCC power there. Napoleon just stated a fact when he totally ignored the Pope as a power factor. All this was fostered by growing and strengthened humanism, provided by the increasing wealth and the scientific progress.
The WTS is not power factor, except to JWs. People who don't like it, simply leave (at a great personal cost in many cases). People could not leave the RCC when it was dominant.
The comparison is still not valid. The factors that caused reform in the RCC is hardly present in the JWs.
Only two factors can influence substantual reform in the JWs IMO: 1) governments becoming less tolerant to religions oppressing their own members; 2) mass exodus from WTS, and loss of money.