Posted by AF [AF] on April 08, 1999 at 15:13:15 {vxsc0.TBNktWYktmF7cQdaOt1gg/Zk}:
In Reply to: ***Will U B Part of 'New Earth'? posted by Friend on April 08, 1999 at 13:52:28:
: Thankfully I can strongly disagree with your notion. It may be your experience, but not mine, thank Jehovah. Yes, I have
experienced some like him, but they usually don�t have endurance or humility enough to keep going in the long run.
They fad away
because of their own rage and frustration. It really hurts and saddens me to see someone claiming Christianity behave in such a
vulgar and childish fashion. Really, it makes me want to cry.
I completely understand your frustration. But I know plenty of JWs who are very much like YK and have have been "in the truth" for 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 years or more. They're entirely products of Society teaching, and what's more, they're proud of it!
One acquaintance comes to mind, who I'll call Jason. I haven't seen him in 18 years but I've known a lot about his activities since then, seeing as how he was related to me by marriage until 3 years ago.
This guy was a hippy in the 1960s and he became a JW about 1971. I met him when he first came to the KH and still had a ponytail and beard. I remember telling him how great it was that he had found the truth. He soon married a JW girl who had some serious physical/emotional problems. They had two daughters and when I got married I subrented a small apartment from him. Over the years it became evident to me that "The Truth" was not the truth, but for Jason the religion was God. He gradually became a typical Pharisee, and as time passed this manifested itself in many ways. Some JWs would tell him to lighten up, but he wouldn't. Eventually his own two daughters rejected the JW religion, one becoming a stripper and all that that entails. It was pure rebellion against Pharisaic attitudes -- attitudes that Jason would argue were perfectly in line with Society teaching. In his case, "you reap what you sow" came true with respect to his daughters. For reasons like these, Jason has little respect among those who know him well, but because he continually "reaches out" he's used constantly at assemblies, etc. etc. etc., just as I'm sure YK is. Because these guys give an appearance of righteousness in the overall JW community, they're held up as examples of what a true Christian ought to be, and it goes to their heads. Thus we have a good example of what happens when one completely applies what The Watchtower teaches.
When I was in my late teens I came to know a nice JW girl of about 16 named Donna. She was quite enthusiastic about the religion, and said that it was quite a contrast with her Jewish background. After I got married we lost touch, and the next I knew of Donna was a mention of her in Randy Watters' booklet around 1991. Randy put us in touch, and we had a nice, long phone conversation. Donna had quit the JWs and become a non-denominational Evangelical of the general sort that I don't like very much. We concluded that if God actually exists and cares about his creatures, he must know that the majority of them, like us, were just struggling to do the right thing and he would make plenty of allowances. He probably would view our scrabblings as humorous. Therefore, we shouldn't worry too much about things like "doctrinal truth" or "the true religion" and so on, but mostly about treating our fellows the way we want to be treated.
Unfortunately, people like YK seem to have forgotten these principles, and they're backed up solidly by Watchtower teaching. Just this evening I read the May 1, 1999 WT main articles. Quite to the contrary of what you've expressed as your belief of God's views, these articles plainly state that only Jehovah's Witnesses can get salvation. They're totally dogmatic about this, which is consistent with prior WTS teaching.
In view of the above, unfortunatley I have to say that your hopes for peaceful reform of the JW religion are just pipe dreams. Reform will come by revolution, or it won't come at all. In any case, whatever happens with the JWs has about as much relation to God as does what happens in the Catholic Church.
AF