Sheep and Goats

Category: Governing Body

  • Do All Christians Need to Preach? (A Question More Complicated than at First Appears)

    An apocryphal story that I believe: You might not, but I do because it was told by someone I consider trustworthy and who was there:

    Sometime during the 1980s there were “high-level” discussions at Bethel over, of all things, is it necessary for all Christians to preach.

    It only took 40 years to reveal that the answer is no.

    You wouldn’t think it necessary to qualify “necessary.” But it is. Is it “necessary” to obey the speed limit signs? ‘Only if a cop is around’ will be the answer of many. 

    So it is with taking part in the ministry of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Is it “necessary?” Check a box saying you have taken some part in it within the month and you are done. The answer is effectively no, from a human point of view. The answer may be yes from God’s point of view, but it is left for each individual to call it as he sees it. Human-wise, the answer is no. I don’t expect Witness HQ ever to say it, but de facto the answer is no, even though it be yes from God. Practically speaking, anything not backed up by human discipline becomes a no.

    That’s why the 2005 book ‘The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience’ said that, to their shame, church members in general live no different from the world. Most of them know it should not be that way. But without human discipline to buttress good intentions, conduct of the two groups, Christians and the overall world, soon becomes indistinguishable. 

    The preaching activity is no longer a topic of “discipline.” It’s not for one house servant to monitor that activity of another, is the thinking—to his own master he stands or falls. Check a box at month’s end that you engaged in some from of the ministry and the deal is done. You could lie and nobody would know. Probably some PIMOs do lie, but the overall ministry keeps going strong.

    Change is okay. You look like an old fart when you start crying about how it’s not like it used to be. When cart-witnessing proliferates, by default, door-to-door will diminish. It’s all good. Every time there’s any change of any sort, the crazies cheering for downfall point to it as proof that the Witnesses are going down. Instead, they just adapt to the times.

    Recently, a certain sprawling apartment complex in our territory converted their contact system to make it impossible for Witnesses, or anyone else, to contact residents. Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned. It had become a horrible nuisance, with loud aggravating buzzers, tenants stoked by friends whose zeal and thoroughness, in some cases, outweighed common sense. Good riddance. That’s what the cart work is for, where people interested can approach the Witnesses, and people not are not annoyed.

    I don’t see that overall ministry activity among Witnesses has decreased. It has changed, with many making cart work their new favorite, and some letter-writing. But I think the overall ministry remains steady, even if morphed to adapt to changing times. As for me, I take part regularly in the door-to-door ministry, not much in the cart work, and I think the ministry unimpeded by the new non-counting policy. 

    Unlike Covid, which did impede and from which full recovery has not taken place. That began people writing letters, formerly the method of the elderly and infirm, but during Covid everyone switched to the method, it being one of the few available, and some didn’t come back. I started a few letters then, too, but every time I did I came to reflect I could put something online instead and receive quick feedback, rather than send something into the great void and never hear of it again.

    Door-to-door and the Bible study work is still the gold standard. That point was made abundantly clear at the recent convention, but there are now various supplementary methods.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • The Philosophy of Humor

    Can you believe that philosophers have undertaken to analyze humor? Of course they have—they analyze everything else. This should not have come as a surprise to me, and yet somehow it did. The very name philosophy is a marriage of ‘philo’ (love) and ‘sophia’ (wisdom). Their modus operendus? Put anything under the scope, subject it to enough thought-power, and it will yield its secrets.

    New disciplines, once they reach critical mass, split off from philosophy to become entities of their own. What is known today as ‘science’ was once known as ‘natural philosophy. James Hall, the lecturer, tells of spying test tubes and bunsen burners advertised as ‘philosophical instruments.’* A more recent breakaway from the mother ship of philosophy is ‘psychology.’

    Will humor also one day yield its secrets to philosophical scrutiny? Let us not sell these people short, but for now, we encounter few ‘humorologists.’ For now, we can content ourselves with people who know how to tell a good joke. For now, my self-description stands as one who not only appreciates self-deprecatory humor but also the kind of humor where you make fun of yourself. For now, no humorologist undertakes to explain why that statement is funny (or not).

    Humor is not a favored child of philosophy. That, I learned in ‘Philosophy 101,’ a book by Paul Kleinman. Plato took a savage view toward it, as the lowest form of human interaction that did nothing but detract. His ‘philosopher kings’ were not allowed to engage in any humor at all! This seriously messes with my premise that the Jehovah’s Witnesses Governing Body is today the most manifest application of Plato’s ideals. Those guys joke all the time. True, some of the humor is lame—raising or lowering the mic for short or tall speakers, for example, a modest humor exists throughout JW-land. At our Assembly Hall, the human mic-adjusters have been replaced with a mic stand that does the job sans hands, being remote controlled from afar! Our crazily tall circuit overseer creates a disturbance when the auto-mic seeks to adjust for him, inching up, pausing, then inching up again, each time emitting a hum, because someone forgot to mute the thing. He just grins, being long used to it. That’s the kind of collective humor we’re used to, though individually, there are no end of brothers who just live to tell knee-slappers. Pause for just a moment to consider that there are far few sisters who do this. Is this variation an attribute of the sexes in general?

    No one has sought to banish humor in the JW-world, least of all individual GB members themselves, but according to Plato, they should. They should become dour sourpusses who never crack a smile. Every time they do crack one, they destroy my theory that they are the modern day application of Plato’s philosopher-kings. So, they should stop doing it.

    What grabs me is that church history is replete with sourpusses—stern-faced men who take everything with life-or-death seriousness, men to whom a joke would have been the ultimate sacrilege. Think the iron-faced Puritan leaders of ‘The Scarlet Letter,’ for example. Yet, such a revulsion to humor is not a Bible product. The Bible is fine with humor. The revulsion is a Greek philosophical product fused into the early Church when that Church ‘broadened out’ to increase its appeal and thus gain new converts.

    Every Witness knows that the spread of ‘apostasy’ in the early centuries added ‘immortality of the soul’ to the belief system of Christians—it wasn’t there originally and must be read into the Bible to find it there. The immortal soul was infused in order to increase Church appeal to the educated philosophical class, the Greeks who prided themselves on their pursuit of wisdom. ‘Maybe some of these desirable fellows will come our way if we yield a little for them,’ Church fathers reasoned.

    What I didn’t know was that a humorless view of life is also among the Greek imports. It is not a biblical product. It is a product of human philosophy! Yet, a life of devotion to God today is assumed by overall society to be a humorless one. It is anything but. Granted, you don’t cackle over everything under the sun. There is a time to be serious. But there is a time for laughter.

    On a roll as to human philosophy infusing Christianity, whereupon Christianity itself is blamed as the source of it, one might consider resistance to investigative science itself. The notion that Christians are loathe to examine and look into things does not stem from Christianity. It stems from Aristotle—Greek philosopher of the 4th century BCE, whose views on the revelation of anything worth knowing was adopted into the early Church in order to increase its appeal to that ‘educated’ class.

    With these early, evolving, church leaders; It was not biblical writings that ultimately carried the day. It was the writings of the philosophers. Yet historians retroactively assign that role to those worshipping God, as though worship makes a person backwards. It came from philosophy, not Christianity! Christianity’s mistake was to adopt it. When the pig-headed church leaders lit into Copernicus and Galileo for writing the earth is not the center of the universe, scholars assign pigheadedness to worshippers of God, whereas they ought to look to their own forebears. Human thinkers contaminate the product and then the biblical writings take the rap!

    Back to the initial topic: humor. It’s not horrific in itself that philosophers should undertake to explain humor for the rest of us. It is more the eye-rolling dread at how they tend to get so full of themselves when they do that. But, even worse, it is the fear that it’s only a matter of time before they extend their research to other intangible qualities, such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so forth—determined to examine spiritual things through the physical lens. Watch out when they do that, as when love is said to ‘evolve’ since without it, back in primitive days, predators would be eating your offspring while loveless you just shrugged and twiddled your thumbs. Beware the field of evolutionary psychology.

    In recent years, much has been made by Jehovah’s Witnesses to identify these above qualities, listed at Galatians 5:22, as ‘fruitage’ of the spirit, rather than ‘works’ of the spirit. They contrast with the unpleasant traits listed just before (5:19), which ARE works: works of the flesh. The idea is that you can’t fully develop the former good qualities without God’s spirit, whereas yielding to the unpleasant traits is simply taking the path of least resistance. Anyone can do that. So, if they are fruitage of God’s spirit, good luck to human philosophers trying to analyze them. While you can put physical things on spiritual trial, you cannot put spiritual things on physical trial. You can achieve the knockoff imitation through physical means, and in many cases it is good enough. But if you want the variation that holds up through thick and thin, it is only through God’s spirit that such traits are developed. Sure—let the philosophers have at it—those fellows for whom it is pulling teeth to get them to agree that there even is a God. See what they have to tell us.

    *’The Philosophy of Religion’

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Mahomes! Maauto! Who Leads in the Christian Congregation?

    ‘Man is a political animal,’ Juan says, ‘and naturally forms and flourishes in societies. And every such society needs leadership that preserves the peace and unity of that society. And the best form of leadership capable of fulfilling that function is a unified head. And the same is true of the Congregation. . . . So if a person has an incorrect notion of the nature and function of civil government, this will make it more difficult to grasp the true nature and function of ecclesial government.’

    Yes. Of course. The two are connected, If you have a shaky grasp on one, you may well have a shaky grasp on the other, just as those who had a rotten father may struggle to grasp the concept of a loving heavenly father. How to deal with those who, in an intense age of independence, find even the governing structure of the Christian congregation oppressive? Some go so far as to agree with critics that Jehovah’s Witnesses all but worship their organization and pursue a model of ‘following men.’ How do you answer that?

    The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses might be likened to the coach or the teacher—both of whom may lean into their charges from time to time as a legitimate function of their job. Persons too prickly in our independence-savoring age are inclined to chafe at such legitimate roles. 

    ‘Who needs a math teacher?’ such persons are wont to say. ‘Just study numbers. I don’t serve a teacher!’ And if the teacher betrays any evidence of being imperfect, they jump on such evidence to justify the surly attitude.

    ’Who needs a coach?’ they will say. ‘I’m not serving any coach. Just practice football!’ And if the coach betrays any evidence of being imperfect—say, he eats too much, like the Chiefs’ coach, they seize on that circumstance to justify the grumbling.

    But anyone with a proper view of civil government has no problem at all acceding to the authority of the teacher or coach. They don’t confuse such relative submission with becoming ‘slaves to men.’ They know full well they are ‘serving’ math and football, not their respective teachers or coaches in such. They know full well the latter exist just to bring out the best in them. Even when the coach seems to flounder a little and thinks it cool that  Kelse should become ‘Maauto’ because it complements ‘Mahomes,’ they just put on that new jersey and continue, albeit maybe with a little grumbling. They may not be so sure about this new light to bundle your home and auto insurance, but they know it’s not worth making a fuss over such minor things.

    Once in a while there appears a student who truly does not need a teacher, and for whom a teacher just gets in the way. Think Gates, Jobs, Einstein, Musk. What then? Do they use their atypical gifts to tear down the need for teachers? Do they carry on that to acquiesce to the teacher’s (or coach’s) authority is to allow that one to ‘lord it over’ them? Unless they are drunk on the contemporary spirit of independence, they do not. At most, Kelse doesn’t don his squirrelly ‘Maauto’ jersey, but neither does he quit the team over it. ‘Ah, well, we need coaches’ he says.

    Should he do this, almost for certain, the assignment to become ‘Maauto’ will fall upon some other teammate. That teammate will accept it, maybe with the enthusiasm of being a good organization man. Maybe he’ll even recall the expression, ‘Even if the coach asks something that doesn’t appear to make sense, be obedient.’ Sounds odd, he says, but he does it anyway.  He wouldn’t bump off another player on that authority, but he knows that putting on a jersey is not in that league. Or maybe he says, ‘Maauto! Cool! What a great idea!’ and dons the shirt instantly. Kelse doesn’t try to talk him out of it, even though he declines himself. He knows the Chiefs will make the Super Bowl if he keeps his mouth shut, but they may not if he goes on bellyaching about his enlightened view that you can tell the coach to kiss off.

    Sheesh! You’ll hear it all the time from adversaries, about worshipping an organization, to the point where others being to pick it up. Put it to rest. I would never say that brothers or sisters worship the organization. I might say that I have seen some engage in activity that so closely resembles worship that you can confuse the two, yet even here I would couch my words.

    Recently my wife and I were invited on a Kingdom Hall remodeling project. At my age and non-skill level, I am not going to be any major player in anything, but I appreciated the invitation and accepted a two-day stint along with my wife.

    Safety training is required—a lot of it before you even set foot on the project. For one session online that I was informed might take up to three hours—several videos followed by answering questions off the master safety document—Man, that’s a lot! I thought. I’d better not see God strapped into His chariot for safety. But it did not happen and I could not help but think that the quality of training would be the envy of any construction organization. The way scriptures were interwoven was masterful. Even the verse of the ‘overconfident one who comes to ruin’ was applied to the experienced worker inclined to blow past safety regulations because he is so experienced he thinks himself immune. Nobody blows past anything when it comes to safety, experienced or not. You’re dismissed from the site if you do, but I didn’t see anyone coming even close to grumbling over such rules of safety, which are iron-clad. Zero accidents is the goal.

    Not just the training, but the project itself. The people skills on display far outshone what would be found on any secular construction site. The abilities of volunteers, some experienced and some not, was harnessed to an astonishing degree. Always, there was a brother with oversight to accommodate any skill level and to break any task into doable steps—and always with the safety and overall well-being of participants placed even ahead of the job itself. First of all, they are shepherds, I am told—that is incorporated into their training. In short, I’ve never seen anything like it—even if the chariot was not on visible display.

    That was just after two days. People are the sum of their experiences. Imagine the one immersed in such an atmosphere continually. Might they not get super-enthused about the theocratic organization that they experience repeatedly and see works so well? Would I not be displaying cynicism were I to say, ‘They worship the organization?’ I would never say it.

    I’m not even sure I’m wise not to get more immersed into it. On the exhaustive skills list is ‘Writing’ broken down into several subcategories—creative, historical, technical, etc. I could put something down there. But I’m scared I might be assigned some long and monotonous project that I would choke on. Sort of like how Davey, the brother that everything he touched turned to gold, once told me he he’d been assigned to write an article, as though testing him out, to tentatively appear in Awake. But it was on some generic topic that he just couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for, and he never got around to it.

    Or, for the box specifying experience,  I might say, ‘From blogging,’ and then the Build brothers would say, ‘Oh….it’s that yo-yo.’ So I just say that I can pick up sticks and on the above occasion I was called upon to pick up some, plus a few other things.

     

    Brother Winder undertook at the 2023 annual meeting to explain how the Governing Body decides things. A question comes up; either they have thought it up themselves or it is posed to them from without. Sometimes they jump on it right away. As often as not, however, it comes to resemble that thorn in their side—due to changing times and circumstances (beards are a perfect example)—that they figure at last the time has come to deal with it. They discuss it at their meeting. They assign it to a committee. That committee researches, among other things, anything that’s been written on the topic before. That committee submits a report, apparently with recommendations, and the Governing Body again puts it on their calendar. When it comes up for consideration again, they hash it out and maybe go along with the recommendations and maybe (per Winder’s talk) they don’t.

    It all seems very competent, very thorough, very reassuring. It all seems to optimize the verse about drawing strength from a ‘many advisers.’ (When there is no skillful direction, the people fall, But there is success through many advisers—Proverbs 11:14) But there is nothing blatantly supernatural about it. You can imagine a public utility doing the same. 

    Arguably they could have provided this ‘transparency’ before, but this too appears to be an issue whose time has to arrive, and now it is judged that it has—maybe because grumblings have finally reached them that they lack ‘transparency.’ Due to such lack (if that’s what it is), some brothers have all but assumed an angel appears to them at those weekly meetings, setting them straight on what ever needs direction. Now they see it is not that way.

    What is also not that way is that the first century governing body of Bible record had men endowed with supernatural power to confirmed their divine authority. Not so today—just regular men who don’t raise the dead, heal the sick, or walk on water.

    This bothers some. It may be surprising they should be so bothered since scripture plainly says that such miraculous gifts would pass away. Maybe they had come to think that, in the case of the divine/human interface, they wouldn’t. Surely, there is an angel in that room, they suppose, or some other unmistakable supernatural manifestation that hits all over the head as with a sledgehammer that we’re talking divine authorization here. Nope—it doesn’t happen. I mean, there is prayer, to be sure, but a little more pizzazz is what some would prefer. Anybody can pray.

    I was happy to hear Brother Winder’s explanation. It calls to mind what weird Mike used to say, a person with issues as long as anyone’s arm, who had a knack for simplifying the obscure. ‘Everyone of Jehovah’s Witnesses studies their Bible constantly,’ he would say, a bit too naively. ‘The Governing Body studies it all the time. Eventually, a point dawns on them. They discuss it thoroughly. When they have reached agreement, that point appears in a subsequent Watchtower.’ He didn’t for one instant expect miraculous light in the GB meeting room, as though in the Holy of Holies.

    ’Now, the thing is,’ he would continue. ‘In your personal Bible study, you may have noticed that point, too—maybe before they do.’ “And if this was Christendom, you’d run out and start your own religion over it!” But because it is not, you wait on divinely appointed authority to take the lead. Mike was ever so enthused about the unity of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Everyone fresh from the world of religion is, really, even of irreligion; everyone is impressed with that. I had another friend whose formulative experience was to visit several far-removed Kingdom Halls to asked detailed biblical questions. The identical answers from persons who did not know each other impressed upon him that he had found the truth.

    But, in time, some begin to take such unity for granted, as though it would exist without any coordinating governing body. Others begin to look askance at such unity, acceding to the contemporary view that it represents the thinking of a cult. Times change, and the question is asked online: “Is JW.org considered a cult site by some formerJehovah's Witnesses? What are their reasons for this belief?”

    Yes, I think so. We live in unprecedented and intensely independent times. Paul’s counsel that we should all speak in agreement minus any divisions (1 Corinthians 1:10) has historically been wise Christian counsel. Today it reads as though an invitation to cult-thinking. We should not read the situation as Jehovah’s Witnesses having gone crazy. We should read it as this world has gone crazy and Jehovah’s Witnesses are holding the line of sanity.

    The modern anti-cult lunacy can be seen in all fields, not just that of religion. ‘Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country,’ were the noble words of a statesman (JFK) years ago. Today, they would be the words a a cult leader.

    It also bothers some that all persons known today holding a position of Governing Body are self-professed. They lay claim to be anointed, but how is anyone to verify that claim? Might a fraud or a loon slip in and pull the wool over everyone’s eyes?

    They may be self-professed as to being anointed, but they are also field-tested—field tested for a long long time, serving full-time in circumstances at times quite lowly, lowlier than those of most whom they will later lead. It’s more than enough time to screen out anyone not genuine. Nothing is more taboo among Jehovah’s Witnesses than ‘partaking unworthily.’ (“whoever eats the loaf or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty respecting the body and the blood of the Lord.”—1 Corinthians 11:27) Nobody is going to do that and if they do, nobody is going to keep up that pretense a for lifetime, both prerequisites to be invited to serve on the Governing Body.

    That’s why I like the clarification a few years back that the ‘faithful and discreet slave’ consists of the Governing Body only, not just the entire population of those anointed. Of course. Anointed is an indication, for the most part, of a future assignment. Does it take 10,000 anointed ones to lead the present congregation today? Moreover, the clarification tends to weed out any person mistaken, maybe persons not well-balanced, not to mention any frauds or loons. In case any of these should become overly fond of authority or influence they imagine they ought to have now, this adjustment tends to nudge them into proper position. Serve faithfully under the present arrangement, and then upon death or the new system, their role as priests and kings will be exercised—or not, in case they truly were mistaken. At any rate, it’s no one’s problem until the new system and then it falls into the hands of those who can handle it.

    Of course, in this skeptical age, some may begin to question the concept of anointing itself. Either they think it an experience common to all Christians or to none. But, by the time they have descended to that view, there really is no point in even calling themselves Jehovah’s Witnesses and they are best served by ‘running off and starting their own religion.’

    ******  The bookstore

  • Jehovah’s Witnesses do Socrates and Plato—with Plato, a Surprising Application.

    Jehovah’s Witnesses are simple people, for the most part, who are content when the visiting speaker pronounces Socrates with three syllables, and not So-crates.

    We don’t know much about Plato, either, in the main. Yet, without knowing much about him, their governing body alone has adopted his concept of government. Plato favored monarchy, but not hereditary monarchy. Instead, his rulers were to be selected (by already existing rulers) on the basis of merit. This would follow a lengthy period of education designed to separate the wheat from the chaff.

    From ‘The 100’, a book by Michael Hart that attempts to rank the one hundred most influential persons of history: (Plato is #40) It reads:

    Only those persons who show that they can apply their book learning to the real world should be admitted into the guardian class. Moreover, only those persons who clearly demonstrate that they are primarily interested in the public welfare are to become guardians.

    Membership in the guardian class would not appeal to all persons. The guardians are not to be wealthy. They should be permitted only a minimal amount of personal property, and no land or private homes. They are to receive a fixed (and not very large) salary, and may not own either gold or silver. Members of the guardian class should not be permitted to have separate families, but are to eat together, and are to have mates in common. The compensation of these philosopher -kings should not be material wealth, but rather the satisfaction of public service. 

    Anyone familiar with Jehovah's Witnesses will recognize at once that this description almost exactly describes their Governing Body. Only the "mates in common" does not apply. Even Bernard Strawman, who calls our guys plumber-janitors rather than philosopher-kings, admits that no other ‘nation’ has been able to institute Plato’s system.

    Therefore we can expect in the new system, when Plato is resurrected, he will learn in time that, while none of the nations were able to put his government ideal into action, his new government, the one that remains, did. He will rush over to Bethel to consult, perhaps hoping for an advisory position. They, however, having no idea who he is, will make him take a number and wait his turn.

    Parallels between Socrates and Jesus: here.

     

    ******  The bookstore

     

  • The Bashful Guests Want Low-Key but the Hosts Ae Gregarious

    “Some individuals hang on to their [charismatic church leader’s] every word. It is hard to imagine that these churchgoers could be more excited if Jesus himself were to appear to them!” said the October 2021 article, ‘Hold Fast to the Truth with Strong Conviction’

    An unusual bit of satire for the Watchtower, which normally takes the position that satire is the language of you-know-who. It evoked in our congregation some comments of ‘superstar’ preachers of megachurches, even that creepy guy dripping with wealth who explained how Jesus said he needed yet another jet. We may fuss a bit over some of our guys, but nothing comparable to that. Respect for those taking the lead is markedly different from worship.

    There is a clip that made the rounds of Sam Herd deboarding an airplane. A dozen or more brothers are there to shake his hand and he moves down the line, shaking each of them. “What disgusting creature worship!” Vomodog groused.

    Doesn’t he have a life? Herd’s an old man of many decades’ service to God being greeted by well-wishers. What’s he going to do—tell them to scram? If you know anything about Sam Herd, you know that he is probably muttering under his breath. But if he appeared aloof, you know there would be plenty of beefing about that too. 

    It is hard to operate in the flesh. It just is. The ones taking the lead became prominent by attending well to their duties, and now that same prominence becomes a trap. Everyone crossing their path wants a minute of their time, maybe to commend, maybe to suggest, maybe to be noticed by means of a selfie. No wonder I hear tell of council at Bethel that if you cross paths with one of them just content yourself with a nod, if that.

    I don’t know what it is with people and ‘celebrities.’ I would love for one of the Governing Body brothers to stay at my house so I could ignore him. He would find it refreshing, I’m sure. I would say, and have said to visitors before, ‘There’s your quarters, feel free to come down and visit, that would be fine, but you’re a busy guy with much to do. If we do not see you at all we will not be the slightest bit offended.’

    Intense hospitality actually does pose problems for brothers trying to book rooms for theocratic volunteers such as on build projects. 3B97A285-2DF6-4C6D-A6BF-D5E895C57A18Not all of these brothers are extroverts, and after a hard day’s work some squirm at the interaction they fear may be forced upon them by gregarious friends. Of course, it is the gregarious friends who are most likely to extend hospitality! But I won’t. I’ll ignore them. They’ll like that. (Actually, that unusually puts them at ease and they are more likely to visit. But they don’t have to.)

    (photo—Stephan Muller, Flickr)

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • To the Coarse People I Became Coarse, so as to Pull Their Bacon From the Fire

    Just after Christmas comes the rush to return gifts that didn’t hit the bullseye—or even missed it by a mile. It’s like when someone gave me a tee-shirt (though not for Christmas) emblazoned with, “Where’s My Senior Discount?” Trust me on this: It will be a cold day in you-know-where before you see me wearing a shirt that says ‘Where’s My Senior Discount?’ And yet the giver is a great guy who meant well. 

    So it is when this giver (me) regifts Bill Shatner’s song to Witness HQ. He means well. They won’t like it for its language. But he means well.

    Will one put HQ under a microscope, like the malcontents do? Look for flaws among humans and you will always find some. It is a fool’s game to base judgments on the flaws of those taking the lead anywhere, but it is also the oldest trick in the book. Honing in on the imperfections of the doers will allow you to discredit anything. The only ones not making mistakes are the ones not doing anything (as though that itself is not a mistake).

    The Word itself says, ‘we have this treasure [the ministry] in earthen vessels [us—impaired, error-prone humans]. (2 Corinthians 4:7) And since it is the critics, not the friends, who hone in on faults, you know they will multiply several-fold whatever they think they find. It is in the nature of critics.

    We’re in weak position to say what ‘should be done’ in directing the Lord’s work. To those who think they do know, consider how Jesus said something that, if any of the Governing Body had said it, they would be blisteringly condemned as irresponsible and wrong.

    Why did Jesus say as he did about eating his flesh and drinking his blood? (John 6:53) No clue here. Enemies of the truth would later seize upon it to spread the ill rumor that Christians practiced cannibalism. Early Christians were persecuted and killed, their enemies spurred on by this abominable report that could be traced to Jesus himself. Who would not, if they didn’t know it was Jesus, not quickly condemn whoever said the inflammatory words?

    Another reason ‘Has Been’ might not fly as a gift, apart from its courseness, is that being a William Shatner song, one gets sidetracked musing over just how insufferable the guy was supposed to have been. The costars of Star Trek often say that about him, to the point that the modern-day Shatner complains, ‘You’re still obsessing over that?! It was 60 years ago!’ Even if he was insufferable, that doesn’t mean he still is. Many a person learns modesty with passing years. Besides, the guy can make fun of himself. I know that because of a Colombo episode in which he played a mogul whose favorite painting—an oversized portrait of himself, hung prominently on the wall.

    Critical factions tend to be topheavy with people who haven’t done squat. The Witness support organization, in contrast, has. You’re supposed to do things if you are a follower of Christ, since ‘faith without works is dead.’ Nothing more multiplies getting things done than organizing for that purpose.

    Shortly after my chum entered Bethel in the mid-70s, he reported that whereas Bethel had once been a family where everyone knew each other, its growth made that no longer possible, and that it was becoming more “corporate” [his word] in nature. Most would agree with that assessment. Just how are you going to deal with a ‘family’ consisting of thousands? Who else undertakes the experiment they do.

    Who else has coupled the detailed points of religious truth with a worldwide unity—keeping everyone on the same page? How many are in that league? The unity of many religious groups begins and ends at believing in God, and there are some which don’t even get that far. So it’s refreshing to think of the brother in our congregation who related to me how his non-Witness family is nonetheless intrigued that he can go anywhere in the world, as he has in several countries, and instantly find himself among friends. Isn’t that what holds people back from freely traveling—the fear they may find themselves friendless in uncooperative places?

    You think I’ll be thanked for dedicating the Shatner song to them? What! Are you nuts? A ‘Put up your dukes’ song that begins, “You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?You calling me ‘Has been’? I don’t think so. It’s not exactly the mild-tempered spirit, is it? But parts of it fit. The only ones who make no missteps are those who do nothing. So click here if you are bold enough.

    Riding on their armchairs,they dream of wealth and fame.Fear is their companion,Nintendo is their game.Never Done Jack and Two-Thumbs Donand side-kick Don't Say Dickwill laugh at others failuresthough they have not done sh*t.

    I admit I get fed up with those who are intensely critical yet offer nothing positive themselves. You may never again think of ‘Has Been’ in the same way realigned to its new cause, and maybe you will never agains see the Witness HQ in the same way. No, they will not thank me. They don’t know just what congregation Bill Shatner attends and they’ll frown at the language. But when they call me on the carpet I will reply that I am just imitating Paul: 

    “To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to gain Jews; to those under law I became as under law . . . To those without law I became as without law . . . To the weak I became weak, in order to gain the weak. . . . to the course people I became course, so as to pull their bacon out of the fire.” (1 Corinthians 9:20–sort of)

    EB794817-4C2E-4EC4-A171-A1D7279A1DE8

    (Photo by Pixabay)

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  • An organization that says “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female” (Galatians 3:28) might not feel compelled to include a member of each in order to prove their ‘diversity’ to an irreve

    Then there was Morristotle—where is he now anyway?—who scanned the photos on the JW website and said, ‘Where’s the women?’ He was put out by it.

    Morristotle—who used to pitch to me the virtues of atheism and I would throw it back in his face. What spectacular rows we used to have! Like that time he pitched to me some Ancient Greek reputed to be the world’s first atheist and I did an online search to reveal what a knave the fellow was.

    It is a near universal sentiment today: if different roles are assigned to different groups, then one group must be oppressing the other. Lord forbid they could be cooperating seamlessly. It doesn’t happen in their own world so they assume it cannot happen. If they see it, they don’t trust it. 

    “But I want you to know that the head of every man is the Christ; in turn, the head of a woman is the man; in turn, the head of the Christ is God.” (1 Corinthians 11:3) Doesn’t work for these guys, who take it as a formula for oppression.

    A similar sentiment prevails with nationality and race, which holds if you are not a member of that nationality or race, it can only be that you are exploiting it. Doesn’t this come from the survival of the fittest ‘scientific’ mindset in which everyone puts themselves first? It is the world they have bought into. They presume it is universal. “Have love for the whole association of brothers,” be they of whatever nationality, race, class, or economic status? No, they say. It is every man for himself.

    Diversity is all the rage today and unless you are diverse you must be stepping upon those not included in your headship ranks, the same as men must be stepping on women if they are abiding by the above 1 Corinthians 11:3 verse. 

    The Jehovah’s Witness's headship catches some flak when judged by this contemporary norm, an ‘American white boys’ club, grumbles Vic Vomodog (with whom I used to pull shoulder to shoulder in the work!—Vic Vomodog, the Wily E Coyote saboteur of Tom Irregardless and Me!) 

    He forgets that David Splane hails from the exotic land of Canada. And what of that Aussie Geoff Jackson? Don’t get me started on Gerrit Lousch, working Eastern Europe back in the day. And Mark Sanderson speaks of his missionary history in the islands. He speaks Russian. If he is white, he also gets around. Then there is tough old bird Sam Herd, son of a black mule driver, who has said he wants to retire, but the others “won’t let him.” Admittedly, Kenneth Cook, who comports himself well, nonetheless gives credence to the feeling that he was snatched up because it was convenient—he from nearby Pennsylvania. “It's who you know" that counts, Vic muttered at that one.

    Ah, well. The trick is not to sanitize the present.  It is to desanitize the past. There was no ‘it’s who you know’ club like there was in Jesus’ time,  when so many of his disciples were related to one another. But these days diversity is all the rage. Individual branches invariably reflect it. And even the harshest JW critic will concede that racial tension is all but non-existent in the worldwide brotherhood. Will the earthly organization headship cave into the modern demand for ‘diversity’ someday, a demand that insists you can only represent a group if you have some of that group within your midst? (Sheesh—the latest insistence of the acting crowd is that you cannot even act the role of a minority unless you are of that minority, lest you cross the ‘razor thin’ line from appreciation to commit the crime of cultural approbation!)

    An organization that says “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female” (Galatians 3:28) might not feel compelled to include a member of each in order to prove their ‘diversity’ to an irreverent world. It would be a way to defang those who complain about Witnesses being an ‘American religion,’ though.

    Then too, though usually married, few of organizational headship will have been parents. Not to worry. It is consistent with the main mission—putting the evangelizing work first. Still, I was sorry to see Guy Pierce go. He had children. The only other one who has raised kids is Anthony Morris.

    ‘ 79619468-F0F7-4B6E-9364-EF1CDD6B4629Yeah, load up these guys with a few teenagers apiece!’ said my prevailed-upon buddy, whose kids continually sought to outmaneuver him—but most have stuck and are doing well. ‘Then we’ll see if they keep singing the same tune.’

    (Pixabay photo)

     

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  • Little Enemies of God

    What Lett said was:

    “Now, if we think about it, we’re not born as friends of God because we’re born as sinful offspring of Adam. Actually, when we think about it, we’re born as enemies of God. Sometimes you’ll hear people say of a little baby, ‘Look at that little angel,’ but more accurate would be to say, ‘Look at that little enemy of God.’ Now, of course we love that little baby and it’s now not hopeless because our loving creator has made reconciliation with him within the reach of everyone. We can become a good friend of God and that close relationship with Jehovah will become our most valuable possession.”

    With the reference to Adam in Genesis, the place to focus is here:

    “For if when we were enemies we became reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10) That happens by exercising faith in that death and what it signifies. Can a baby do that? Or must it be provisionally saved, as though grandfathered in, by means of its parents’ faith?

    He’s Lett. He’s not artful. But he is technically correct.

    For a guy who will quote Job 12:11, “Does not the ear test out words As the tongue tastes food?” you’d almost think he’d test them out a little more before letting loose with a phrase that every cherry picker will use to “distort the right ways of Jehovah.” But he is technically correct.

     


    *****Vic Vomodog, with whom I used to pull shoulder to shoulder in the work! —just like a couple of oxen, was busy as an ox throughout the Pursue Peace Regional Convention, taking detailed notes! Afterwards, he threw at me:

    “I know you wouldn’t dare comment on what GB Stephen Lett said during your convention,” before quoting Lett’s, “You hear people say of a little baby, ‘look at that little angel’, but more accurate would be to say, ‘look at that little enemy of God’”

    You don’t think so, do you?

    “Then Tom Harley, also called Tom Sheepandgoats, becoming fed up, looked at him intently  and said: “O man full of every sort of fraud and every sort of villainy, you son of the Devil, you enemy of everything righteous, will you not quit distorting the right ways of Jehovah?  (Acts 13:9-10)

    What Lett said was: 

    “Now, if we think about it, we're not born as friends of God because we're born as sinful offspring of Adam. Actually, when we think about it, we're born as enemies of God. Sometimes you'll hear people say of a little baby, ‘Look at that little angel,’ but more accurate would be to say, ‘Look at that little enemy of God.’ Now, of course we love that little baby and it's now not hopeless because our loving creator has made reconciliation with him within the reach of everyone. We can become a good friend of God and that close relationship with Jehovah will become our most valuable possession.”

    Notice how he twice said, ‘when we think about it?’ You have to do that—think about things. You don’t just parrot sound bites to make people you don’t like look bad. O, you spiteful fellow, who quotes scripture by the bushel basket but never lays hold on the one that applies, besides the reference to Adam in Genesis, the place to focus is here:

    “…through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned—.” Romans 5:12

    “when we were enemies we became reconciled to God through the death of his Son,” by exercising faith in him, which a baby cannot yet do, and thus is temporarily ‘grandfathered’ via the faith of it’s parents. (vs 10)

    Now, as for Bro Lett, for a guy who will quote Job 12:11, “Does not the ear test out words As the tongue tastes food?” you’d almost think he’d test them out a little more before letting loose with a phrase that every evil cherry picker will use to “distort the right ways of Jehovah.”

    But I hate to think what Vomodog would have done to Jesus for his, ‘Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life, and I will resurrect him on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.’ John 6:54-55

    Vomodog taunted, “Please tell me if he is truly adhering to and following Christ as a model.”

    Taking into consideration that passage in John, I would say Lett is supremely adhering to and following Christ as a model, in fact, more so than any of the other HQ staff.

    Imagine: what sort of vile person would comb through a convention in which every talk explores the theme verse (Psalm 34:14) ‘Seek peace and pursue it’ to find and exploit a faux pas?

    223E2A01-5736-431A-9334-BBFBA35A0A40

    Gif: Crying baby gifs/ tenor

    It may be just an example of God ‘laughing at the wisdom of this systems’s wise ones,’ proof that his anointed are, as in the first century, seldom of ‘noble birth,’ nor ‘wise,’ but decidedly ‘uneducated and ordinary.’

    I’ll take substance over style any day. Turn on the TV and you can see endless people whose ‘style’ is impeccable. Among them are some of the stupidest people whom God ever let roam the earth.

     

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  • Things that Drive You Crazy About the Faith—and How to View Them: Part 4

    This is  a multi-part series. For best results, start here.

    In general it is as 1 Corinthians 1:14-15 puts it: “A physical man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know them, because they are examined spiritually. However, the spiritual man examines all things, but he himself is not examined by any man.” The spiritual man has a greater grasp than the physical man.

    But that doesn’t mean that the physical man has no grasp at all.
    Most of the aggravating disconnects that arise in the Witness world stem from a reliance on ‘knowledge by revelation’ for the short term picture as well as the long. That reliance conveys certain advantages but also disadvantages. Whoever has followed this reasoning up to here—will they find this conclusion as comforting as I do? It means that 100 annoyances are actually just one. And that one, while it can be bamboozling, is not a dealbreaker. It is simply a way of looking at the world. It overall compares favorably with other ways of looking at the world, and where it does not, one can see why and adjust.

    earth globe with googly eyes on gray background

    I tiptoed around this way of looking at the world in ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why,’ not at that time fully appreciating just what it was that I was tiptoeing around. I attributed all to staying “no part of the world,” which is a factor but it is not the decisive factor. The decisive factor is ‘knowledge through revelation’—weighing in on almost any situation based upon what can be gleaned from the Bible.

    “If [the Governing Body] ever misrepresents the non-Witness world . . . it is because they do not know it intimately themselves. They take their own counsel with regard to association. They have lived their own lives with the lesson of Haggai ever foremost: ‘clean will be contaminated by unclean’, not the reverse, and so they do not go there. Because they do not go there, they know certain things only through the lens of Scripture.

    “If the Bible says, in effect, that the “world will chew you up and spit you out,” they assume that it does. If they find someone who says it in exactly those words, they eat it right up and broadcast it. And who is to say the words are untrue? Some get chewed up and spit out so promptly and decisively that no one would ever deny it, but with others? Who is to say the scriptures are wrong on that point? It may just take a longer time to get chewed up and spit out. Many seniors have encountered calamity, even contrived calamity, and have seen everything they had worked for drained away at their end. Even the powerful are not immune as their strength and faculties wane.

    “The Governing Body chugs along, deferring to what the Scriptures say. They go wherever the Bible indicates to them that they should go. If it gets them in a jam with some component of the present world, they are content that God will somehow get them out of it. They are like the leaders of the first century who were loath to abandon teaching of the word so as to wait on tables. That’s what helpers are for. Should they shoot themselves in the foot, as low-key as possible they extract the bullet with a grimace at their own mistake, and carry on. They will refine and shift and ultimately something will come down through congregation channels and this writer will say, “Yep, it must work, or there would not be the 1,000 languages [standing for the success of their efforts to get the uncontaminated gospel message out there, 1,000 languages far exceeding what even the most innovative tech or media company has come up with].”

    To be continued: here.

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  • FECRIS vs Jehovah’s Witnesses: Just Who is the Destructive Cult?

    Here is one to develop: FECRIS, the international anti-cult organization based in France, denounces and schemes harm to Jehovah’s Witnesses on the basis they are a ‘harmful cult.’ It does this mostly through the machinations of its Russian born Vice President, Alexander Dvorkin. He is the one who masterminded the 2017 ban against Witnesses throughout Russia that has to date resulted in the arrests and jailing of hundreds.

    War in Ukraine breaks out—a bloody, punishing, shocking war in which civilian deaths are many and genocide is alleged. Dvorkin backs Russia to the hilt. Others of that organization back Ukraine. Whatever semblance of unified action they may have had—smashed to smithereens over Ukraine! Just who is the ‘harmful cult’ here—FECRIS or Jehovah’s Witnesses?

    https://bitterwinter.org/7-fecris-support-for-totalitarian-regimes/

    The one thing we know for sure about Jehovah’s Witnesses is that not one combatant will be theirs. They may be drawn from every other religious and secular background—the ‘king’ can always persuade his subjects they are the victims—but not theirs. Just who is the ‘harmful cult?’ Given the ongoing atrocities, they are among the few parties not harmful!

    I mean, this FECRIS fix is almost as poignant as the most prominent exJW ‘activist’ cavorting with the lithe and pretty young sex workers of Thailand, blowing his own family to smithereens in the process. It is as though those ubiquitous Watchtower drawings of slovenly opposers shouting and shaking their fists in rage finds complete fulfillment in that bearded bullying slob who perfectly typifies the scriptural ‘promising freedom while himself being slave to corruption!’ (2 Peter 2:19)  And now the secular FECRIS grapples with the enormous bloodshed its VP cheers for! And Jehovah’s Witnesses are the harmful cult??! I don’t think so!

    What has FECRIS done with this division in its ranks? As quietly has possible, it has expelled Dvorkin, its Vice President. It hasn’t really ‘disfellowshipped’ him because only cults do that. But what it has done so closely resembles disfellowshipping that no reasonable person can tell the difference. Is it enough? Or is the ideology of FECRIS itself the fault, whose factions stoked the perception of evil cults at work in Ukraine right until it all blew up in their faces? I mean, it is possible to drink too much of your own Kool-Aid.

    ***

    “But…but…but,” that perennial apostate Vic Vomodog wrote me, “What about that Watchtower line, ‘We need to obey the faithful discreet slave to have Jehovah's approval?’ Huh, Tom Harley, what about that? Jesus Christ himself said at John 14:6, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.’ Unlimited power is what they want!”

    No, Vic. They no more make a grab for “unlimited power” than did those taking the lead in the first century:

    “As [Paul and Banabas] traveled on through the cities, they would deliver to them for observance the decrees that had been decided on by the apostles and the elders who were in Jerusalem.” (Acts 16:4)

    Never did those two suggest Christians ought blow away “decrees” from Jerusalem as though the tyranny of domineering men. All Bible translations use words such as ‘decrees’ for Acts 16:4. Some say ‘rules,’ some ‘regulations.’ Some strengthen it as regulations “which were to be observed.” Only the independence-savoring Message translation waters it down to ‘helpful guidelines which proved most useful.’

    “What I am saying is that trust us because God trust us sounds cultish!” Vomodog fired back!

    It does sound cultish and it may therefore be impolitic to say it, but only for that reason. There’s nothing especially shocking in the idea itself. The Lord trusted the twelve. Does that mean their performance was flawless? We are the children of those who drove around with bumper stickers saying “Question Authority.” (if we are not those people ourselves). It makes us touchy on the point of authority. Dare I say overly touchy?

    The Governing Body says what it says as it mans up, girds its loins, and takes the same lead as did faithful men in the first century. They think we’re entering crunch time. Witnesses will agree with that; if they don’t they have no business being Witnesses. The Governing Body does not want to find themselves in the shoes of Lot, urging evasive action only to find his sons-in-law think he is joking. (Genesis 19:14)

    Jesus says (John 14:12) “whoever exercises faith in me will also do the works that I do; and he will do works greater than these.” The first century governing body, “the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem,” did considerably greater works than Jesus in that they spread the message throughout the then-known world. The modern-day governing body has far eclipsed them, spreading it throughout the entire world regardless of the barriers set up (language, nationality, ethnicity, culture), at the same time keeping it freely available, unified, and uncontaminated. For this they deserve great respect, and yes, obedience. It is understood that this obedience is not tyranny, that it recognizes “we are not masters of your faith” (2 Corinthians 1:24) and that we shall smell a scandal when Sam Herd upgrades to a bigger dorm room.

    By and large, rank and file Jehovah’s Witnesses have worked out the balance pretty well: “We have this treasure [the ministry] in earthen vessels [us—imperfect humans. We are imperfect and those taking the lead are imperfect], so that the power beyond what is normal may be God’s and not from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7)

    If we are going to carry on about “absolute authority” let us attribute it to the one who has it in this system of things and who uses it for great harm—the “great dragon who is misleading the entire inhabited earth,” the “ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” (Rev 12:9, Ephesians 2:2) It is this one who uses his absolute authority over the “air” to motivate the malevolent ones at FECRIS to boast of their “freedom of mind,” caring not that it makes them pawns of the national kings fighting their bloody battles for dominance. That’s the “absolute authority” to worry about, not those of the people who say we should pay attention to dress and grooming and keep track of time spent in the ministry. “Light has come into the world, but men have loved the darkness rather than the light,” says Jesus. (John 3:19) See how quickly a discussion about the authority that kills is diverted into beefing about the authority that doesn’t.

    The Governing Body may not correspond to the human authority Jehovah has used in the past in every particular, the main one being that since Scripture was completed in the first century CE, they are not explicitly mentioned in it. But it is far more beneficial to dwell on the similarities than the differences. Even Witnesses who aren’t thrilled over every aspect of GB policy have no problem conceding that there should be human leadership. Any one of Jehovah’s Witnesses is easily able to reconcile “I am the way and the truth and the life” with verses such as Ephesians 4: 7-13 that plainly state Christ grants authority to men:

    “Now undeserved kindness was given to each one of us according to how the Christ measured out the free gift. ….And he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelizers, some as shepherds and teachers, with a view to the readjustment of the holy ones, for ministerial work, to build up the body of the Christ, until we all attain to the oneness of the faith and of the accurate knowledge of the Son of God, to being a full-grown man, attaining the measure of stature that belongs to the fullness of the Christ.”

    Surely Christianity was not meant to die with the completion of the Bible canon. Surely someone was meant to be around to oversee Matthew 24:14: “And this good news will be preached in all the inhabited earth, as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.”

    ***

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