Sheep and Goats

Category: Governing Body Updates

  • Regarding the Recent Update on Blood Transfusion: Part 5

    See Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Part 5)

    Few Witnesses will buy that Acts 15:29 has no conceivable connection to blood transfusion therapy. They won’t buy that it is merely an OT dietary law imposed upon Christians. The counsel of apostles and older men preserved only four out of over 600 OT laws. Why would “abstain from blood” make the cut? Other dietary laws were not preserved. Something else is involved. What can that something else be other than the Leviticus 17:11 stipulation that blood carries symbolic meaning, and not just dietary?

    Even fewer Witnesses will buy the shallow argument of people controlling people. “Those in charge used to not allow transfusion simply as a means asserting supremacy, but now they do?” No. According to evolutionary psychologists, the very concept of God originates as a mechanism of control. Threaten the ne’er-do-wells with hell if they misbehave, reward them with heaven if they toe in line, and you have solved the problem of keeping order in the clan—without which that clan will surely lose out in the evolutionary struggle to survive to other clans that have evolved that Superhuman Cop. Once you buy into one cockeyed notion, it readily extends to other superficial applications. Few Witnesses will buy into it.

    Instead, most Witnesses will take quite readily to the adjustment that avoidance of blood is a personal responsibility, not to be monitored by anyone else. It will make sense to them. Break blood down into an ever-expanding list of components, as medical technology has done, and the principle that comes into play is, “You shouldn’t have to be a microbiologist to serve God.” Frankly, I didn’t know that two of the four “basic components of blood” make up less of a percentage than some components that already some Witnesses (including me) were willing to accept.

    It just becomes too complicated. Does the tiniest percentage make it blood or should the baker’s criteria prevail: “It’s not a cake until you mix the ingredients?” Each will have to figure it out on his/her own. Like with any matter of preparation, some will be quite exacting and others not so much. Some will work quite hard to find cooperative physicians. It’s been stated that liaison committees will continue to facilitate this. Others will put it off, thinking the need not likely to arise or more inclined to trust in the moment even if it should. Red cells and plasma looming large percentage-wise, my guess it that they will continue to loom large as items of conscience, with white cells and platelets demoted to the status of other fractions. How tenacious Witnesses will be in times of crisis will no doubt vary by the person.

    Will any Witnesses be as stumbled over this adjustment as those who oppose them seem to think? If so, I’ve heard no undercurrents of it. I would never claim to pick up every nuance of the grapevine but I’m as connected as anyone. If any do have a hard time over this, it will probably be those used to seeing Witness life as a collection of rules, and now some of those rules are changing. This is not just so with the update on blood transfusion, a truly significant change. It is also true with changes that are trivial, such as how Witnesses once counted their time in their ministry and now no longer do.*

    “Well, we shouldn’t think in terms of laws and rules,” will be the party line. We should think principles, not laws and rules. Principles are greater than laws and rules. Let your conscience be trained by Bible principles and you can derive laws and rules on the spot for unexpected situations. Many are the Watchtower articles elevating Bible principles over the laws derived from them. Principles are timeless. Rules are time or situationally sensitive. What applies in one time or place may not apply in another.

    Trouble is, having provided specific examples of what one with a Bible trained conscience might do in given situations, some of those examples snuck over Into the category of being rules. Not that they were rules, of course, but they so closely resembled rules that one might not be able to tell the difference. Lately, these situations are being looked at anew. Some are being unwound. If playing the cottage industry game of ‘What will come next?’ look for parallel situations where outcomes of Bible-trained consciences may have been too precisely defined.

    What are some of the items that may change? Already there are Witness opponents creating databases of potential last straws so that, should any of them arise, they can catcall, “Now are you ready to leave? Now are you ready to join me on the road to nowhere?” As for me, overhauling anything above the fold (to use the newspapaper metaphor) would make me do a double-take. Anything below the fold I could adapt to with minimal fuss. Above the fold includes the core components Witnesses are known for: Name of God, Jesus not himself God,, Kingdom is a real government, need to preach, no immortal soul, resurrection to paradise earth, explanation for why God allows evil and suffering, and so forth. Below the fold are items in which “a godly trained conscience” is defined. Were it reevaluated that it had been defined too narrowly, I could roll with that. That has been the tenor of recent changes.

    Even if some above the fold items were to undergo minor tweaks, I would adapt. For example, say, the 144K being a literal number. It’s not all THAT firmly established from scripture, methinks, it is just a reasonable conclusion. Not that I expect it to change, but if it did, I wouldn’t lose my cookies.

    Don’t make your dream list too long. Don’t expect more unwinding than was done in the first century. There must be enough impact on a person’s life to trigger Psalm 2 perceptions of the Kingdom. There, “high officials gather together as one against Jehovah and against his anointed one [to] say: ‘Let us tear off their shackles And throw off their ropes!’” (verse 3) There must always be ways that can be mischaracterized as intolerable “shackles” and “ropes.” The Psalm could never fit an “anything goes” religion.

    Similarly, consider the plea of Paul: “Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one.” (2 Corinthians 7:2) Why would he have written this other than to counter accusations that he had? There is nothing new under the sun. Accusations of shackles, ropes, wrongs, corruption, and unfair advantage made by enemies of the faith today find their full counterpart in the first century. Christians were well-known for refusing to burn just a pinch of incense to the Emperor, bringing intense persecution upon themselves. You don’t think there weren’t opponents trying to redefine the gesture simply as one of respect, posing as reformers devoted to preserving the lives of believers?

    Is Witness headship today petrified at being thought fallible, lest that undermine their authority to lead? That charge, too, has been made. I doubt it. They have previously acknowledged they can err. Perhaps they do not announce it with trumpets. However, there is a publicly available chronological list titled “Beliefs Clarified,” searchable on the Witness website, which documents changes and adjustments in understanding by year. So it is hardly top secret.

    The situation is probably more akin to how the airline pilot does not display a list of prior missteps on the cabin door for passengers to read. The contention that revealing they are human should threaten their authority is made by persons who once believed in Santa Claus and no longer do. They haven’t really grown up, though. They have just transferred the role of Santa Claus to God. Let there be any coal in their stockings and they begin to question the entire festive scenario. “He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for heaven’s sake.” It fits Santa Claus, but also God for many people.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Regarding the Recent Update on Blood Transfusion: Part 4

    See Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Part 5)

    Immanuel Kant was a philosopher from the 1700s, and is a driving force behind today’s higher criticism method of evaluating scripture. He called questions such as ‘How do we know one is led by Holy Spirit?’ “antimonies.” That is, they were questions that could not be answered by reason, which he regarded as his sole tool of evaluating religious matters.

    Specifically, said Charles B. Jones: (Great Courses: Introduction to the Study of Religion): “Immanuel Kant . . . pointed out that there were philosophical problems that he called antinomies. Antinomies were problems that were important but which could not be solved by the pure application of logic. such questions might be Is there an immortal soul or is there not? Are there rewards and punishments in life after death or are there not? Purely abstract scholastic reasoning could lead you to both affirmative and negative answers to those questions and both the affirmation and the negation could be equally well defended with equally good logical arguments.”

    Thus, he pretty much regarded ALL religious tenets that way—undecidable through reason, and thereby off the table as something that could be established. But the EFFECTS of believing any given tenet was not. The effects were things he thought reason could evaluate, even if if the tenets themselves were inaccessible to reason. With this viewpoint as a backdrop, and it is now the mainstay of theological seminaries, religion almost cannot be anything else but a discipline for advancing (or infringing upon) human rights.

    Nonetheless, I’ve long viewed headship in the worldwide congregation the way Kant did. It’s not something you can prove to others. It is only something one can prove to oneself, per Romans 12:2. I don’t obsess over it. However, one CAN regard the question in terms that every project needs leadership and that Witness headship is overall doing a good job. They are doing at least as well as the early Christians following the death of the apostles in keeping essential spiritual understandings unsullied. Such matters as name of God upheld, Jesus not himself God,, Kingdom is a real government, need to preach, no immortal soul, resurrection to paradise earth, the reason God permits suffering, obedience to headship be it family or congregation, “keeping the marriage bed undefiled,” and so forth. They’ve kept those concerns intact, whereas most others long ago integrated teachings that Witnesses would consider non-scriptural—such as immortal soul, and bending to the changing sexual norms of overall society.

    Of course, on this subreddit, open to anyone, people can and will challenge any of those essential spiritual truths associated with Witnesses. But such teachings are not new. They all go back over 100 years. None have ever been hidden. Quite the contrary, they are relentlessly announced. If you don’t identify with those teachings, you do not become a Witness to begin with.

    Not only has Witness headship kept essential truths (per the Witnesses) uncontaminated, they are the descendants of those who aided spiritual understanding to me in the first place, and for this they deserve loyalty and respect. Let others haggle it out what ‘led by holy spirit’ means. Their overall record is good enough for me. Otherwise, one can begin bickering internally and easily lose sight of just who the real enemy is. They can be and are accused of being “insular” (generally bad connotation). Alas, “no part of the world” (generally good connotation from a biblical standpoint) is the other side of the same coin. What IS insulation if not a stratagem for keeping two incompatible things separate? It does have a way of making Witness headship slow to respond to concerns of the greater world.

    Questions of accountability toward God over the latest update, I considered in Part 1, speculating both ways, with greater emphasis on how most Witnesses are likely to view it. One can do no more, as gauging God’s judgment is another one of Kant’s antimonies. Time will tell. Perhaps, weight will be given to how people have often lost their lives for causes that were later reevaluated. War and politics offer a steady torrent of examples, with lives lost often in the millions. Losing life for science that turns out to be wrong is also common. In medicine, people are routinely coerced through advertising into taking drugs that may kill them—the voiceover plainly states it on those ubiquitous pharma ads of the United States. People even lose their lives over such trivial matters as sports, particularly extreme sports, coerced by coaches and societal pressure into pushing the boundaries.

    All people in the above roles are lionized. It is only when lives are lost in a religious context that the perception of noble sacrifice changes. Somewhere in the equation perhaps it will be accounted that Witness insistence on avoiding transfusion spurred the development and advancement of bloodless surgery and curtailed widespread but inappropriate use of blood transfusion (once as common as “topping off the tank” after surgery), a developement saving many times more lives among the general population than have been lost among Witnesses. Somewhere, too, it might be taken into account that Witness beliefs in aggregate make it by far the safest religion out there. As a result of their beliefs, they don’t do illicit drugs, tobacco, don’t abuse alcohol, don’t do war, and shy from unnecessary overly risky activity on all fronts.

    Questions as to how God leads his people (or if he does) surely must to answered by those who have acquiesced to such leadership—headship, the Bible calls it. Thing is, Kant’s insistence that spiritual considerations are unknowable via his tool of logic changes the very nature of religion into something unrecognizable to those who practice it—again, it can become nothing more than a forum for human rights. The core tenets discussed above, though important to Witnesses, are dismissed once atheism or agnosticism comes to rule the roost. When one negates the upside, all that there is left to focus on is the downside. The apostle Paul freely acknowledged that “If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are to be pitied more than anyone.” (1 Corinthians 15:19) As a starting position, Witnesses maintain that it is not “in this life only” that they believe in the Christ. They cannot be properly assessed by atheists or agnostics who suppose it is.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Regarding the Recent Update on Blood Transfusion: Part 3

    See Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Part 5)

    Several serious adjustments to the Witnesses have come following intense criticism from those opposed. I have several times acknowledged this. For example, regarding the change in congregation discipline, I wrote: “Look, if disfellowshipped ones accumulate to the point where even Norway starts to complain, maybe it is time for a reexamination. The leaven must still be removed, and is, but the new norm—is is overdue?—is to go back from time to time and reexamine specific policies of discipline. Some have been refashioned.”

    Same thing with revised policies on child sexual abuse. It came about largely in response to opponents of the faith. I acknowledged that, too: “Well, it only took a landslide of legal threats around the world to force their hand on this,” opposers grumbled, as they went on to claim credit. Why not give them the credit? Likely there is something to it. Everything in life is action/reaction and it would be foolish to deny the substance of this.”

    Is the recent adjustment on blood transfusion also in response to accumulating legal obstacles? Likely it is so, at least to a degree. For my money, I’m willing to give those critics gratitude. Their challenges have resulted in better policies on several fronts.

    Why have the Witnesses themselves not acknowledged these outside forces? It may be because those outside forces instigating actions against them are not interested in reform, but only in destruction of the faith. This has become quite clear in recent months. They demand “reform.” They gain it on various fronts. They’re not happy about it. They’re furious that the Witnesses have “dodged a bullet.” They prepare another one. There is no easing of hostility whatsoever from the ex community.

    It’s hard not to conclude that most have simply become the “fighters against God,” that Gamaliel cautioned about in the first century. (Acts 5:39) They may not have started out that way, but immersion in the hypercritical, unforgiving, finger-pointing environment inevitably rubs off on them. This conclusion might be different were there some alternative highlighting the essential teachings that Witnesses are known for: Name of God, Jesus not himself God,, Kingdom is a real government, need to preach, no immortal soul, resurrection to paradise earth, explanation for why God allows evil and suffering, and so forth.

    Were that the case, one might simply switch to that alternative source and abandon the “repressive” one. That there is no such alternative source suggests that maybe overshooting the mark from time to time is part of the package. After all, recognition that Acts 15:29 should include transfusion, even if that inclusion might result in death on occasion, was first made in the 1940s. At that time, ending one’s life so that one’s country might prevail was deemed the highest honor—nobody was ever criticized for that—and many millions of people did it. Times change. Today, large swaths of the world manage to avoid the wholesale sacrifice of life towards one’s country. The backdrop changes. Witness policies change too. Call it reform if one wishes.

    With no alternative source existing for furthering essential teachings, how can one not think that calls for reform on the ex critics part are but a sham? Reforms happen and their ferocity only increases. You would think at least some would be placated, even come around. Maybe that will happen in time, but there is little sign of it thus far.

    To the extent recent changes are a response to critics, does this not make the faith purely a human thing? I don’t know that holy spirit requires one to be unresponsive to outside circumstances. Hopefully, it would equip you to navigate them adroitly. If you’re going to be opposed, you want it to be for the same reason Christians were opposed in the first century. If you’re being opposed on the basis of something else, maybe it’s time to look at that something else. Even if that something else involves keeping God’s requirements, you may be able to adjust it so it cannot be framed as others telling you what to do. If that can be done, what’s not to like?

    ******  The bookstore

  • Regarding the Recent Update on Blood Transfusions: Part 2

    See Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Part 5)

    At long last, two scriptures long acknowledged but long deemphasized are coming to the fore. I could not be happier. For the longest time I have adopted the Rolling Stones song as my personal year text: “You can’t always get what you want.” Now it is beginning to appear as though I can. Or at least more than previously imagined.

    The two scriptures are:

    “Not that we are the masters over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy, for it is by your faith that you are standing.” (2 Corinthians 1:24)

    and

    “So, then, each of us will render an account for himself to God.” (Romans 14:12)

    The changes among JWs since the recent series of Updates began have prominently incorporated these verses. Christians are to stand by their OWN faith, with no other human as their “master.” And each with render an account “for himself” to God, not for someone else.

    Well, if the scriptures are so plain and so long recognized, why are they only now coming to the fore?

    Mostly it is because other scriptures point another way and it is a question of balancing them. There are continual references in the Bible to undershepherds of Christ who are responsible for the flock. Destroyed sheep will be demanded at their hand. This has a way of making them vigilant, not lackadaisical.

    For example: “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for [or “shepherd” / poimainō] the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” (Acts 20:28, ESV) They should be careless with something purchased with the blood of Christ?

    and

    “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” (1 Peter 5:1-4)

    We all know what shepherds do. They have rods to beat away predators but they also have staffs with crooks at the end to direct the sheep, at times forcefully, should they perceive danger. And what are the sheep supposed to do?

    This: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.” (Hebrews 13:17)

    and

    “Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.” (1 Peter 5:5)

    One thing I admire about Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they do not shirk from verses such as the above. They do not try to water them down. They do not kowtow when the overall world adopts the model of ‘No one’s telling ME what to do!’ Most others do kowtow, terrified at being thought out of step with the greater world’s demands for independence. Instead, the Witnesses say, ‘Steady as she goes.’ But have they gone too far?

    When entire nations begin to complain and it is not for the reasons one might expect, they begin to think the answer is yes. It is therefore time to relook at policies and see if they can be readjusted while still keeping the overall core of them. Turns out they can.

    Why did they not do it long ago? Why did they have to wait for entire nations to complain? As much as Jehovah’s Witnesses love that metaphor of God’s lightning-fast chariot, it is a metaphor. He doesn’t really have one. Nor does he have eyes, ears, arm, legs, etc. The continual anthropomorphization of God is for our sake, to help us better relate to Him. But it is metaphor. From a “one day is with God as 1000 years to men” standpoint, it is a lightning-fast chariot. But to someone at ground zero, it is more like a supertanker. It doesn’t exactly turn on a dime.

    It turns out that Jehovah’s Witnesses are much like scientists in one important regard. Max Planck, the physicist, observed: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” I believe that such is happening among Jehovah’s Witnesses today?

    If so, it all sounds quintessentially human. Does this mean that the Witnesses today are not led by holy spirit?

    to be continued.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Regarding the Recent Update on Blood Transfusions: Part 1

    (See Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Part 5)

    What about the recent revision regarding blood transfusions—that it will no longer be a matter the congregation gets involved with? It’s not as though any view has changed with regard to the prohibition of blood stated at Acts 15:29. It’s just that the congregation will no longer get involved in how people navigate it. Two of the “four basic components of blood: white cells and platelets, make up less of a percentage, than some fractions: albumin and immunoglobulin that it has already been acknowledged Christians may have no problem with!

    Is this new adjustment wrong? Or, is it a correction of something that was wrong before? Will there be hell to pay, one way or the other, with regard to the ones who made the revision? It certainly has impacted some lives.

    It’s not the best question to ask, methinks. However, if one presses ahead to ask it anyway, surely the answer is “I don’t know.” You could build a case for unbraiding. Such as the harshness proclaimed for “whoever stumbles one of these little ones who believe” is suggestive. (Matthew 18:6) And, “Everyone to whom much was given, much will be demanded of him, and the one who was put in charge of much will have more than usual demanded of him.” (Luke 12:48) Is someone due for a thrashing?

    Isn’t one presuming to speak for God with a question like that? Who can say what that One will do? But I tend to think that in the overall picture, they will make out okay. I tend to think that with them it will be: ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. I put you in charge of one mina. See, you have gained ten more. Sure, you stepped in it a few times but, Hey—who’s keeping score?’

    An examination of the first century reinforces this gut feeling. They didn’t step in it back then? Or—to put it more precisely—they didn’t do things that could have been spun that way by their detractors? Even Peter and yes, Jesus himself, did. They both provided ample opportunity for detractors to take shots at them.

    The trick lies not in sanitizing the present. The trick lies in desanitizing the past. It is relatively easy to do. Peter, for example, gets all balled up over something Jesus directly told him. Consequently, an untruth spreads among the disciples that who knows took how long to correct:

    “Peter turned around and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, the one who at the evening meal had also leaned back on his chest and said: “Lord, who is the one betraying you?” So when he caught sight of him, Peter said to Jesus: “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him: “If it is my will for him to remain until I come, of what concern is that to you? You continue following me.” So the saying went out among the brothers that this disciple would not die. However, Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but he said: “If it is my will for him to remain until I come, of what concern is that to you?” (John 21:20-23)

    It was Peter himself who messed this one up, not one of the “rank and file.” Were there an internet back then, enemies would be insisting that he can’t possibly be led by holy spirit to make such a blunder as that. Yet the Bible record itself says that Jesus entrusted the keys of the kingdom to him.

    He did it again when he withdrew from gentile Christians out of fear of displeasing Jewish Christians—to the extent that Paul called him on it at Galatians 2:14: “But when I saw that they were not walking in step with the truth of the good news, I said to Cephas before them all: “If you, though you are a Jew, live as the nations do and not as Jews do, how can you compel people of the nations to live according to Jewish practice?” Who knows how many gentile believers were stumbled due to Peter having caved? (which he previously did in denying his Lord three times—though to his credit he was the only one to follow closely enough to have been put in that position.

    This opens up the possibility that when someone says something before a Royal Commission that isn’t what you would expect him to say, he might have just caved. If so, he finds plenty of common ground in Peter.

    Jesus himself made a move that you know internet critics would be up in arms over. They’d be outraged even more than with Peter, for this latter move involved lives more dramatically than did Peter’s blunders. They’d be demanding apologies. Were they to get one, they would take it as an admission of guilt:

    Jesus said (John 6) that disciples must “drink his blood and eat his flesh.” Even then many walked away: “This speech is shocking! Who can listen to it?” Can you imagine their reaction years later on the internet when a frequent charge against Christians, fueling much hate and persecution, was that they practiced cannibalism? Would not they have insisted that Jesus directly stated that they would? You think they would have picked up on the spiritual nuances of Jesus’ words? I wouldn’t hold my breath. They would have misconstrued it—in some cases, even deliberately, as happens today.

    So I think Jehovah will go easy on Christian headship. I don’t know that. But a consideration of the first century written record strongly suggests to me that it will be so. When you see an issue whose time has come, for whatever reason, to make a change over, make the change. Know that your enemies will lambaste you for it. But they were lambasting you before, so it hardly matters.

    ******  The bookstore

  • GB Update: Use of One’s Own Blood (under construction)

    who is accountable for the lives lost under the blood doctrine?

    Who is accountable when a Christian gets killed in war? Who is accountable when a missionary is kidnapped or killed? Who talked them into so putting their lives at risk?

    I am surprised that this atheist argument—which holds that loss of life is permanent and irreversible calamity—is picked up on a Christian forum.

    I think it’s called “living in the world.” Things change. Time and changing settings make you look at things anew.

    The Acts 15:29 principle about “abstain from blood” remains intact. What was said in the update was just an extension of something said 20 years ago: “A Christian must decide for himself how his own blood will be handled in the course of a surgical procedure, medical test, or current therapy.”

    People work with the understanding they have at present, not the one they will have in the future. Ask the relatives of anyone who suffered harm, even loss of life, in some war that was all the rage at the time but was later seen as wrong-headed. Or due to some scientific decree what was seen to be cutting edge at the time but is now seen as deluded. Such things happen. Some adjust and some don’t.

    “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” said Mark Twain.

    Moreover, I’m not sure how many lives were lost previously. It will be like Covid-19, when, in order in inflate the numbers, if you died for any reason while having Covid-19, it was recorded that you died OF Covid-19

    …I think it’s called “living in the world.” Things change. Time and changing settings make you look at things anew.

    The Acts 15:29 principle about “abstain from blood” remains intact. What was said in the update was just an extension of something said 20 years ago: “A Christian must decide for himself how his own blood will be handled in the course of a surgical procedure, medical test, or current therapy.”

    People work with the understanding they have at present, not the one they will have in the future. Ask the relatives of anyone who suffered harm, even loss of life, in some war that was all the rage at the time but was later seen as wrong-headed. Or due to some scientific decree what was seen to be cutting edge at the time but is now seen as deluded. Such things happen. Some adjust and some don’t. “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain said. 

    The point is that we put up with it in any other venue, be it nations, be it science. Time passes by and we look at many things anew. It is only in a disliked venue that people will not put up with it. 

    JWs people lost their lives because they refused blood transfusions because of the WTJWorg ban. GB are blood guilty, for sure.

    To the extent they are, so is any leader of any sort presiding over policies in which anyone suffered harm (and you, if you had any role in putting them there). They “knew or should have known” is how the lawyers put it. Whether it be changes in politics, statecraft, science, economics, medicine, manufacturing, even sports, policies change all the time, by your reasoning making whoever was in oversight before “blood guilty.” Yet, we all accept this as a cost of living in the real world. Nothing is frozen in time. Everything updates as time progresses, and not always for the better.

    “The “life-saving instruction” they gave you was paid for dearly. It was paid for with Human Lives. You served God in ignorance and arrogance.”

    How are Human Lives different from human lives? Got it that, in atheistic society today, human life is all that counts, and even among the religious, mankind’s salvation is the overriding issue, whereas with JW it is secondary to sanctifying God’s name—if the latter happens, the former automatically follows. Yet, even with these caveats, JW is by far the “safest” religion out there. Abstinence from drugs, tobacco, alcohol abuse, war, even extreme sports far overweigh anything regarding transfusions, regardless of the latest tweak, so that to vociferously oppose them plainly points to another motive. I mean, if Human Life is truly your greatest concern, look anywhere else first.

    Who would think that a faith that is non-violent, that has all but eliminated racism, that teaches living honesty and peaceably among others, and that doesn’t meddle with governments would be the subject of such online furor as is so with the Witnesses? There has to be another motive for this to be so.

  • Witnesses and Higher Education—Coming Up on the GB Update List?

    Huh! Ocala invites me on a Bible study he is conducting for about a month. Turns out to be a ‘textbook’ study, exactly what HQ would enact if they wanted to demonstrate one.

    Unprompted, the man said how, in a moment of spiritual desperation, he had got to his knees and prayed. ‘God, if you exist, please—I only seek to be happy.’ Within the hour, Ocala had knocked on his door and made his acquaintance.

    So, I said to Ocala later, ‘Had you prayed for a Bible study?’ He told me he had. ‘I’ve read about these things happening, but it never happened to me,’ he added.

    Ocala asks me at the study if I have anything to add. I put in some remark, something grounded to the theme that does not launch off into another direction, upon which he says, “Thank you for that personal expression.” If the student thinks that a little stilted (he may not), he attributes it to Ocala’s African background. He does not connect it to the mannerisms of the Witness broadcast channel.

    Ocala appeared out of nowhere a year or two ago as a full-blown graduate student on scholarship at the local university. So unusual is this among the congregations that some did not quite know what to make of him. The brother I have dubbed ‘Barnabas,’ in answer to one of his public meeting comments, mentioned his publisher cards had arrived from the home congregation and elders in African. Congregations keep such minimal records. That way, no scam artist can just breeze in and pull the wool over everyone’s eyes (as they can most anywhere else). Since then, Ocala has established himself as solid in every way, now pioneering and a ministerial servant. Few have a more steadfast ministry. He doesn’t overcomplicate things.

    ***

    They’re all rather trivial matters—all these GB updates of late—adjustments to the ministry, changing norms of dress and grooming. Still, they are changes to long-standing policy, so people make a big fuss over them. A brother at our hall, commenting on fast-moving changes we all must adjust to, mentioned “sisters wearing pants,” (did he also mention no ties?) as though aghast that someone had run the chariot into a ditch.

    With several of such updates in a row, people start anticipating the next one. What other thing that we have not done will we start doing? Might it be a lightening up over ‘higher education?’ Not that such has ever been outlawed—how could it be?—but you can find yourself running a gauntlet of peer pressure should you choose to go there. Might there come an underlining that it is a decision of the family head, leave him be to make it, and don’t think everyone else has to put in their two cents on whatever that one decides.

    Witness publications have not had a kind word for higher education. Just this past week, the Watchtower study included a paragraph of Marcia, who “was offered a four-year scholarship at a university. But I wanted to pursue spiritual goals.” She didn’t throw caution to the wind. She “chose to attend a technical training school to learn a trade that would support me in my ministry,” and counts it “one of the best decisions I have ever made.” (Feb 2024 Wt) It is an example of the article’s title: ‘Keep Following Jehovah’s Guidance.’ That’s not really trashing university, of course, but it certainly is not presenting it as the preferred goal.

    They are not wrong to be leery of the place. Moreover, who else has the guts to discourage it? Most faiths think it an honor to have churches bristling with lettered people. Most faiths say, ‘Christians may have started ‘uneducated and ordinary,’ (Acts 4:13) but look at how they pulled themselves up! Most faiths replace Paul’s encouragement to be a ‘workman, with nothing to be ashamed of’ (2 Timothy 2:15) with ‘a professional—so you don’t have to be ashamed.’ Not many are like the Witnesses, who expect the passage of 1 Corinthians 1:26 to hold just as true today as it did then: “For you see his calling of you, brothers, that there are not many wise in a fleshly way, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.” They don’t care if people sneer at them for it. Train yourself for a skill that is both portable and scalable, they recommend. That way, you have time for the ministry.

    Their caution is validated in the remarks of Great Courses lecturer James Hall, who covers the topic, ‘Philosophy of Religion.’ A university professor himself, he relates how, “I have parents who come to the university perplexed and amazed that young Susie or young Johnny, who has gone off to the university and has come home for that first holiday, isn't the same that they used to be. And all I can do is lower my glasses to the end of my nose and look over my glasses and say, Why did you send them to university in the first place?”

    Got it? The purpose of university is not to accept a student’s childhood values as a given. The purpose is to overhaul them. It’s all agreeable to Hall, who says you send them there “to grow up . . . to be exposed, to expand their horizons, to increase the scale of their life,” with the implicit understanding that he, as faculty member, he, who “lowers his glasses to the end of his nose and looks over those glasses” at the plebian parents, is just the one to do it.

    Now, no problem here with growing up. Who doesn’t want that? Go for it. But, is this the setting in which to do it? Here, Hall sits atop the repository of knowledge that has collectively made the world what is—and he should be the one to expand those horizons and increase those scales? Only the educated can look upon the trainwreck that is modern society and congratulate themselves on their understanding. Spit back what Hall tells you if you want a passing grade—not necessarily verbatim, but you’d better not stray too far from it. The ‘safest’ correlation to his remarks will be what was said of P.D.Q. Bach, that his music bore a relationship with that of a certain great composer, and the name of that relationship was ‘identity.’ He wasn’t one for plagiarizing, but he did believe in recycling.

    Ocala doesn’t know anything about this. It is not something he has encountered, or if he has, he weathered it so effortlessly that he does not remember encountering it. In his homeland, he tells me, additional education after primary school is common, common enough that Witness youths encourage and stabilize one another. Some go “off the rails,” (his expression), to be sure, but some go off the rails in any setting. Jobs are scarce where he comes from, he tells me, and employers take full advantage of the fact, reminding their workers at every opportunity that they are easily replaceable. He doesn’t yet know if he will stay in the States or return home upon graduation. He has a quiet confidence about himself and does not appear to be one easy to shove around. But, he is hurt when people think he does what he does ‘because he wants the good life,’ and he tells me sometimes people do think that.

    He did not come straight from African school to the United States for college. He worked secularly in an office for a year. Whereupon, it occurred to him that he might work less overall if he could land a scholarship in the U.S. That he did. He now considers college his full-time job and all he has to do is pass. It is less demanding than his secular life back home and, while attending to it, he is also able to serve Jehovah more fully than he could have back home. As to his landing a scholarship from afar, Yogi Berra advised, “When you see a fork in the road, take it.” They didn’t leave it there for you. They left if, as often as not, to advance their own careers in some way. Take it. As long as you can clear whatever hoops have been laid out for you, take it.

    Hall and the Witness organization are in agreement on one thing, though for different reasons. That answer to Hall’s question as to why parents sent their youngsters to university? He continues, “I'm afraid sometimes the only answer is, ‘Well, because that's what you do,’ or, ‘Well, all of our neighbors were sending their children to university so we figured maybe we [had] better too.’” Going with the crowd, in other words. Hall doesn’t want children to go for this reason. He wants them to purposefully go so he can mess with their heads, expanding them beyond whatever parochial values they absorbed from back home, such as Bible training. The Witness organization doesn’t want them to go because ‘everyone else is doing it,’ either. They’d rather the parents not give Hall and his cohorts their shot; head youngsters off into the full-time ministry instead. For all the furor of ‘anti-cultists,’ it is the university, not the Witness world, in which newbies are cut off 24/7 from all that once stabilized them—a classic technique of ‘brainwashers.’

    You can look like roadkill when you stand against the common stampede. Witness HQ will never stop cautioning about university, I don’t think. They will never recommend liberal arts degrees. They will never stop recommending technical training and trade schools. But they may yield more to the view that secular education is a family decision, not something to be second-guessed by others, much less micro-managed. There is just too much variety in people and circumstances. Maybe that will be on one of those future updates. It may be happening already. Another youngster in the congregation went off to college about the time Ocala arrived and nobody had anything to say about it at all; I checked with his mom. Will he evade Hall or even stand up to him? Maybe. Maybe not. But it turns out that Hall has cousins in all walks of life, trying to shoot down biblical values wherever you happen to be.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • What of All These Changes in Recent Months? Part 3

    Q:  “With all of these changes that have happened so fast, are Jehovah’s witnesses slowly morphing into mainstream religion?” 

    No, but they are learning to adapt to a changing world. As long as you can do this without abandoning core principles, you’re okay. 

    All changes from Part 1 and Part 2 are relatively trivial things. One that is not has to do with discipline policies, which ex-Witnesses seek to portray, with some success, as draconian. For the time being, ‘activist’ woke courts, the type that try to mandate ‘inclusion,’ rule against the Witnesses for their policies to stay ‘no part of the world.’ Higher courts, where the woke mindset has not yet permeated, overturn those rulings.

    Already, Jehovah’s Witnesses were, from a review of Joel Engardio’s documentary Knocking, “an excellent example, perhaps our last hope, of how groups with strongly polarized ideas can yet coexist peacefully.” Despite their public visits, Jehovah’s Witnesses are a “live and let live” religion. Their “weapons” are ideas only. Tell them “no” and they go away. Sure, they try to be persuasive, but it’s still only words. They don’t afterward attempt to legislate their beliefs into law, so as to force people to live their way, much less resort to violence.

    But now, a world that increasing stresses ‘inclusion,’ the very opposite of the scriptural directive to remain ‘no part of the world’ presents new challenges. JWs must revisit their policies of discipline, as these are now under attack. Can they be tweaked without being gutted? Turns out they can. The result is somethng that both improves the Witnesses and permits them to navigate the greater world’s changing standards.

    The judge that ruled against Witnesses in Norway observed that he found it perfectly reasonable that teenage boyfriends and girlfriends are going to have sex with one another. You can be sure his ruling would have been different if he did not find such ‘perfectly reasonable.’ He may still have thought the Witnesses’ discipline policies harsh, but he would not likely have found them illegal. It was once commonplace for parents to be greatly concerned that their teens might be sleeping around. It no longer is. These are the shoals the Witness organization must navigate. Temporarily, with new policies on how to deal with teens veering from the family values, they have found a way to do so.

    I like that Knocking quote because it presents Jehovah’s Witnesses as the most progressive of organizations, a description they don’t ordinarily enjoy. They are “perhaps our last hope, of how groups with strongly polarized ideas can yet coexist peacefully.” It is axiomatic in this world that ‘strongly polarized views’ in time results in violence. JWs have disproved this ‘axiom.’ Are they given credit for it? No. But they should be. With recent reports of ISIS taking credit for the horrific attack on that Moscow collosium, I posted that several times in ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses; Searching for the Why’ I had observed that one would think ISIS would have taught the Russian government what extremism is.

    Far from JWs being the intolerant people who finally received comeuppance in a Norwegian court, as opposers try to present it, they are already bastions of peaceful coexistence who encounter problems with their discipline policies amidst a world that increasingly despises discipline. In the process of adapting, they end up making themselves better.

    ****

    Should the Norwegian government reverse course on Jehovah’s Witnesses based on the changes they have made in their disfellowshipping practice?

    Favorable government treatment of religion was originally based upon the premise that religion does the government’s legitimate work for them. It improves the calibre of the people, making them easier to govern and more of a national asset. Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the relative few still fulfilling this premise. As a people, they pay more than their share into the public till, since they are honest, hard-working, not given to cheating on taxes. Yet they draw on that till less, by not abusing government programs and almost never requiring policing. They are a bargain for any country.

    Witnesses think it well when this original “contract” is remembered and not superseded by the modern demand of “inclusion.” While they include races, ethnicities, classes, etc to a greater degree than most (in the US, according to Pew Research, they are comprised of almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic, with about 5% Asian added) they do not include within themselves persons refusing to live by Bible principles. They respect the right of people to live as they choose—reject Bible standards if one chooses—just so long as it is not within the congregation.

    They have made some legitimate tweaks as of late (August 2024 Watchtower, covered at congregation meeting) to address what to do with minors veering from the Christian course—which treatment had become a matter of concern for the government. And, as for those who, after help, manifestly refuse to abide by Bible principles, they have replaced a word that is not found in the Bible (disfellowshipping) with a phrase that is (remove from the congregation). Thus, it becomes a matter of whether a government recognizes a people’s right to live by the Bible. A distracting term that is not found in the Bible has been dropped. Real changes have been made to address any perception that elders are quick to remove those straying from Bible values, but the basic thought expressed at 1 Corinthians 5 still holds:

    “In my letter I wrote you to stop keeping company with sexually immoral people, not meaning entirely with the sexually immoral people of this world or the greedy people or extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would actually have to get out of the world. But now I am writing you to stop keeping company with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man. For what do I have to do with judging those outside? Do you not judge those inside, while God judges those outside? “Remove the wicked person from among yourselves.” (1 Cor 5:9–13)

    A few score years ago the difference between JWs and religious people in general was doctrinal. Morally, they were pretty much the same. Today the chasm is huge. Isn’t it because when a little bit of leaven appeared, it was not removed but was catered to? “Do you not know that a little leaven ferments the whole batch of dough?” says 1 Corinthians 5:6

    When I was a boy, people watched cowboy shows on TV. The good guys wore white hats, the bad guys word black hats. You were not going to fall into a course of wrongdoing, unless it was deliberate. They were wearing black hats!  You could not miss them! Today, in a world where the lump has fermented, things are less straightforward. People stray, get tripped up, even hardened. It doesn’t mean they’re a lost cause. Present adjustments are just updates for the times, while preserving the basic need to keep the congregation adhering to Bible standards. Norway may have been the last straw, a trigger for all that the time to relook at things was due. Look, if disfellowshipped ones accumulate to the point where even Norway starts to complain, maybe it is time for a reexamination. The leaven must still be removed, and is, but the new norm—is is overdue?—is to go back from time to time and see if it is willing to be refashioned.

    (See also here)

     

    *******  The bookstore

  • What of all these Changes in Recent Months? Part 2

    See Part 1:

    Vomodog’s crew are beside themselves with, ‘These guys are afraid to tie their shoe unless their organization gives them permission!’ That’s how they’re responding to new changes—which changes should smooth out Witness life going forward, but it is not the draw to prior Witnesses that some in the congregation seem to think it is.

    Then again, nothing ever will be. For the most part, Vic and chums have gone on full ‘Search and Destroy’ mode, not to be placated even were there to be apologies for changes not made before. Not saying that any are in the works, or ought be. Brother Winder had it right. You don’t have to apologize for previous understandings made in good conscience. It may even blow up In your face if you do (my point, not his). Apologies these days are taken as admissions of guilt, to be made use of in future campaigns. I think of how President Obama, in the early days of his presidency, went on a campaign of what was roundly ridiculed as his ‘Apology Tours.’

    Still, will no good come of it among the ex-Witnesses at all? They are crazy as can be over on the ex places I have seen, woke to the nines, many giving the impression that they think the world is a near-paradise and all would know it were it not for JWs with their ‘scare tactics.’ I mean, someone over there must have both oars in the water! Maybe some of them will appreciate the bigger picture.

    I don’t think the Witnesses’ governing body particularly likes saying, ‘Okay, now you can do this or that.’ But apparently they have come to feel sheeplike people need that from time to time. In 2017, they said beards are fine where local norms don’t get in the way. I think they were dismayed that so few took them up on it. I think it is with a certain annoyance that they did a later GB update, complete with bells, whistles, video history, and chariot, to say, “Look! We have no issue with beards!”

    ‘Annoyance’ might be too strong a word. How can you be annoyed at the characteristics of the animal God has selected to represent those he favors? If annoyance is the word, they may be annoyance at themselves, for not having realized and adjusted to it long ago, annoyance that they allowed pesky matters to build up so until it looks like an ‘Old-JW Going out of Business Sale’ when done all at once. It may be annoyance that they didn’t defuse these things more gradually, and instead, postponed them for so long that, when they finally tackle the job, Vomodog paints them as jailers easing up on their charges.

    Humans overswing in nearly everything. Eventually, the consequences of overswing comes back to bite. This prompts them to modify that swing. To take a trivial matter first, why did Witnesses hold on to ties and dresses as long as they did? There was a time when everyone wore ties and dresses to attend church. Even going downtown shopping was an occasion for men to don a tie and women to wear a dress.

    What was our reaction when people starting going casual in attending church, eventually deteriorating to jeans and tee shirt? Wasn’t it shock at the lack of respect shown for God? Quite proper, in my view, that Jehovah’s Witnesses should have been determined not to lower their standards of dress. Shouldn’t God be afforded better respect than a bartender?

    But then they overswing. There arises a determination to stay in stark contrast to the disrespect of the church world. That determination causes them to not budge at all to changing relative standards of just what respect entails.

    Overswing caused brothers to march through the jungle in ties—we’ve all seen those pictures. Now, at long last, it is recognized as overswing and we are easing off, while still staying respectful. After all, who said ties were respectful? Was it God? Or was it the greater world that defines what is respect? So, when their definition changes, it is not a sin to follow that change. The key that must be preserved is respect, not the outward facade of it.

    To be continued here.

     

    *******  The bookstore

  • What of All These Changes in Recent Months? – Part 1

    What of all these changes in recent months? 

    Jehovah’s Witnesses have counted their time in the ministry for 100 years. Now they don’t do it any more.

    Next, it was beards. Jehovah’s Witnesses have been beardless since Russell days. Suddenly they start sprouting them.

    Then it is changes on how disfellowshipped ones are treated should they return to the Kingdom Hall. And also a newer, softer, way of treating minors who veer from the straight paths in which they were raised.

    And then—knock me over with a feather!—ties at meetings and in the ministry are placed on the chopping block. Forget about them if you want to! Look, I’ve seen photos of our brothers striding through the jungle with ties affixed!—and suddenly they’re optional! (A few shed them both at the next meeting and occasion for field service, but most did not.)

    And then, sisters may choose to wear slacks. Again, a few did. Most didn’t.

    I mean, that elder I love to tease—I told him I had expected him to show up in a Steelers sweatshirt! (which he did not)

    More on the horizon? I’ve got my eye on that slick two-seater sports car, just in case. I also might fix the starred out L-word in Tom Irregardless and Me: “L*ck.” Wine glasses filled up (with Coke) just awaiting people to toast.

    It’s even a bit surreal how fast things are changing. 

    Vic Vomodog (we used to pull together in the work!) contacted me recently. He thinks that with all these changes, now he can:

    “With all of the recent changes within the Jehovah's witnesses, if these aren't rules then why are men all of a sudden having beards and sisters can wear slacks? Can you people just take a second and reflect on how crazy this is?”

    Give me a second . . . . yeah, it is a little crazy. But it still works well.

    These days, a long-time favorite quote of mine is coming into play again: “It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.” (Nathaniel Hawthorne—The Scarlet Letter)

    I instantly thought of Witnesses upon reading that quote. Nobody ‘speculates’ more boldly than Jehovah’s Witnesses, They turn established paradigms of religious, philosophical, and secular life upon their head. At the same time, with what they regard as petty—matters of style, and so forth—they “conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of [their] society.”

    It just makes life easier when people don’t go kicking against the goads over every silly little thing. And so, few of Jehovah’s Witnesses do. They save their kicking for things important. For trivial things, they go with the flow.

    However, this can result in silly situations in which people resist innocuous trends of the greater world because nobody wants to be the first to make an issue over something minor—and the first to do so is frowned upon by the others. We’re clearing out a lot of baggage now that might have been cleared out long ago but for our ‘sheeplike’ nature. It is a little embarrassing, because it does leave you open to sneering from Vic and his buddies, who have opted for a more independent model, but—well, sheep is the animal God chooses to represent those people he favors—not cats that cannot be herded.

    Times change. If you can change with them without sacrificing any core principles, that’s the thing to do. It makes life easier. You find yourself not taking a hard stand over things that don’t matter. Such things have built up over the years. They’re being cleared out now.

    To be continued here.

    ****  The bookstore