Sheep and Goats

Category: Social Change

  • Changes in Congregation Discipline

    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 few still fulfilling this premise. As a people, they pay more than their share into the national treasury, since they are honest, hard-working, not given to cheating on taxes. Yet they draw on that treasury 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    Witnesses think it well when this original “contract” is remembered and not superseded by the modern demand of “inclusion.”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—though they respect the right of people to live as they choose, just so long as it is not within the congregation.

    They have lately made some legitimate tweaks to address the issues of minors straying from the Christian course, a matter of concern to the (Norwegian) 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 “trigger-happy” toward 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)

    ******  The bookstore

  • David and the Deceased 70K

    David makes a dumb move at 70,000 die. Israel of old clears out the Promised Land and many more die. And then—what about slavery?

    Probably, the way it works is that once humans, in the persons of Adam and Eve, have sailed past God’s will and entered the doomed experiment of independent self-rule, to be concluded several thousands of years later, God works with the products of that rebellion to achieve his purpose. 

    This means, if warfare and yielding to the whims of the gods has become a fixture in life, it is used in furtherance of that purpose. People of that time may not like it, but they will take it right in stride as the sort of thing that happens in their times—whereas people 4000 years later won’t be able to get their heads around it at all. We, from the present day, imagine a world court of some sort that will make a stab at punishing war crimes. Not so then. The time-tested way to clear people out, especially those whose “error” has had 400 years to come to fruition, the way Genesis 15:16 says, is through warfare. 

    It is rather the same thing with slavery. Modern woke people expect Jesus, or any character of godly standing, to suspend all activity upon encountering it so as to deliver lectures as to how unjust it is. Instead, they say: “well, humans chose injustice (albeit unknowingly) from the earliest days of the first couple,” so they work with it, rather than rail against it. “Were you called when a slave? Do not let it concern you; but if you can become free, then seize the opportunity,” Paul writes at 1 Corinthians 7:21.

    In short, humans chose injustice. So God incorporates all the products of that choice into his developing purpose. In the case of David and the 70 deceased K, this is likely a realized manifestation of God’s warning not to choose a king. The system of judges was working just fine. Don’t mess it up:

    “However, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel and said: “No, but a king is what will come to be over us. And we must become, we also, like all the nations, and our king must judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” (1 Samuel 8:19-20)

    Oh yeah! Cool! Do it the way “all the nations” do. Maybe we can even have our own flag!

    Sometimes the king loses those battles. When he does, since you’ve put yourself under his authority, you bear a part of the defeat. Even in lands of participatory government, when you succeed in putting your guy into office, then he commits mayhem abroad, don’t you share some bloodguilt for putting him in that position? Can you really claim to be an innocent civilian?

    That God uses the products of early human rebellion against him, in this case the nations they congeal themselves into, as instruments in his purpose, is no more evident than it is in the Book of Isaiah. He uses the nation of Assyria, even calling it the rod of his anger, to discipline his own people:

    “Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.”  (Isaiah 10:5-6) Later, Babylon will be the instrument, as demonstrated most notable in chapters 39 and 47. 

    They are fickle and imprecise instruments, as would be expected of products of human rebellion—hard to control, even for God, but such are the tools he has to work with. When the hangman gets too ghoulish, even the State may restrain him. So it is that the mayhem-inducing nations go too far, and God must pull them back. “Should the axe exult itself over the One who chops with it?” Jehovah rebukes Assyria. (10:15) It is the same way with Babylon: “I was angry with my people and profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand, you showed them no mercy…” (47:6) The oppression is limited. Once the discipline of his people is complete, His anger turns away.

    Though disguised, the beef of many is not with the 70K, nor clearing the Promised Land, nor the mean Assyrians or Babylonians, nor the myriad other criticisms they bring up, but with God’s overall plan to let thousands of years elapse to demonstrate that human self-rule independent of him doesn’t work. Rather than the present world “passing away,” they appear to want it repaired, and imagine that lectures on the evils of warfare and slavery will do the trick. If there is one thing history has taught us, it is that humans at the highest levels of accountability are perfectly capable of arguing away whatever is recorded in scripture in favor of what they would rather do. The way the Bible has it laid out is that after the experiment of self-rule has ended, Jehovah will forcefully uphold his sovereignty through the rulership of his son, amidst much loss of life from those who yet oppose. And I suspect they won’t like that either.

    ”They love this current system so they want to just ‘repair’ the aspects they dont want not realizing its broken and the only solution is to destroy it and have something better”

    Sometimes I phrase this that these don’t really want an end to injustice as much as to the symptoms of injustice, mostly the ones that affect them personally. Or, to be more charitable, to the ones that they know of personally. A central Bible theme is that human self-rule is itself the source of injustice, and that injustice manifests itself in so many ways at so many levels that nobody can possible tally it all up—so they just focus on fixing ones those they know, often at the expense of ones they do not know. Human self-rule itself has to go if injustice is to be solved.

    These are the ones who put unlimited faith in humankind—or maybe it is disdain for God—so that they continue to insist humans are salvageable, that all that lacks is more education, more communication, more ‘coming together.’ At root, it is those who suppose that man is basically good, rather than fatally flawed. Witnesses take the ‘fatally flawed’ viewpoint, and that the only remedy is salvation through Christ.

    It really is true that “the word of God is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of joints from the marrow, and is able to discern thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

    Meanwhile, the most learned theologians, stymied by tools that prevent looking into the divine, attribute all such scriptures to after-the-fact damage control, as though putting lipstick on a pig. The 70K died, the original inhabitants west of the Jordan wiped out, Israel and Judah itself desecrated at the hands of foreign powers, and narrative must be concocted to cover these unpleasantries from a human point of view.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Save us from Critical Thinking: Part 1

    Here in the U.S, when the media wishes to discredit someone, they say that he or she stated such-and-such “without evidence,” as if it were a god that they failed to bow down to. It is a relatively new expression, not more than 10 years old.

    In fact, meaningful “evidence” is extremely hard to obtain. Just distinguishing causal from correlated can spur endless studies and be squabbled over without resolution. Then, assuming people successfully obtain “evidence,” they come to polar opposite concussions regarding it, as determined by their preexisting backgrounds, experiences, education, culture, dispositions, etc.

    Then, in this country (U.S.), at least half of all people are on some sort of medication, many of which are said to alter mood and overall thinking ability. 

    It is enough to make one bridle at the expression “critical thinking,” as though humans are capable of it beyond a light seasoning. When applied to theology, it is a major detriment to faith, since it allows for discussion only that which can be scientifically proven. Fundamentals upon which faith depends, such as the resurrection of Christ or his virgin birth cannot be so proven. Therefore, they are off the table, as are most tenets of faith. All that remains for examination is the effects of faith upon a person, which is often in the eye of the beholder.

    With the beliefs of faith removed from discussion, critical thinking theology largely demotes religion to a forum for human rights. Everything else is taken off the table. That is all that remains. Nothing against human rights here, other than to point out that our own bodies do not respect them, failing us when we need them the most. But, surely faith in God must be more than such strictly human matters.

    Historian Allen Guelzo examines the modern-day emphasis on “critical thinking” in interpreting history. Does it make it better? If anything, he suspects it makes it worse, by “cloaking human bias in a veneer of science.”

    When it comes to politics, how are we to account for people aligning themselves in opposite camps, both of which claim critical thinking as their friend? I like to view it as “all human governments drop the ball. Usually it is a bowling ball. As people ponder the vulnerabilities of toes on their right or left feet, such is determined their politics.” The influence of critical thinking is not what seals the deal. It is mostly bias, formed through preexisting experience and training.

    The Bible stands in contrast. It doesn’t pretend that critical thinking is any significant component of meeting God’s approval. Jesus “draws” people. The “children” (not known for their critical thinking skills) are more likely than the “wise” (who are known for it) to get the sense of it. “Taste and see that Jehovah is good” says the psalm. Suppose someone thinks that beets taste bad. Will you prove to him through critical thinking that he is wrong?

    Covid 19 and worldwide response to it has proved the absolute inadequacy of critical thinking. It is not that the stuff is bad. It is that humans are incapable of it to any degree that would make a significant dent in life.

    (To be continued—here)

    ******  The bookstore

  • Hymenaeus and Alexander, and Escaping the Control of Paul.com

    If “shipwreck of faith” is the modern synonym for those who go “woke” from the Witnesses, what can be expected from that crowd—at least from some of them? The “shipwreck” passage itself provides an answer, where Paul counsels Timothy [today spun as though trying to “control” him] to “go on waging the fine warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, which some have thrust aside, resulting in the shipwreck of their faith. Hymenaeus and Alexander are among these, and I have handed them over to Satan so that they may be taught by discipline not to blaspheme.” (1 Timothy 1:19)

    “Blaspheme?” Why would they do that? Well, I guess in an actual shipwreck, one might imagine someone doing this: “I pray to you 24/7 and this is how you do me!???”* But why would you blaspheme a “shipwreck of faith?” And what form would your “blasphemy” take? And how would one hand such a one over to Satan that he might be “taught by discipline” not to do that? Is Satan known to discipline people?

    Maybe Hymenaeus and Alexander just started saying bad things about God—cussing him out for things that didn’t go their way. But it seems more likely that they started cussing out the ones who sold that way of life to him, when that life failed to meet their expectations. To put it in today’s screwy vernacular, they “woke” from those seeking to “brainwash” and “control” them. As they spread that bit of gangrene through the congregation, Paul counted it has choosing the world that Satan controls—there are numerous Bible verses that says Satan controls it—and censured them in some way, perhaps even removing them from the congregation, same as that ne’er-do-well at 1 Corinthians 5:13.

    Pay attention and you will see this sort of thing a lot. When Demas forsook Paul “because he loved the present world,” do you think Demas would have phrased it this way? Or would he have phrased it that he had escaped Paul.com, a high-control group he had been brainwashed into following? He may not have, for such lunacy was not embedded into the fabric of society as it is today. But the sentiments to foster that thinking was in place:

    “Furthermore, God made you alive, though you were dead in your trespasses and sins,  in which you at one time walked according to the system of things of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” (Ephesians 2:2) The “the ruler of the authority of the air” is yet another reference that Satan controls the world, through “air” that has “authority”—try swimming upstream to appreciate the “authority” of our surroundings. It only operated then in the “sons of disobedience’—it was not universal. But in “critical times hard to deal with” it IS said to be universal, and is chief among the reasons those times are “hard to deal with.” (2 Timothy 3:1-2)

    If, in an age where people had to be counseled to “be obedient to those who are taking the lead among you”—people who were used to the concept of obedience and just had to transfer it to a new authority—how much near-hopeless is the task of giving that counsel in an age where people think obedience is anathema—where “woke” people will spin it as someone trying to “control” them!

    At the end of the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes: “Tell Archippus: “Pay attention to the ministry that you accepted in the Lord, in order to fulfill it.” (Ephesians 4:17)

    Who was this fellow Archippus? Almost nothing is known about him. In an obedient era, he would have responded to Paul’s nudge to get his rear end in gear. But had the “sons of disobedience” gone “woke” in his crowd, he would have told Paul that he is done with Paul.com seeking to control him.

     

    *the actual tweet of a 2012 Buffalo Bills player who dropped the game winning pass in overtime. I mean, it was a picture perfect pass and it just flew through his fingers.

     

    ******  The bookstore

    .

  • Replace “Woke” with “Shipwreck of Faith”

    Out of nowhere comes a brand new definition of a very old word: woke. When applied to faith by someone who has left there’s, cannot one wonder why? There already is a fine phrase that means exactly the same thing: shipwreck of faith. “Woke” is not found in the Bible. “Shipwreck of faith” is. The two terms are synonymous. Plus, there are dozens of closely related terms—all permutations of the same thing. Some of them, from the Letter to the Hebrews alone, I dealt with in a post reminiscent of the song: “It’s Almost Like 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” You just walk out the back, Jack.

    Is “woke” really not a term found in the Bible? Actually, it is. But it means the exact opposite of today’s meaning! The biblical meaning is found at Romans 13:11

    “You know the season, that it is already the hour for you to awake from sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than at the time when we became believers.”

    It’s the overall world that needs waking from. Its goals and dominant thinking are writing its epitaph. How would you not need to wake from that? Instead, someone would choose to go back to that? Describe what the current crowd calls “woke” in the more graphic terms of 2 Peter 2:22: “The dog has returned to its own vomit, and the sow that was bathed to rolling in the mire.”

    Too harsh an assessment? “Wokism” today almost exclusively resides in the West. It’s a culture committing mass suicide! How can you spin it any different when collectively  it kills off the most basic instinct known to humankind: that of producing enough children to replace itself?

    Is it selfishness—people gots to pursue career and fun, don’t want to crimp their style? Is it inhospitality—people can’t afford to raise children? Is it fear—“I would never bring children into a world like this!” is a line heard all the time. Take your choice. Whatever the dominant reason be, put them all together and it amounts to mass suicide.

    Isn’t it like sawing off the limb upon which you once sat and whooping for joy as you come crashing down to earth? At last one is “liberated!” Though, to be sure, sometimes it’s not sawing off the limb. Sometimes it’s dropping down to a more conventional form of Christianity, the kind that allows that the kingdom of God is “within our hearts” and thus allows the overall world to call the shots. This arouses the ire of the anti-cultists far less than do the Witnesses, since the goals of such ones are pretty much the same as the world, absent only awaiting a final verdict from “the man upstairs.”

     

    a man cutting a tree
    Photo by Jacky on Pexels.com

    ******  The bookstore

  • Beards Get the Green Light

    An entire Update dedicated to beards might seem like overkill, but when they tried underkill it didn’t work.

    Watchtower September 2016, in a study article, it said:

    “The Mosaic Law required men to wear a beard. However, Christians are not under the Mosaic Law, nor are they obliged to observe it. (Lev. 19:27; 21:5; Gal. 3:24, 25) In some cultures, a neatly trimmed beard may be acceptable and respectable, and it may not detract at all from the Kingdom message. In fact, some appointed brothers have beards.”

    When that Watchtower Study finally came, that paragraph was like the elephant in the room that everyone was awaiting, and then Yessss! paragraph 17–some congregations spent extra time to ‘explain’ it. I thought that would be the end of it. Instead, it seemed like congregations doubled-down, as if with the attitude: ‘Well, okay, ‘weak’ publishers can wear beards if they insist, but no way will they ever be appointed.’ A few publishers grew beards, but beyond that–nothing.

    ’Look, we don’t have an issue with it,’ is what the GB finally said in this latest 2023 Update, 7 years later. It’s not new. They said it before but it didn’t take. This time, to make sure it wasn’t another misfire that didn’t take, they made it a big production, brought in bells and whistles, the chariot, disclaimers for the guys who say, ‘It’s about time!’ and cushioning for rigid guys who had drawn a line in the sand and were aghast to see it erased. Old habits die hard. This one sure did. For me, it is like when the man who invented autocorrect died. The obits read: ‘Restaurant in peace.’ There were even some harsher ones that said, ‘May he rot in hello.’
     
    The greater world solved the beard issue decades ago:

    And the sign said, “Long-haired freaky people, need not apply” So I tucked my hair up under my hat, and I went in to ask him why. He said, “You look like a fine upstandin’ young man, I think you’ll do” So I took off my hat and said, “Imagine that, Huh, me workin’ for you.”

    There. Done. Settled. Back in 1990. Whereas, we don’t settle it till 2023! But, in fairness, it ought be remembered that the overall world is going down the toilet and Jehovah’s organization is not. More than once the Bible says that those drawn to the Lord must become like young children. And indeed, they have proved to be that way, not just in the good ways but also the not-so-good.

    It was not in the Bible. It never appeared in Watchtower print. (other than many examples of ‘shaving one’s beard’ listed in the changes made on the road to baptism) The reasons for it, linkage with beatniks and hippies, disappeared decades ago. There were articles to the effect that Witnesses don’t do rules, but mostly principles. And yet, no rule was more firmly enforced than the unwritten no-beard rule.

    Ah, well. ‘We have this treasure in earthen vessels.’ (2 Corinthians 4:7) The treasure is the ministry and the earthen vessels is us, with all of our petty flaws, mild hypocrisies, stubbornnesses, obtusenesses, insensitivities, and idiosyncrasies. Blame God for doing it that way, I guess. He could have assigned it all to angels.

    The 2023 Update began: “A number of branch offices around the world have written to us, indicating that there continues to be question about whether or not it is proper for a brother in an appointed position to wear a beard. . . . The Governing Body has concluded that there is a need for clarification.”

    Translation: “There continues to be a question.” There shouldn’t be by now. We keep getting letters. We’re tired of it. So:

    “The Governing Body does not have an issue with brothers wearing beards.”

    Got it? We don’t. To prove it, we’re now pulling out all the stops, employing all the bells and whistles, bringing out the chariot, because when we first said it was a non-issue, no one listened! So now, let us repeat…..(drum roll, please)….. We. Don’t. Care!

    Witnesses were the last (by far) to notice the world had moved on from no-beards. They missed it because they were ‘insular,’ a problem more difficult to remedy than you might think because it is the flipside of the ‘no part of the world’ coin. If you are the second—which Jesus says you have to be—you are almost by definition the first, ‘insular’ to an extent. That’s what insulation is—something that keeps two things that should not mix separate.

    At long last, the mess is resolved. It looks a little silly the way it happens, but it is resolved. It comes close on the heels of another irritant being resolved—the matter of ‘counting time’—applicable at one time, but less so with passing years, as it introduces curious, counterproductive notions of being ‘on duty’ and ‘off duty.’ It is a relic of guys raised in the factory era, when even if there was nothing to do, you’d better look busy to make the boss happy. Times change. God is not like that. It has been discarded. Two nettlesome things resolved in fairly short order.

    It is hard to direct a large group of people. One says, ‘Thanks for the new rule!’ whereas his neighbor says, ‘Huh? Did you say something?’
     
    My first thought upon hearing the Update was that my on-again, off-again study with Santa Claus might be actually on-again. He briefly came to meetings after that 2017 article, but soon dropped off. We weren’t all that sad to see him go. He had proved annoying, with thunderous “Ho Ho Ho’s!” if the speaker cracked even the lamest joke. Very judgmental, too, always pronouncing people good or bad. And he had shown no sign of giving up his annual extreme sport.

     

    ******  The bookstore

     

    ***

    Notes: 

    My first thought upon hearing the Update was that my on-again, off-again Bible study with Santa Claus might once more be on-again. He was doing so well until he saw that magazine equating a shortening beard to spiritual progress. Now, maybe, just maybe, he will resume his study. Of course, I’ll still have to help him with the holiday thing, but at least the beard thing is no more.

     

    If an entire Update dedicated to beards now being okay seems like overkill, one might recall that the Governing Body tried underkill and it didn’t work. From the September 2016 Watchtower: “Does Your Style of Dress Glorify God?”

    What about the propriety of brothers wearing a beard? The Mosaic Law required men to wear a beard. However, Christians are not under the Mosaic Law, nor are they obliged to observe it. (Lev. 19:27; 21:5; Gal. 3:24, 25) In some cultures, a neatly trimmed beard may be acceptable and respectable, and it may not detract at all from the Kingdom message. In fact, some appointed brothers have beards. Even so, some brothers might decide not to wear a beard. (1 Cor. 8:9, 13; 10:32) In other cultures or localities, beards are not the custom and are not considered acceptable for Christian ministers. In fact, having one may hinder a brother from bringing glory to God by his dress and grooming and his being irreprehensible.—Rom. 15:1-3; 1 Tim. 3:2, 7.

    This paragraph was a big deal at the time, at least in my area. Brothers were talking about it seemingly the day after it was written. When that Watchtower Study finally came, that paragraph was like the elephant in the room that everyone was awaiting, and then Yessss! paragraph 17 finally arrived and you could talk about it. Some congregations spent extra time to ‘explain’ it.

    I thought that would be the end of it. I thought at long last the issue had been laid to rest. I thought beards would soon be showing up—at first in publishers and then in MS and elders. Instead, it seemed like congregations doubled-down, as if with the attitude: ‘Well, okay, ‘weak’ publishers can wear beards if they insist, but no way will they ever be appointed.’ A few publishers grew beards, but beyond that–nothing.

    ’Look, we don’t have an issue with it,’ is what the GB finally said in this latest Update. It’s not new. It’s what they said 7 years ago only it didn’t take. This time, to make sure it wasn’t another misfire that didn’t take, they made it a big production, brought in bells and whistles, the chariot, and disclaimers for guys who say, ‘It’s about time!’ and for the more rigid guys who drew a line in the sand and are now aghast to see it erased. Old habits die hard. This one certainly did.

    For me, it is like when the man who invented autocorrect died. ‘Restaurant in peace’ the obits read, though there were a few harsher ones that said, ‘May he rot in hello.’

     

    On the one hand, it all seems pretty silly. The greater world solved this beard issue decades ago:

    And the sign said, “Long-haired freaky people, need not apply” So I tucked my hair up under my hat, and I went in to ask him why. He said, “You look like a fine upstandin’ young man, I think you’ll do” So I took off my hat and said, “Imagine that, Huh, me workin’ for you.”

    There. Done. Settled. Back in 1990. Whereas, we don’t settle it till 2023. But, in fairness, it ought be remembered that the overall world is going down the toilet and Jehovah’s organization is not.

    More than once the Bible says that those drawn to the Lord must become like young children. And indeed, they have proved to be that way, not just in the good ways but also the not-so-good. Paul said: “Brothers, do not become young children in your understanding, but be young children as to badness.” (1 Cor 14:20) Why did he say this—because they never became young children in their understanding?

    So it has proved today, with issues taking longer to resolve than you might think would be the case. Those the Lord can work with are like ‘young children.’ Those whom he cannot are ones too insistent upon their rights to be molded. They are left to the reward of whatever their discord can produce. In short, “they are having their reward in full.”

     

    It was not in the Bible. It never appeared in Watchtower print. (other than many examples of ‘shaving one’s beard’ listed in the changes made on the road to baptism) The reasons for it, association with beatniks and hippies, disappeared decades ago. We’ve had articles to the effect that we don’t do rules, but primarily principles. And yet, no rule was more firmly enforced than the unwritten no-beard rule.

    If you want to blame someone, blame God. He’s the one who created the paradigm of ‘We have this treasure in earthen vessels.’ (2 Corinthians 4:7) The treasure is the ministry and the earthen vessels is us, with all of our petty flaws, mild hypocrisies, stubbornnesses, obtusenesses, insensitivities, and idiosyncrasies. Blame Jehovah for arranging it that way and not handing the whole assignment over to angels.

    Believe me, I am sensitive to this issue. Years ago, I went to bat for a youngster being drummed out solely for not shaving a beard. I learned later he had a very atypical reason, unknown to me at the time, but all the brothers could see was obstinacy and standing upon ‘his rights.’ ‘Before this is all done, I’m going to grow a beard!’ I told certain elders. ‘It’s one thing to shove around a youngster. Try doing it with an adult.’ Trouble is, I didn’t want one. It’s too easy to get food caught there.

    It is fixed now. It’s about time, but it is done. If Jehovah is going to permit earthen vessels to have the treasure, you cannot be shocked if they behave earthenly. It’s his doing. Earthen is as earthen does.

    Are the brothers conservative? Things don’t have to conform to my taste. It is absolutely shocking to look around the world and see how people misuse their ‘freedom.’ I’m not a fan of authoritarian countries, but I can see how they might look at what happens in the West when all restraints are removed and say, ‘Whoa! We don’t want any part of that!”

     

    The reason for the change came out in the update itself:

    “A number of branch offices around the world have written to us, indicating that there continues to be question about whether or not it is proper for a brother in an appointed position to wear a beard. . . . The Governing Body has concluded that there is a need for clarification.”

    Translation: “There continues to be a question.” There should not be by now. We keep getting letters. We’re tired of it. “There is a need for clarification. Nothing new, here. Just restatement of the old.

    “The Governing Body does not have an issue with brothers wearing beards.” Got it? We don’t. To prove it, we’re now pulling out all the stops, employing all the bells and whistles, even hauling out the chariot, because when we first indicated it was a non-issue, no one took us up on it. So now, let us repeat…..(drum roll, please)….. We. Don’t. Care.

    “We thought sending a message 7 years ago was enough:

    “What about the propriety of brothers wearing a beard? The Mosaic Law required men to wear a beard. However, Christians are not under the Mosaic Law, nor are they obliged to observe it. (Lev. 19:27; 21:5; Gal. 3:24, 25) In some cultures, a neatly trimmed beard may be acceptable and respectable, and it may not detract at all from the Kingdom message. In fact, some appointed brothers have beards. Even so, some brothers might decide not to wear a beard. (1 Cor. 8:9, 13; 10:32) In other cultures or localities, beards are not the custom and are not considered acceptable for Christian ministers. In fact, having one may hinder a brother from bringing glory to God by his dress and grooming and his being irreprehensible. —Rom. 15:1-3; 1 Tim. 3:2, 7.” (Watchtower, Sept 2016)

    “We thought that would do the trick. “In some cultures, a neatly trimmed beard may be acceptable and respectable,” we said. “Near as we can tell, we live in one of those cultures,” we figured elder bodies would say. They didn’t. So now we’re saying it so emphatically that nobody could possibly misunderstand it.”

    It may well be that Witnesses back in the day disliked beards but so did everyone else of their time and well after. Look at television shows of that time. Count up the beards. Maynard G Krebs the beatnik had one. Beyond that, nearly zilch. I barely recall seeing any beards at all during by non-Witness youth, certainly not among my parents’ generation.

    Witnesses were just the last (by far) to notice the world had moved on from no-beards. They missed it because they were ‘insular,’ a problem more difficult to remedy than one might think because it is the flipside of the ‘no part of the world’ coin. If you are no part of the world, you are almost by definition ‘insular’ to a certain extent. That’s what insulation is—something that keeps two things that should not mix separate.

    After that 2016 Watchtower, bodies of elders considered its local applicability. Some began to not fuss over beards for appointed servants, but most continued to. Some of those that did fretted that beards among servants would stumble congregation members, completely missing the point that Paul’s counsel about stumbling (over eating meat) was out of concern for new ones or nonbelievers. In the case of beards, these ones had no issue with it, but only some ‘veterans’ who had made it a virtue in itself to be beardless and who you’d think would have moved on by now. Old habits die hard, especially when you are insular.

    At long last, the mess is resolved. It looks a little silly the way it happens, but it is resolved. It comes close on the heels of another irritant being resolved—the matter of ‘counting time’—applicable at one time, but less so with passing years, as it introduces curious and crippling notions of being ‘on duty’ and ‘off duty.’ It was a relic of guys raised from the factory era in which, even when there was nothing to do, you’d better look busy to avoid the boss’s displeasure. Times change. God is not like that. It has been discarded. Two nettlesome things resolved in fairly short order.

    It makes for unity to do things like #8. It also looks a little silly to those who have acquiesced to a disunited world, who consider that normal, and who grumble when anyone actually seeks unity not done their way, unity not achieved by waiting for all “the brokenhearted people living in the world [to] agree”—the way that history has demonstrated they never have or will.

    JWs in the United States are almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, and 1/3 Hispanic, says Pew Research, also with about 5% Asian. Meaning? They have solved racism, an issue that tears the greater world apart. Though, at first glance, it seems not the same thing, if you want unity, you have to oil the cogs every once it a while, maybe even give it a good whack with a hammer. and Update 8 is an example of that on a lesser issue that unexpectedly became large.

    Any criticism or ridicule of such ‘oiling’ is only valid if it comes from ones who themselves enjoy unity. Otherwise, it is little more than sour grapes. Some have simply acquiesced to a world without unity as ‘normal.’ Their criticisms don’t count. If you have long ago become part of the world, you can’t criticize the travails of those who haven’t.

     

    ***Xero is “not privy to the GB’s private thoughts, but “I can imagine them being frustrated at) some who have the desire to worship the organization,” he says.

    He cites a scripture: “…But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they ripped their outer garments and leaped out into the crowd, crying out and saying: ‘Men, why are you doing these things? We too are humans having the same infirmities as you have. ” Acts 14:8-18

    He cites another: “On hearing this, they began to glorify God, but they said to him: ‘You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the Law.’” (Acts 21:20)

    Those referred to are Jewish converts to Christianity, yet still devoted to observing the Jewish law (the Mosaic Law). “Even then the customs were including a lot of things which weren’t written in the Mosaic Law. Yet they kept doing them. This is why it doesn’t surprise me that there are some who see changes in certain areas to be faith shaking because these have equated certain practices of the past to have been unequivocally scriptural, and if the Governing Body ever suggested we should adopt pattern A, rather than pattern B, then that was as good as scripture to these.”

    Yes. It is hard to direct a large group of people. One says, ‘Thanks for the new rule!’ whereas his neighbor says, ‘Huh? Did you say something?’

     

  • Wait Till I Tell Bud in the Resurrection What Happened to His Beer: He’ll Never Believe It.

    “You know, my wedding best man, a mechanic named Bud, used to love Budweiser beer. He’d say “a glass a day makes Bud wiser.” He died a few years ago. I can’t wait to tell him in the resurrection what happened to his brand and why. He’ll never believe it.” IMG_1003

    I just threw that out there on Twitter (now called X?) in a completely secular context. Some loved it. I mean, how could you not? I wouldn’t have believed it either had I not lived through it. It’s just incredible how the beer was boycotted after partnering up with the exact opposite of its customer base. I mean, if Starbucks did it, maybe okay, but macho Budweiser? This partner is a nearly 30 year old man transitioning and conducting himself as a teenaged girl. And to think nobody at Bud would have foreseen the reaction! What in the world were they smoking? What woke employee convinced them this bit of ‘inclusion’ would wow the barroom crowd?

    But there were some, secular context that it was, who latched on to the ‘resurrection’ word like a dog shaking a rat. It just drove them bonkers that someone was introducing religion in the form of ‘the resurrection.’

    What they don’t know, probably, is that resurrection found resistance in the first century, too: ‘Now if Christ is being preached that he has been raised up from the dead, how is it some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?  (1 Cor 15:12) Why did resurrection become an early target of those veering from first century purity? Probably because it liberates people from fear of man & makes them harder to manipulate.

    It was among the first pretexts of apostasy. Paul writes of these “very [men] have deviated from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already occurred; and they are subverting the faith of some.” (2 Tim 2:18)

    It instantly divided an Athenian secular audience of long ago: “Well, when they heard of a resurrection of the dead, some began to mock, while others said: “We will hear you about this even another time.” (Acts 17:32)

    Paul used resurrection to get himself out of a spot. Here was a hangman’s meeting convened against him, but “when Paul took note that the one part was of Sadducees but the other of Pharisees, he proceeded to cry out in the Sanhedrin: ‘Men, brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. Over the hope of resurrection of the dead I am being judged.’ Because he said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the multitude was split. For Sadducees say there is neither resurrection nor angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees publicly declare them all.”  (Acts 23:6-9) Roughly speaking, the Sadducees were the more secular element among Jews, Pharisees the more fundamentalist.

    ***“Tom really thinks the reputation of a beer brand is gonna matter in the afterlife,” said one wiseacre. “He does,” I replied. “It will be a tiny footnote showing how absurd things became toward the end of this system of things, but he does.”

    “Wow!  What a weird trans-phobic eulogy!” Said another. “I honestly can't wait for you to tell him either.”

    Bud died before the term trans-phobic was on anyone’s radar screen. Or any of the multi-genders said to exist today. It wasn’t that long ago. ‘Science’ advances quickly.

    Another person was more conciliatory: “‘Drinking this makes Bud wiser’ is a great play on words. Your old friend sounds like he might have been a clever fellow. I’m sure you miss him. These other people sound like assholes.”

    He was a good guy. Thanks. I do miss him. He is the same Bud who used to say, “Kill a fly and fifty come to the funeral.’” As for some others, people are people. I had introduced a notion strange to some. Thus far, no one here had rated too highly on the A-scale. Or at least I have seen far worse.

    Though after this post was written, they escalated.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Be ‘Upbuilding’ Come What May

    Ha! Here is a sis from England who would use the word “upbuilding” liberally in school class assignments. She was much surprised when her teacher would circle it in red, appending ‘This is NOT a word!’ To hear this must have been downbuilding.

    I had a similar experience. A co-working jumped all over me for the word ‘upbuilding’—what did you say? he said, observing there’s no such word. There is now though—check a dictionary and you will find it. Is it a little like ‘irregardless,’ which was also not a word but now grudgingly appears in some dictionaries from sheer usage?  

    And this ‘upbuilding’ is not the sis—a teen in our congregation—whom we spent a Zoom ministry session with, and who related her travails at school. Whoa! She carries herself with confidence and poise, and not a hint of ‘superiority’—even though applied Christianity is such that some will almost automatically take it that way. Several classmates, she said, have made it their “purpose in life” that she should start vaping.

    They think she’s a “goody-two-shoes”—again, her words. But the real zinger was her standing up to her teacher. Upon being singled out before the whole class (many of whom can barely read) for a relative trifle, she got all indignant and called him out on it! “Are you talking back to me?” the teacher said. She replied that she was.

    It ended up with a brief stint for her in the principal’s office. The long and short of it, however, is that now she and the teacher get along fine, and the latter has heightened respect for her.

    And then, of course, there was another teen some time ago, ridiculed by classmates because she would not dress as a skank. “I set the style!” she shot back at them. “You want to be cool—you dress like me!” 

    Though one high schooler, also a while back, was being bullied—really bullied—physically—so he  approached a favorite older elder (now deceased) about the problem. The elder give him good counsel on turning the other cheek and ignoring the bully. It didn’t work. Once again he went to the elder, who took him aside and said, “Well sometimes you just gotta plant them a good one so they don’t come back.” That stratagem did work.

    Ahem—well—it is from the old days. “We used to stack ‘em up like cordwood” said one old-timer of his Kingdom days during the WWII times of persecution. (much to my surprise). I knew the fellow, who also died some years back, but these words were related to me by his grandson. Fisticuffs were apparently not unusual in defending both loved ones, selves, and Kingdom property. The book Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses relates an incident in which an intruder was even shot to death by a brother! Defending one’s property by force was once the norm in society.

    There was another person who thought the video of Olivia kicking back at classmates, presented at the Regional Convention last year, wasn’t very realistic. I was fine with it, but she said she didn’t think they would ridicule her like that.“They’d beat her up in the bathroom” was her verdict.

    You also won’t find me countenancing that fisticuffs elder of a far-removed generation. These days that can get you knifed. Better to ‘beat a bully without using your fists’ if you can.

     

    ******  The bookstore

     

  • Sometimes Human Justice Gets in the Way: Lincoln and Grant

    I’m no longer reading up on Lincoln. I’m reading up on Grant. Ted Putsch would like both, I think, and may already be well-versed. Both men were raised in lowly circumstances. Both were unusually humble and defenders of the lowly. Both were continually sneered at by elites. Both made emancipation of slaves their chief mission.  Both . . . wait for it  . .  found occasion to suspect habeas corpus. 

    A younger relative of mine is libertarian. It motivates everything he does. The first factoid he ever learned about Lincoln was his suspension of habeas corpus. That was enough for him to permanently place Lincoln on his evil-person list. From there, he immediately bought into the invective that Lincoln didn’t give two hoots about freeing slaves—his sole concern was preservation of the union.

    In fact, from the very beginning, Lincoln purposed that quenching the ‘rebellion’—such it was called at the time—would go hand in glove with destroying the

    C310023A-5C17-4D88-A657-B2B02AAF6E5E
    institution of slavery. But he could not     just outright say it. He knew he had to first build a consensus. Many were the northern abolitionists who did outright say it, and they were immediately marginalized into a minority camp. Minorities don’t win at the human game of government. William Seward (by far the front runner leading up to 1860–everyone supposed he would be president, not Lincoln) also did say it, giving a lofty speech invoking a “higher law.” Not only was he marginalized by those to whom the sole mission of freeing slaves was insufficient motivation, but he was also marginalized by those who supposed there was no higher law other than the human experiment of ‘government by the people.’

    The only way Lincoln’s Emancipation would fly in all the North, not just with the abolitionists, was for him to sell it as a military strategy. White northern troops fretted over who would mind the household while they were gone. White southern troops had no such concerns; their slaves could keep things humming. Free those slaves and the playing field was leveled. In fact, it was more than leveled: those slaves would begin to conspire against their masters.

    Two sacrosanct, as human principles go—standards of justice took front and center stage in the Civil War years: state’s rights and habeas corpus. I can see Putsch railing against any infringement of either:

    ”Tyranny …. in soft measured voices, done in secret, and with powdered silk gloves is STILL TYRANNY.”

    Oh yeah, I can easily see it! And I’d tend to agree, in a relative sense—but only a relative sense. Fact is, such lofty human principles stood squarely in the way of a far greater good: the liberation of hundreds of thousands of enslaved people. Robert E Lee personally loathed slavery. He had never owned a slave. But he took up the call of what he considered even more sacred. ‘State’s rights’ became his clarion call. Consequently, he signed on to command Southern troops, enshrining slavery as the ‘right’ of the state to decide, not some meddling Union to impose their standards from afar.

    ‘Man is dominating man to his injury’—even (and in this case, due to) when they run by their own self-invented concepts of justice. In the greater removed picture, looked at from our time, only the elimination of slavery matters. One Union should split into two? It’s like what Bud said when he threw away the anti-rattle clip he couldn’t figure out how to reinstall—“What’s more rattle on a Ford?” So it is with human self-government. What’s one more division of mankind in a sea of many divisions?

    Here the two bedrock principles of American justice, habeas corpus and state’s rights, stood squarely in the way of real justice for hundreds of thousands of Blacks—for Whites too, for that matter, since Jefferson wrote of the South: “The parent storms [in domination of his slaves]; the child looks on . . . puts on the same airs . . . and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities.” 

    One is reminded (a bone for science-fiction aficionados) of ‘Childhood’s End, in which the alien overlords paid no attention whatsoever to ‘state’s rights,’ immediately and decisively ending the cruel spectator sport of bullfighting. 

    Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus was a measure he deemed essential to preserve the Union, which action would enable the freeing of slaves. Certain journalists were openly encouraging desertion from the Northern army. ‘I should shoot some guileless plowboy deserter and not the guileful propagandist who induced him to do so?’ he posed.

    Grant’s suspension of habeas corpus during his presidency is more directly connected with the welfare of Blacks than was Lincoln’s. In the early days of Johnson’s presidency, the Ku Klux Klan arose. Reports were that it commanded the active participation of 2/3 of southern Democrats whites, and the tacit participation of the other third. By many measures, Blacks were worse off than during slavery. The white aristocracy manipulated them into situations just as oppressive but with no obligation to provide for them.

    Unspeakable and well-documented atrocities became routine. Not only might Blacks be easily beaten or killed, but also white Republican southerners who aligned with them. Murderers could not be brought to justice. Witnesses were too intimidated to speak out, and with good reason; no jury of peers would convict Klansmen, and the retribution against witnesses would be severe. Grant sent in federal judges, and suspended habeas corpus in enough instances that Klansmen would turn upon each other in efforts to get off or gain lighter sentences for the crimes that a non-federal judge would excuse. Within a few years, he had broken the back of the Klan. It’s later reemergence is in name and ideology only (just as Baal worship kept coming back, even though guys like Elijah would clean it out from time to time.)

    Habeas corpus and state’s rights—noble as far as human principles go, but not a guarantee that evil cannot, not only exist, but prevail. 

    Anyone thinking that God works through America (or any other country—America being the only topic of consideration here) is invited to look at the Andrew Johnson administration. “Be Like Abe” flies, as does (to a lesser degree, but still doable) “Be Like Ulysses,” but not “Be Like Andrew.”

    By the end of the war, Abraham Lincoln succeeded in bringing justice to Blacks. Andrew Johnson undid it all. Grant’s work was to undo the damage that Johnson had wrought and he largely succeeded, but only temporarily. What justice might have prevailed if Lincoln had been immediately succeeded by Grant, with no Johnson in between? 

    Like Lincoln and Grant, Johnson too was brought up in lowly circumstances. He too was a self-made man. There the similarities end. Johnson was intensely racist. He was intensely vindictive (at first) to the former Confederacy, favoring severe punishment (akin to that imposed on Germany after WWI?) in contrast, Lincoln had been completely non-vengeful. Worse, vengeance was personal with Johnson. Vengefulness was a way of getting back at the aristocratic elites who had ridiculed and looked down upon him all his life. Northern abolitionists, who also (unlike Lincoln and Grant) favored harsh punishment for the South, at first thought they had found an ally in Johnson. But in fairly short order, he gave up despising the southern white aristocrats, and began kissing up to them, as though hoping to be anointed king of their club, his racist orientation a perfect match for theirs. 

    God works through human governments? What if there had been no Johnson, and Lincoln’s ideals carried directly over to Grant. Shortly after the war, General Grant’s man told local transport companies in New Orleans that if they continued their practice of segregation, he would ban all that company’s cars from the road. According to Ron Chernow, author of Grant, “once the original hubbub over desegregated streetcars subsided, the locals had cheerfully adopted the new system and the excitement died out at once.” Chernow cites it as an example of the “startling early revolution in civil rights [that] would be all but forgotten by later generations of Americans.” What if Johnson had not come along to poison the well? Don’t you think if God ran the show through human government, he would not have?

    A little bit on roll here. Sorry. I just wanted to kick back a little at those who think human standards of justice from the Founding Fathers are the bee’s knees. They're better than their absence, generally speaking, but sometimes they get in the way of true justice. 

    To be continued . . .

    ******  The bookstore

  • Come on Everybody—Clap Your Hands: Psalm 30

    “You have changed my mourning into dancing;” (Psalm 30:11)

    Whoa. Footnote on this leads to a 1962 Watchtower article on dancing. In it is quoted this 1961 New York Times article:

    “CAFÉ society, having ignored rock ’n’ roll for years, has suddenly, by an apparent process of mass hypnosis, embraced the teen-age craze. The elite of the social set and celebrities of show business have discovered a sensuous dance called the Twist, performed to rock ‘n’ roll, and are wallowing in it like converts to a new brand of voodoo.”

    Changing times.

    “Come on everybody, clap your hands! Ah, you're lookin' good! I'm gonna sing my song. It won't take long. We're gonna do the twist and it goes like this…”

    Chubby Checker—and you know he just called himself that because Fats Domino was already taken.

    ***“The White House firmly denied today that President Kennedy or anyone else danced ‘the Twist’ at a party there.” (New York Times, November 15, 1961)

    3D9B2A23-EB9D-4C41-9C68-D9E57124626B

    An exhaustive article, mainly on whether you should do the Twist or not, appears here in 1962. It’s not that Witnesses took a firm stance on it—so what else is new?—it’s that the overall world, as represented by NWT and Newsweek, also did. The Times even felt obliged to point out that Kennedy wasn’t doing the Twist, so shocking was the notion, so detrimental to the well-being on the nation’s youth. It calls to mind a circuit overseer saying, ‘50 years ago the difference between Jehovah’s Witnesses and the world in general was doctrinal, not moral.’

    This was before the Beatles—the British group that upended society. Their signature long hair inspired others (like me) to do the same. My ‘long hair’ was outlandishly short by today’s reckoning, yet my dad had a fit. He’d been brought up on the farm where you shear animals. He would pick up a pair of barber clippers and would do the same with his kids. Typical of my haircuts was a complete buzz cut, save for a little tuft of hair front and center, like a hood ornament.

    Yet, some thought the Beatles a step up from the ‘decadence’ of the Twist. Their first song (in the US—it was different overseas) was “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” See? apologists said. That’s all they want to do—not like that bad Twist.

     

    ******  The bookstore