Category: Uncategorized

See Part 1

Sweeping the Western world is a kinder, gentler view of minorities. More tolerance is in the air, less judgment, more fairness. There is more understanding of human quirks. The emphasis is on human rights; every person of every minority has them—unless that minority is in favor of separating from the world. That is something not tolerated. BitterWinter is running a so-far ten part series on the cult-reprogramming movement and the human rights abuses it itself commits.

It is far too long for me to plow through (for now). If anyone else wants to read through, go for it. I posted part 10 because it has links to all the prior posts. JWs might not even be included in the discussion; rather its coverage is on ‘deprogramming’ from all ‘new religions.’ I won’t agree with any of these ‘new religions’, most likely, but neither do I agree with the mainstream status quo. The new religions just represent people trying to find meaning in life. If the status quo mainstream supplied answers, none of these ‘new religions’ (called such because religious scholars wish to avoid the incendiary term ‘cults’) including Jehovah’s Witnesses, would succeed in gaining a toehold. As long as they don’t break the law (and not law specifically designed to entrap them), leave them be, Bitter Winter says.

On social media somewhere, one question designed to provoke asks: ‘What questions should one ask when meeting with someone from a cult such as ‘The Way’ or the ‘Hare Krishnas?’ ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘You should instead undertake to explain to this person how life in the mainstream leaves so little to be desired that it must not be allowed for them to deviate from the main road. Tell them why venturing outside the box is not permitted.’ All these newer religions, in their own way, strive to be ‘no part of the world.’ This is not allowed today. In contrast, if they want to become a new gender, that’s fine, because the overall world is moving to accommodate that.

More specifically for Jehovah’s Witnesses, HRWF just ran an article to report that in Russia it is preferable to be a rapist or a kidnapper to being a Jehovah’s Witnesses, as judged by the sentences imposed for punishment. Rapists and kidnappers are given shorter sentences.

This lack of all sense of proportion also tells me that the real crime of JWs is to be ‘no part of the world.’ It even tells me that their real prosecutor isn’t someone found in the ranks of humans at all—even though people can be crazy, they are not that crazy. In the past, remaining ‘no part of the world’ has caused the Witnesses trouble politically, as though all must participate in the issue of deciding which brand of human rulership will prevail; no one is allowed to sit it out. But now, in this new age of ‘inclusion,’ trying to become morally no part of this world becomes a crime as well. 

Though it is dicey using the tactics of Russian courts, even the Russian Supreme Court, as an example of judicial tactics in general, it is also true that the lunacy of the anti-cultists tends to spread, and with it the methods they employ. Anti-cultism itself is a Western import to Russia, just as communism was a century before. The book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses: Searching for the Why,’ tells of how scholars employed by one Russian court found problems in the New World Translation Bible used by Jehovah’s Witnesses with Psalm 37:29: “The righteous will inherit the earth and will live in it forever.” This verse , the experts discerned, is actually an expressed threat toward unrighteous persons. It is “about dismissiveness (contempt, aggression) toward a group of persons on the basis of religious affiliation.” It furthers the “‘propaganda of inferiority’ on the basis of religious identity.” (The experts left untouched the matter of all Bibles saying the same thing.)

In other words, they are sticking up for the unrighteous in that strange land!

It is not allowed to be ‘no part of the world.’ If the world includes ‘unrighteous’ people, you had better work to accommodate them.

To be continued: here

 

******  The bookstore

Why don’t those theologians from the previous post see the exile to Babylon as a consequence of violating the covenant? Why do they put cart before the horse and carry on as though that covenant was remembered (if not concocted) much later? Is it not because theology as a field assumes disunity? Yes, there may be a tradition that says that, they will acknowledge, but that was a different people with a different theology. When you model your view of religion upon evolutionary theory, you do not see worship devolving from one-time purity. You see it gradually assembling itself from chaos.

When you assume disunity, it never occurs to you to put the puzzle pieces together. After all, you didn’t find them in the box at the craft store. You found them in the landfill. What are the chances they might fit together? It never occurs to you to try. Such is the case when disunity as an opening axiom.

Assume unity or disunity; it makes all the difference in the world. G. K. Chesterton, author of the Father Brown short stories, sides for unity. He doesn’t really care how the unity comes about, whether “[1] achieved by some supernal spiritual truth, or by [2] a steady national tradition, or merely by [3] an ingenious selection in aftertimes, the books of the Old Testament have a quite perceptible unity. . .” (I believe he would extend this perception to the New, but he does not here do so, this excerpt being taken from his commentary on the Book of Job.)

Jehovah’s Witnesses, too, assume unity. Witnesses are known to observe how 40 different writers were used to compile the Bible, that they came from every conceivable background, social, and economic class, yet their writings all harmonize with a steady development of God’s purpose—and what are the chances of that happening? But you have to look at the puzzle pieces as a whole to discern that. You have to make a study of the Bible itself as a whole. Relatively few of these theologians have. They have only studied the individual pieces, assuming them from the landfill. Whereas, there was a time when most everyone assumed the unity that Chesterton and JWs assume, the new crop of critical thinkers does not; they assume disunity. Should they come across something that implies unity, they either attribute it to coincidence or maintain after-the-fact editing made them that way.

Some of these theologians come from religious backgrounds that themselves incorporate disunity. In short, they wouldn’t know unity if it bit them in the rear end because they have never seen it. Bart Ehrman comes from that school, that fellow I have called ‘the Bible-thumper who became a theologian, but you can still see the Bible thumper in the theologian.’ You can. ‘Why did the early Christians do this and not do that’ he asks? “Because they didn’t want to go to hell!” Coming from such shallow theology, it is no wonder that when he turns scholar, he continues that shallowness. Note here, his book entitled ‘Heaven and Hell,’ in which he has painstakingly uncovered what every child of Jehovah’s Witness knows, though he seems entirely unaware of their existence:

James Hall, another theologian, does the Great Courses lecture series entitled ‘Philosophy of Religion.’ He, too, relates his evangelical origin. He thinks that the opposite of going to hell—that is, anticipation of heavenly bliss—works equally poorly as a Christian motivation. Neither Hall nor Ehrman seem aware that Jehovah’s Witnesses have said nearly their entire existence. Hell just makes people mean; if enemies will get torment in the hereafter, where’s the harm in giving them a little foretaste of it now? And, just hanging in for the reward has all the depth of nasty children being nice as Christmas and Santa approaches.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, on the other hand, have said from their beginning that the sanctification of God’s name is the all-important issue before creation, not human salvation. The later is a pleasant consequence of the former, but it does not usurp it in importance.

The point is that when theologian come from a religious background incorporating chaos and disunity, they may not know unity when they see it. And, theologians from a non-religious background are even less likely to look for it; all their background tells them it is a ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ world out there. It is not a once-united world breaking down. It is a naturally disunited world trying (in vain) to build up. They won’t expect to find unity in ancient writings, and hence, will never look for it.

 

******  The bookstore

The circuit overseer was visiting. It was a week of special activity. We reconvened to plan our afternoon. Nosmo Jones had unexpectedly cancelled his study to bail one of his kids out of jail, so I was open. “Does anyone have any calls?” the circuit overseer asked. “I have – Mr. Strawman out on Pretensia Pond Road,” I said. “You remember him from your last visit.” 

“Does anyone else have any calls?” Silence. I knew Bill Ding had several, and also Sally Shinspits, but they would likely not be home at this time of day. “Are you sure nobody else has any calls?” the circuit overseer repeated. I reminded him again about Bernard Strawman. “He’s told me since our last call that he could believe in God!” I said. “We could build on that foundation.” He’d also said something about climate change in hell, but I hadn’t understood what he had meant by that.

“Check carefully. Nobody has any return visits?” the circuit overseer asked again, looking desperate. “Maybe we can do street work,” he pleaded. But Brother Bruno’s wife, Brunette, had done street work all morning and her feet were sore. She wanted to ride around for a while.

Twenty minutes later we pulled into Mr. Strawman’s driveway. A Mercedes was already there, in addition to the Jaguar that Mr. Strawman drove. I rang the doorbell with the circuit overseer in tow. Mr. Strawman answered. He invited us in, told us to take off our shoes, and introduced us to his visitor, Dr. Adhominem. I’d never met Dr. Adhominem, but I’d heard Mr. Strawman speak of him glowingly.

Mr. Strawman asked us to be seated. He asked us if we would like some orange juice. When we said yes, he explained that he didn’t have any. I settled in my chair for a stimulating discussion that was sure to come! The circuit overseer mentally reviewed his notes for the talk he would give that evening: “Are You Following the Lead of the Angel in Your Ministry?”

Mr. Strawman and his visitor explained to me the research paper they were preparing to submit to Wonderful Scientist Magazine. It was to be their contribution to the exciting field of evolutionary psychology. “Much of the cutting-edge work in science is in this field,” Mr. Strawman told me. The paper he was co-authoring with Dr. Adhominem, he explained, was on the evolutionary origin of boisterous flatulence. “Back in the stone-age eat-or-be-eaten days,” Mr. Strawman explained, putting the concept in a nutshell, “you wanted to evolve everything you possibly could to scare off predators. And nothing would do the job like boisterous flatulence. It quickly cleared the area, the same as it does in modern times.”

I was very impressed with this crock of insight. But the circuit overseer said: “Got any evidence of that?” He had heard of something called the Scientific Method. I was so embarrassed. Dr. Adhominem smiled and explained that to become obsessed with such matters was to chase a red herring. The very reason such rapid progress was being made in evolutionary psychology, he continued, was that researchers could work without that sort of distraction. He asserted the time for his breakthrough had come because similar research had been accepted by the scientific community. To tell the truth, I was becoming more than a little mortified by that circuit overseer. Clearly, the man doesn’t know much about science.

For example, Dr. Adhominem told us about the evolutionary origin of faulty reasoning, something which had long puzzled scientists because it seemed to fly in the face of survival of the fittest. But the April 5, 2010 issue of Newsweek summarized the latest scientific thinking. “Faulty reasoning is really our friend! It enabled our ancestors to learn argumentation!” If there was no cockeyed reasoning, Dr. Adhominem explained, nobody would have anything to argue about. Throw any issue before the masses, and they’d all instantly agree! How could survival of the fittest take place? Smart people can only evolve if they have blockheads to stomp into submission with their clever argumentation. So stupidity has proven to be essential to our evolutionary advancement!

The circuit overseer said: “That doesn’t make any sense to me at all.” Dr. Adhominem gently suggested the reason: evolution had selected people like the two of us to enable people like himself and Mr Strawman to become brilliant. I felt privileged to have such a role in science! The circuit overseer asked to use the bathroom. “Eighth door on the left,” Mr. Strawman said.

The three of us remaining strolled out into the back yard. Next door, Mr. Strawman’s neighbor was drooling over his curvaceous girlfriend prancing about in a micro-bikini. I instantly turned away. “Interesting how evolutionary psychology accounts for this phenomenon,” Mr. Strawman remarked. “Indeed,” Dr. Adhominem said. I drew a blank, so he patiently enlightened me. “You’re not going to get far in the struggle for survival if your wife keeps dropping your babies and killing them, are you? Decidedly not!” Pleased with himself, he continued: “But that knockout bombshell of a competitive wife has convenient shelves upon which she can balance as many babies as you can give her. Thus, over the eons, our ancestors began to prefer curvy women and to think them beautiful.” How could I have been so stupid for so long?

We seated ourselves again inside and the circuit overseer said something about God. Mortified, I slid down into my chair! Mr. Strawman had already explained to me the evolutionary origin of God: “See, any group of individuals will have some riffraff who must be kept in check so as not to disrupt the clan. The trouble is, the riffraff doesn’t like being kept in check. They fight back, and this spills the primordial soup of even the most peaceful clan, spewing evolutionary ripples everywhere. What you need is a superhuman cop, one with whom you can’t fight back! Then those ne’er-do-wells will behave. That’s how the concept of God evolved, with all its quaint notions of right and wrong.”

“Homosexuality? Surely that has to be a fly in the ointment of your race to procreate,” the scientifically ignorant circuit overseer said, much to my dismay. “Not at all,” Bernard Strawman replied with a smile. “Homosexual men tend to be nurturing, and so they nurture everyone in the tribe, including themselves, giving the entire tribe a competitive advantage,” he said.

We discussed other interesting things as well. Seeing that he was getting underneath the circuit overseer’s skin, Mr. Strawman asked us as we were leaving how we knew that we were there? “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, how do we know that it makes a noise?” What a fascinating question! “Because the squirrels go crazy!” the circuit overseer said. “I’ll be in the car, Tom.” He’s a fine brother but he really doesn’t know anything about science.

“What a wonderful experience in the field ministry!” I exclaimed to all as we entered the Kingdom Hall after field service was over. I suggested that the circuit overseer might use it for his upcoming part in the circuit assembly, but he said he already had participants.

[The boisterous flatulence hypothesis is (for now) made-up nonsense, but all the other ideas have found acceptance among evolutionary psychologists. I predict boisterous flatulence will also be embraced one day soon, since it is only slightly more ridiculous than what has already been accepted by these characters.]

The circuit overseer said he would never ever EVER go back with me on this call and changed the title of his talk that evening from ‘Are You Following the Lead of the Angel in Your Ministry?’ to ‘Look, Sometimes You Have to Learn How to Take a Hint.’

However, three years have just about elapsed. He is soon to depart for a new assignment; a new circuit overseer will soon arrive, hopefully one with better appreciation for science. He will thus be the ninth one to aid me in assisting Mr. Strawman in his progress.]

“The first effect of not believing in God, is that you lose your common sense.” G K Chesterton

Q: How much credit do PIMO Jehovah’s Witnesses owe to Zoom for freeing them from attending boring meetings at the Kingdom Hall?

Probably quite a bit, though simply fading would accomplish the same goal, minus the certain element of hypocrisy. Fading works fine for those who wish to leave. As long as one doesn’t go publicly reviling, robbing banks, or killing people, one is fine.

A consistent blackened screen without any participation always suggests to me PIMO as a possibility, save for obvious cases of infirmity, distance, hardship, etc. Nor is anyone fooled in the long run. Witnesses bond so readily with their fellow believers, even from around the world, because 2/3 of what they have in common is their spirituality/love of God. Begin to indicate that 2/3 is not very important to you, and in time relationships, even friendships, will shift.

I mean, I don’t think those meetings are boring at all, but if I did, I not only wouldn’t go but I also wouldn’t use Zoom in an attempt to deceive others into thinking I was.

***

I got into some trouble with this post on FB. Several who use Zoom a lot were indignant, thinking I was calling them luke-warm Christians or worse. One, who has always been a pal, proceeded to tell me off on no uncertain terms. It’s my own fault, as so many things are. Had I made clear from the beginning that the opening question was not mine, it would not have happened. I told this brother that 

“I wasn’t speaking at all about you or any of the situations you mention. I should have stated—and would have were I to do it again—that the Question about ‘boring meetings’ is not mine, but was taken off a social media site (Quora) that pitches out questions for anyone to answer. I decided to answer it, and so the next three paragraphs are mine, but not the question itself. It may be the question was not written by a current Witness at all, but a former one. There are some in that population that openly boast of being PIMO, with the eventual ‘goal’ of being POMO (physically out/mentally out). Many of the friends have never even heard of that terminology, but it is sort of a modern-day ‘Demas has forsaken me because he loved the present system of things.’ It is among the reason that our numbers have been stuck around 8 million for many years now, barely growing at all. I wasn’t in any way speaking of ones like you.”

upon which, he made a graceful reply and all is well again.

On the one hand, I was heartened that so many black screens chewed me out, taking umbrage that I should think them PIMO. On the other hand, I was disheartened that so many had never even heard of the term—not the term itself, really, but the phenomenon. Alas, it does kind of smack (in the case of those who are shepherds) of not knowing the appearance of the flock.

***Then there was one wiseacre who suggested our meetings would not be boring if we had a little more of this:

It’s not bad. And, say—Isn’t that Howard Hoodwinkel 8 rows back, 4th from the left? 

I hope the brothers don’t harrumph too much over it. It’s not like they could endorse it, but it is possible to say, ‘You know, there’s a place to learn more about this Jehovah.’ What to one person is not being swept along by the fads and vagaries of men is to another just being a bunch of fuddy-duddies.

But, i had to walk that praise back in view of the following comment from someone who “attended 2 mega churches for several years, this type of music is nice to listen to but being in that concert type environment week after week gets old. Knowing what goes on behind the music also makes it out as just a show. Followed up by a regurgitated topical teaching that may use a scripture. And I found most people who go to mega churches are biblically illiterate. Even a pastor once said they were there to entertain people.”

This is like when Mike.e used to drive me bonkers week after week with his attack on the organizational structure of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I responded with some biblical things that they didn’t seem to know about and he replied as above. ‘You must understand that many Christians are biblically illiterate,” he told me. “Well, whose fault is that?” I replied. “We manage to keep our people familiar with the menu.”

Then—back to the PIMO theme—someone told the anecdote of where a teacher was asked how he knew a student was looking at his phone when they were being so stealth about it. He said: no one smiles at their crotch. 

It is not an answer that would work today because they have discovered a few genders in recent years where people do just that. 

Another brother told of riding around with teens in the backseat and he wasn’t sure their conversation, to put it mildly, was firmly in line with the program. But they had volunteered to help on a move, he didn’t want to lose his free labor, so he did nothing but say how he appreciated their help. 

This reminded me of Al Kapp, the cartoonist, who stuck to traditional ‘follow the flag’ values. He didn’t think much of his generation’s young people protesting, and lampooned them, inventing the group, S.W.I.N.E. (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything)  He would appear on campus and tell them off. One of the protesting youths asked the pugnacious fellow whether he thought young people were better than older ones at anything. ‘Yes, they’re better at carrying luggage,’ he replied.

 

******  The bookstore

Okay, maybe I ought to walk that one back about Job’s previous remarks from a chapter ago.

“Yes, my eye has seen all of this, My ear has heard and understood it. What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you,” Job says in 13:1-2.

It’s a repeat of 12:3: “But I too have understanding. I am not inferior to you. Who does not know these things?”

It would have been better if the chapter division from 12 to 13 was placed after the present 13:2, allowing these identical rebukes to Eli, Bill, and Zop, to bookend Job’s diatribe (12: 17-25) on how God messes up the masses. After all, chapter placement is a strictly human device laying no claim to inspiration. Or is this just me grumbling that I released my Job 12 commentary without reading ahead? Larry King used to say he’d never read ahead of time the books of those he was about to interview. That way, his questions would be that of that of the typical listener; they would be more genuine. Maybe. Or maybe he was just lazy.

This new bookending of Job 12:3 with 13:1-2 means all that Job said in 12:17-25 is common knowledge with Eli, Bill, and Zop. He’s not breaking new ground. He’s not charging that God thrashes the good as much as the bad. Instead, he’s agreeing with them: “What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you.”

So the parties God thwarts at 17-25 are all part of the facade of this godless system of things that God confounds, and does not include the good as well as the bad? Apparently. Though, as will be seen, Job still rails at God for punishing the good, at least the good in the person of himself.

A new thought occurs to Job, or at least he gives voice to it for the first time: “For my part, I would rather speak to the Almighty himself; I desire to argue my case with God.” 13:3 Yeah. Go right to the top! Why waste one’s breath of Eli, Bill, and Zop, who aren’t listening? Of course, God’s not listening either—so it seems to Job, but at least if you can corner him He will have smart things to say. He won’t be like these blowhards who gush like winter streams (6:15-17) and dry out when you need them most:

“My own brothers have been as treacherous as a winter stream, Like the water of winter streams that dry up. They are darkened by ice, And in them the melting snow is hidden. But in due season they become waterless and come to an end; When it becomes hot, they dry up.” (6:15-17)

No, God will be smart. He will have good things say, if you just can get Him to say it. Diverted with his new thought, Job begins preparation on his brief. He’s confident.

“See, now, I have prepared my legal case; I know I am in the right.”  (13:18)

However, first best plead for a few conditions: “Remove your heavy hand far away from me, And do not let the fear of you terrify me. Either call and I will answer, Or let me speak, and you answer me.”  (13:21-22) It’s hard to lay out your case when the judge is standing on your toes.

Done. Now, Job lays out his grievance: “What are my errors and sins? Reveal to me my transgression and my sin. Why do you hide your face And consider me your enemy?  Will you try to frighten a windblown leaf Or chase after dry stubble? For you keep recording bitter accusations against me, And you make me answer for the sins of my youth. You have put my feet in stocks, You scrutinize all my paths, And you trace out each of my footprints.” (23-28)

“Scrutinize all my paths” and “trace out each of my footprints:” worse than Alexa, he thinks God is. And the thought that He still holds “the sins of my youth” against him? What a burden to bear! There are no recent sins of consequence, he thinks, but what if God still punishes those of long ago? You can see why people would welcome the Christian model that Jesus died to offset the penalty of sin inherited from Adam. All one need to is put faith in that arrangement and avoid repeating them, and they’re good. With this NT development, there is tangible proof that sins put behind us are forgiven.

Though, some still think that way, anyhow; guilt has a way of being tenacious. But they don’t have to, is the point, notwithstanding that the consequences of a past bad decision might not plague us. You’ll just have to man up and accept it, but that does not mean God is doing such as a punishment.

What if my dad still had it in for me for borrowing his Rambler—or was it mine by then?—and running it through snowbanks on a joyride with friends? The next morning when it wouldn’t start, he came out to help, popped the hood, and you couldn’t see the engine, so packed it was with snow under that hood! “This is a car—not a tractor!” he groused.

Or what if I had run someone over on that drive while under the influence? Thank ‘Mothers Against Drunk Driving,’ which did not exist at the time, that such recklessness today is relatively rare, whereas it used to be common as bread. And if you ran someone over, it was, ‘Hey, what do you expect? Sorry, but I was drunk. You know how it is.’ Now, it would mean serious jail time, huge monetary fine, and loss of driving privilege—none of which would be punishment from God, but the consequences of bad actions. Fortunately, I didn’t run over anyone.

And if Job is filing a brief against God, it seems clear that his three associates will not be witnesses for the defense. Nor will they be for the prosecution, as they have repeatedly said wrong things about God. They’ll just serve as people in the gallery hurling catcalls. That’s why it would be best if they shut up: 

If only you would keep absolutely silent, That would show wisdom on your part. Listen, please, to my arguments, And pay attention to the pleadings of my lips. Will you speak unjustly on God’s behalf, And will you speak deceitfully for him? Will you take his side, Will you try to plead the case of the true God? Would it turn out well if he examined you? Will you fool him as you would a mortal man? He will surely rebuke you If you secretly try to show favoritism. (13:5-10)

After all, what do they really have to contribute? 

Your wise sayings are proverbs of ashes; Your defenses are as fragile as defenses of clay. Keep silent before me, so that I may speak. Then let whatever may come upon me come! (12-13)

The trouble with people who should shut up is that they seldom do.

 

******  The bookstore

 

“The worldview of a modern person should be formed based on scientific knowledge and respect for positive rational traditions.” Anything wrong with that statement?

Isn’t it overrated, at least unattainable, or at least a goal ones have been striving for since the Enlightenment, but are no closer to attaining than at outset, so you begin to wonder just how “enlightened” it can be. Better to go for the people with heart who renounce violence

For every fine development of the Enlightenment there is a horrendous one. For every American Revolution that produces ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people,’ there is a French Revolution that produces murder and mayhem, within months devouring even its early leaders, and finally suffers Napoleon rising from the ashes. And then gradually the American experience dissolves into mush as people begin to typify the iron and clay toes imagery of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream idol. And France, after nurturing Karl Marx, gives rise to FECRIS, the anticult watchdog that affixes the C-word to anyone deviating from script of mainline humanist thinking.

That grandiose first paragraph sounds nice. Who cannot be attracted to it? But is it not pushing people beyond their limits? If there is one thing the early 2020s has demonstrated—the early COVID-19 years—it is that people can’t even agree on what “scientific knowledge is.” The science that is “settled” is often settled by decree. The science that is “proven” has often been proven by ignoring evidence to the contrary. The worshippers of science and reason never seem to notice when money and power trumps their science and reason. Is it Nathan R. Jessup extended into general life? “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!” You can make a case for his words.

Let that airy first paragraph into our own arena of religious belief and presently we have breakaway guys who acknowledge Jehovah’s Witnesses are right on the most fundamental issues, then get all worked up over peripheral items, to the point where they separate into their own splinter groups. In time, one of them makes the ridiculous “tail wagging the dog statement” that its too bad his group and the Watchtower group he bolted from cannot agree, for “they’d have more people that way,” but hey—it’s their problem, not his. As he fulfills to the letter what Paul found most shameful, that sects and divisions should characterize the people of God. (1 Corinthians 10:18-19)

Believe me, I take caution from it. In part, it’s why I call myself a “seed-picker” and not a “scholar.” As soon as you declare yourself a scholar you find some item that the dumbbells have got wrong and you get all pretentious over it, masking that pretentiousness as a quest for pure conscience.

It’s enough to get the core points right. What! You think men who are “unlearned and ordinary” as the twelve were are ever going to ascend to breathtaking heights of scholarship? The learned people are forever saying to the unlearned and ordinary, “Okay, you’ve done well—amazingly well, really, considering you’re lack of education. But the smart people are here now. Step aside.”

But the “unlearned and ordinary” don’t step aside. They know God would have chosen the smart people in the first place had those ones been his special favorites. They know that the smart people will cave when the going gets rough. They will get overly worried of what they have to lose, chief among that being prestige in the eyes of other smart people. That’s why you always get some people in congregations who are clumsy, boorish, and it’s challenging to work with them as they are so, yet they are always out there. Nobody has more sticktoitiveness than they. One of them read point blank from the tract the other day—and it is hardly his weakness; he’s just doing what has been suggested—“Do you think it’s possible to live forever? Yes? No? Or maybe?” I’ve seen it work with a short preceding icebreaker. But point blank, not so much. The householder squirmed, caught off-guard by the awkwardness of the sudden spot he was in, and I caught his eye. “This will be on the test,” I said good-naturedly, as though to a high school student. I didn’t know what else to say. I suppose I could have said nothing.

 

******  The bookstore

Here’s my tentative suggestions: … “Jehovah’s Witnesses have a low retention rate relative to other U.S. religious groups.

This is true, however it is offset by the high participation rate Witnesses enjoy. After all, in the Methodist Church (for example—no special reason to cite them) members may not actually leave, but how would you know if they did?

 

So we need … [to] integrate our JW culture and way of life rather than compartmentalizing it.

Much as I hate to say it, I’m not sure the notion of ‘counting time’ doesn’t contribute to such compartmentalizing in that it introduces the notion of being ‘on the clock’ or ‘off the clock.’ Much counsel is given, with mixed result, not to view matters this way, but the concept itself lends to that perception.

I’ve long since learned to estimate. Oddly, it was my former stint as a part-time inventory counter that put me on to this course. You may have seen these teams in supermarkets. Management urges that you estimate as you count, based upon how much product will fit into an overall amount of space—then peer to see just how much space is taken, so you are not thwarted by the shelf that is only 2 cans deep. They had research to the effect that you’re not off by more than 2% when you do it that way.

I was not a good employee—chattering constantly and drawing others in to conversation when management would (sometimes strongly) prefer silence. I’m sure that confession will surprise no one here. However, I was forgiven a multitude of sins because I was a force for cohesion. 

They had an employee slow as molasses with whom they were pulling their hair out because he was reaching back in the hopeless chaos of potato chip bags to make sure he counted each one and none of them twice. At a time that I should have been working, I stopped by to chat. I told him the Isaac Bashevis Singer short story of a Jewish priest who brought his 18th century Eastern European settlement to a standstill because he was too kind-hearted to sacrifice the animals needed to keep religous life going. Finally, one of the community told that priest that it’s fine to be merciful, ‘but you don’t have to be more merciful than God!’

I added for the sake of this overly-exacting employee, ‘I think the same principle applies to counting.’ He smiled, obviously getting the point, and from that time on his performance improved. 

So it is that I estimate time and I blow off a report in two seconds come end of month. But I once tracked it in 15 minute intervals, as I’m sure many do today. These days I think many in effectestimate, but there are some who develop innovative ways to, as bashful Sam put it, ‘run about all day avoiding people.’ Now that counsel on the ministry has expanded to, ‘Look, just talk to people! Introduce the Bible if you can but don’t worry about it if you’re cannot,’ the idea of counting time seems increasingly out of sync. But it is still kept, and most have managed to keep its spirit without overly fussing about its letter, even though they still talk as if the letter is not something to be blown away. ‘How much time should we count,’ someone will ask the circuit overseer. He will reply, “Well, I know how I am counting mine,” and leave it at that.

 

we need a better formation that helps integrate our JW culture and way of life rather than compartmentalizing it.

A side theme of ‘Go Where Tom Goes’ is (done by example) that spiritual life can and should be woven seamlessly within our secular life. Yet this is often not what we see. Some of the friends act as though they have two separate modes, all but incorporating two different vocabularies: one for communication with the friends and one for communication with those outside. 

Not long ago, someone reviewed that book and pointed to the occasional word or phrase that a non-Witness might not understand. In some cases I changed it. In other cases I did not. If you read Dickens or indeed much of classic literature, you’ll find many a biblical allusion that a modern person will not understand. Dickens doesn’t back out to explain every little thing. If the book is good, people move on, perhaps with a new ‘homework’ assignment. But if they decline the new assignment, they move on nonetheless. Of course, if the book stinks, they run it through the shredder on that account but, if it truly stinks, they probably will have done that already. The trick is to make it not stink.

I’m not done yet addressing the thoughtful remarks you made. Sorry to be so wordy. A scholar could do it better. But I’m not a scholar. I’m a storyteller. Storytelling generally works better with the people most apt to respond to the good news. Probably that’s why Jesus was a storyteller, why he never opened his mouth without telling an illustration. Whatever scholarship he had was to be found in his parables.

(and someday, though it has nothing to do with anything, I’ll expound on how Lincoln was exactly that way, always using stories to introduce policy. Like in the final days of the Civil War, when settling the score with meddling England seemed more a possibility than it had during the war—the Union hadn’t been strong enough then. He led off with a story of the mandetermined to make peace with his enemies before he dies. On his deathbed, tears and sentimentality flow from all as old disagreements are buried. But as one lout is taking his leave, the sick man raises himself up one elbow to say, ‘But remember—if I get better, that grudge still stands!’

It was Lincoln’s style, appreciated by many. But no-nonsense (or no-imagination?) Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase grumbled about Cabinet meetings: ‘All the president does there is tell jokes!’)

 

***  The bookstore

“God said to Samuel, "Anoint me a son"

Sam say, [after reviewing Jesse’s seven and coming to skinny David]  "Man, you must be puttin' me on"

God say, "No, " Sam say, "What?"

God say, "You can do what you want Sam, but Next time you see me comin', you better run"

Sam said, "Where do you want this anointing ' done?"

God said, "Out on Highway 61"   (With apologies to 1 Samuel & Bob Dylan)

 

Samuel went through seven of of Jesse’s sons. All were promising candidates to him. All seemed like they could knock it out of the park. God said, ‘Maybe they look good to you, but not to me:’ 

“Do not pay attention to his appearance and how tall he is, for I have rejected him. For the way man sees is not the way God sees, because mere man sees what appears to the eyes, but Jehovah sees into the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:9)

I don’t know about the ones who have moved on to who knows where, but of the ones who stay, surely a universal truth acknowledged is that there are two hopes among Christians, the heavenly and the earthly. 

Those with the heavenly hope are the ones who will serve as kings and priests over the earth in the new system. (Revelation 5:10) So are we to think they sit on their hands now?

Unless the entire structure of the JW organization is a crock—highly unlikely in view of its unbroken chain of succession since at least Rutherford and its accomplishments in laying down infrastructure for the united worldwide spread of the good news—then the anointed Christians today represent God’s chosen means of governing his people today.

But—but—could not a newbie or an outlier just say, ‘Hey, I’m anointed!,’ thus promoting him or herself to potential power? It’s not going to happen with those operating in the full-time service structure of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Decades of lowly service will have weeded out any pretenders. There is nothing so meriting God’s curse than ‘partaking unworthily,’ so you know the veterans are not going to be doing that. God’s means of directing his people could not be more clear.

This outrageous demand of one grouser that we are to scrutinize the GB and give each a thumbs up or thumbs down—where is the counterpart in Scripture for that? It is no wonder the fellow parted ways, seeing as he has come to conflate Thomas Jefferson and John Locke with the early apostles.

Now, looking at the current Governing Body, if God swooned over intellectuals, do you think these are the guys he would have chosen? Some of them are an acquired taste to listen to. In fact, you can ask yourself, if the present helpers were instead taking the lead, would they select current GB members for their helpers? As with Samuel, God sees what men do not. 

I’m convinced (on admittedly incomplete evidence—so just put it out there as a hunch) that this is what bothers those intellectuals who depart. Here they are in a heady world of intellect, interacting with others of that world. How can guys who may not even know what words like ‘exegesis’ mean possibly be running the show? Why can’t you put smart guys in there—giants of intellectualism who can knock the socks off any university professor?

They’d better get used to it. Near as I can tell, it is no accident on God’s part. It is deliberate. For a God who says ‘the wisdom of this world’ is foolishness with him, is he not tipping his hand? For a God who says, “he catches the wise in their own cunning,” is he not showing how he does it? For a God who says, “if anyone among you thinks he is wise in this system of things, let him become a fool, so that he may become wise,” ought they not do it rather than revere this generation’s intellectual output? (1 Corinthians 3:18-19) Remember, the lowly of the world, whom the Bible constantly makes clear are the ones whom God favors, have no problem whatsoever with any of these men.

The ‘unlearned and ordinary’ leaders of the first century congregation ever remain ‘unlearned and ordinary.’ They don’t raise themselves up from by their own bootstraps to tower with the intellectual pillars of a world that’s going down the tubes. If God didn’t laugh at this world’s wisdom with its phony status, he would have had his Son born at the Jerusalem Hyatt, not the Bethlehem Manger. There is no reason He could not have done it; He knows a lot of people. He chose the manger—as a way of telling the drivers of this system of things, usually top-heavy with intellectuals, what he thinks of them.

(Photo from Pixabay)

Best develop a sense of humor, because God has a great one. The greatest drama under creation, the preaching of the gospel to the nations by ordinary people, “the most uninformed and clownish of men,” said Celsus, incorporates scenes alternately noble and ridiculous:

“Don’t you have another suit jacket?” said the circuit overseer to the lowly publisher who, wanting to look his best for a special week of activity, had ironed his suit but then got distracted and attended to something else before righting the iron. It’s a good thing that CO wasn’t an intellectual. He would have wilted with the grass from embarrassment. 

 

***  The bookstore

The trick is not to sanitize the present. It is to desanitize the past. ‘Think Witnesses are unintellectual now?’ was the point made to someone who thought they were. Go back to the first century to find they were every bit as much then. Furthermore, it appears to be something not to fret over, but to ‘praise.’ 

“I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children,” Jesus says. 

There is no other field of endeavor in which the ‘wise and intellectual’ do not quickly rise to the head of the class. Here they are told to ‘take a number—maybe we’ll get back to you.” It takes awhile to get one’s head and heart around that. People steeped in education expect the paradigm that holds everywhere to also hold here. “You’ve done well—exceedingly well considering your lack of education,” such ones would say to those taking the lead, “but the smart people are here now. Step aside.”

But they don’t step aside. They continue to do things that the few “wise and intellectual ones” who made the Matthew 11:25 cut find grating. I’ve decided that’s the way it was meant to be. Grin and bear it.

I wrote in the Governing Body chapter of  I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses: Searching for the Why, that not having much of this world’s education, they find it a little difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff and so are inclined to dismiss it all as chaff. How can that not be grating to those who do have some of that higher education and know that it’s not all chaff—there’s a lot of good stuff there? Grin and bear it.

Interesting, those in ‘Christendom’ who know of these modest beginings tend to think of it as an embarrassing circumstance that was overcome. ‘Yes, they may have started out lowly,’ such ones say, ‘but look how they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps!’

Also Interestingly, seeing as this fellow mentioned Catholicism, Luke Timothy Johnson, tracing the history of the Church, makes a similar observation of the bishops that arose early on—that they weren’t necessarily the brightest guys around, but they were workhorses who got the job done.

Grating to anyone of intellectual background, for example, will be how we lead right off with Adam and Eve. They are key, of course, to explaining almost everything, but I’ve devised a half-dozen ways to ‘soften’ their introduction in the ministry, if only to lead off with a ‘How are you with Adam and Eve?’ opening question. Put together the jigsaw puzzle that centers around Adam and Eve. Pay no attention initially to whether it is true or not. Do you shove aside an actual jigsaw puzzle because the picture on the box cover might not be real?

But our people pay no attention to such things. Raised from childhood with Adam and Eve, they pour it undiluted on the learned ones, as though convinced it is common ground. For whatever it’s worth, I was dumbfounded when I first came across people who seriously believed in Adam and Eve. They didn’t look stupid, yet all my life I had been trained to think only the dumbest of the dumbbells took those two seriously.

The point is, nobody helped me through my ‘crisis of intellect.’ I just worked it out myself. ‘Ah well, put it on the shelf.’ I told myself. ‘Everything else makes so much sense. Maybe it will later,” and it did. Trouble is, I’m not sure the thinking now in vogue would allow for this solution. It would be labeled ‘cognitive dissonance’ that must be solved now if I am to keep my marbles. Even though those who listen to Big Pharma somehow survive their cognitive dissonance, with narrator insisting you must have the stuff peddled and voiceover saying it may kill you.

For people who regard themselves as specialists in teaching, you might think the JW organization would learn to build better bridges to those steeped in education. But it’s hard to do, because they don’t have too much of it themselves. They don’t overly fret about their ‘deficiency.’ ‘Ah, well, they say, ‘our world works and theirs doesn’t.’

To me, that is key. With admittedly some minor exaggeration, our world does work and theirs doesn’t. Jehovah’s Witnesses have solved racism. Call that not working? Racism is a prime issue tearing the planet apart. For us it is a yawner.

Seldom is it that the key persons driving this world are not bristling with degrees of higher learning. Yet, look at the mess the world is. It’s not a very reassuring correlation. ‘Well, maybe the problem is not education,’ someone says. ‘Maybe the problem is lack of moral training.’ Exactly. So opt for the ‘divine education’ that incorporates moral training, rather than the education that caters solely to the intellect and assumes moral training will take care of itself. It plainly doesn’t.

There’s lots of issues to drive a person nuts. I had someone tell me they’d just grown tired of such things as ‘no beards’ (at long last, put to rest, more or less, in 2017). Of course I could sympathize. It’s not in the Bible. It was not in the literature. The reasons to suppose persons might be stumbled (beatniks and hippies) disappeared decades ago. We’re not a people who do rules. And yet no rule was more consistently enforced than the unwritten ‘no beard’ rule. I have never violated that ‘rule,’ nor was I ever tempted to, save for when I went to bat for someone being leaned on solely for that reason. ‘By the time this is all done, I’m going to grow a beard myself!’ I threatened. “Try shoving me around—not just some kid!”  Trouble is, I didn’t want one. Food gets caught in it.

But I have violated the unwritten ‘no social media’ rule. It causes me inconvenience. The fact that we wish to ‘advertise advertise advertise; the kingdom, in combination with howwhen a company has a great product to advertise the very first thing they do is map out a strategy on social media, is not something you can even mention without being thought from Mars with two heads. Similar to how one of our brothers says ‘This is war!’ regarding apostates, overlooking that the very first thing you do in war is to thoroughly familiarize yourself with the tactics and thinking of the enemy, unlike how we are strongly recommended to know as little about it as possible.

So these are some reflections that have helped me work through issues. In the end, I appeal to The Rolling Stones: ‘You can’t always get what you want.’ You can’t. You can’t anywhere. Trouble is, we live in a world where ‘getting what one wants’ has become the prime directive.

‘So where does that leave me?’ said my correspondent? ‘I could of been a priest, elder or a pastor, it seems, in virtually any church (Anabaptist, Catholic, Evangelical, Baptist, etc) save my own, if I did, I’d have the status and security I’ve never managed as an adult Jehovah’s Witness. But I have chosen instead to pay the ongoing, very personal cost of being a Jehovah’s Witness.’

Tell me about it. I have worked up and nurtured a certain gift for writing, even authoring some books. Anywhere else I’d be sitting pretty, maybe even making a living thereby. Here I must carry on as though practicing ‘secret sin.’ Even when I stay away from controversial things, it is, “Isn’t there someone else who’s authorized to write about God?” To say nothing about when I do tackle controversial things.

So here I am, a confirmed old apologist, and likely to remain so. 

Well, after all, Pickering—I’m an ordinary man, even tempered and good-natured, whom you’ll never hear complain,

who has the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein . . .

But:

Let Ahithorolf in my life . . . and my serenity goes to seed. In a line that never end comes an army of his friends, come to jabber and to chatter and to tell all that HQ is not to heed!

 

******  The bookstore