JW Insider

When did JWs ever say the word Christian was a demonically inspired word?

This one is for @Gone Away . Isn't that the Northenden, Manchester Assembly Hall?

I had no idea. But I like the game so I looked it up: "South Bronx Kingdom Hall at 1140 Teller Ave. KH on [first] Floor, CO [Circuit Overseer] apartment above. This was the home of the Melrose Congregation. Appears to be 1960's.

After the St. Louis convention of August 6-10, 1941, where J. F. Rutherford addressed his largest visible public audience of 115,000, also releasing the new book Children and making known for the first time that universal domination was the great issue . . . https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1955803 *** w69 10/15 p. 637 Appreciating Jehovah’s Mercy and Loving-Kindness *** And think of the enormous quantities of literature that are distributed within a day or two at our large conventions! This has always fascinated me. At St. Louis in 1941, for example, more than 125,000 copies of the book Children were distributed along with almost half a million of the booklet “Comfort All That Mourn." I'm at my mom and dad's house today in California, helping them pack and move, and just held a copy of the Children book that my father got at this same assembly.

Here's my opinion. It's a bit more generous. It was never intended to be a "report." It was someone using their imagination. They were imagining what a newspaper could look like right after Armageddon. Have you ever read a futuristic novel? It's not so different from this title and first line of Song 134: See Yourself When All Is New Just see yourself, just see me too; Just see us all in a world that is new. Think how you'll feel, how it will be . . . . These are actually good exercises for all of us. Sometimes if something doesn't seem real, we can imagine very specific actions we would take if it were real. In some cases a mental "run-through" can help us see if we truly have faith in something, or if it doesn't make sense. I think the person showed creativity in a similar way to one who writes a novel. Edited to add: It's like the final video from the convention as seen here: https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/56951-jw-convention-2018-final-video-english-version/?tab=comments#comment-91008 It's sensational, and it's not a true report. But it isn't intended to be. It's intended to exercise your imagination.

I'm guessing that in the first picture Angela Merkel is saying: "Did you hear the one about the Japanese man who . . . . ?" That could explain the second picture.

Duh! This is news? Why else would the United States support Al-Qaeda and Isis so soon after claiming we were trying to defeat them?

Yes. But I'll tell you the real problem I have with manipulating information. And I'm not saying you are the source of the manipulation. First of all, it's no longer "truth" in the most appropriate sense. If something purports to be from a specific source, then anyone who changes that source is putting words in the mouth of someone else. It's therefore the same as a misquote. Since it has very similar meaning, it's more of a paraphrase, but even a paraphrase should identify itself as such. In the long run, it often weakens the impact of information even when people think it strengthens the impact. Imagine what would happen if a person has excellent information about some mistakes the Watch Tower Society was making. Imagine that some of these, if taken seriously by the WTS, could result in fairness and justice for thousands of people who are now being treated inconsistently and unjustly. There were persons who publicly pointed out the inconsistency between the WTS political stance in Malawi vs. Mexico, for example. But by pointing it out, the WTS may have taken quicker steps to fix the problem they had created in Mexico. And in many other countries around the world, thousands were being unjustly imprisoned for the specific choices they were told that they could and could not conscientiously take with respect to alternative civil service. They, the GB, had already decided that it wasn't that important or even Biblical to hold onto the old traditional practice, and that a change could happen as soon as they found the time to vote on it again. But it was put off for a couple of more years, until a very public reminder was published in an infamous book by an ex-JW. In the meantime, during the delay, hundreds more JWs were unjustly imprisoned, but as soon as the GB voted again, the problem was taken care of just as the ex-JW had said. So what would have happened if that particular ex-JW had a reputation for manipulating information. Obviously, it would have been easy to ignore what he said, and just say that it was more lies from ex-JW apostates. Information can have value no matter where it comes from. Why weaken the value with manipulation? Also, in the specific case above where some JW-focused information was added, it came across as both pejorative and smart-aleck. Even flippant in the sense of borrowing slightly from the advertising slogan: "Coming to a theater near you!" This gives the impression that whoever wrote it wanted to "stick it" to JWs in particular. This can "back-fire" having a devaluing effect on the value of the information. It is useful to know that there may now be up to SEVENTEEN different victims and that one of them was abused perhaps 100 times. This is important information. But a lot of JWs might look at this poster and say: "Look how we are being picked on talking about "Kingdom Halls" like that. Look how they are going after us unfairly. Look how they focus on Kingdom Halls. I wonder if they would say the same about using churches as a hiding place to find sanctuary." Maybe they would; I don't know. But I do know that everyone has a certain amount of defensiveness that is natural for people of the same "tribe." Our tribe is our worldwide organization, and many Witnesses are quick to defend and grasp at straws to do so. Don't make up evidence. The real evidence is all people need. (See updated news release on this same criminal here: https://www.usmarshals.gov/news/chron/2009/122909.htm )

Don't misunderstand. It's not an out-and-out fraud. It's just that what is shown here was rewritten to supposedly have more impact on Witnesses. The updated case information which is also linked from one of the usmarshals.gov pages shows the person to be considered a true candidate for the 15 most wanted. I would have had no problem with almost all the same information shown from the original sources. It was almost identical. But there are dangers in trying to manipulate something like this. One danger is that people can start to focus on the inaccuracies and not see the greater picture. (Just as an aside, I find it odd that it focuses on the US and Canada, when it's so easy for an America citizen to hop on a "metro" in San Diego and get to Mexico in just a few minutes.)

Here's a relevant quote: Angela Merkel is now the leader of the free world, not Donald Trump -https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/angela-merkel-donald-trump-democracy-freedom-of-press-a7556986.html The US President isn’t motivated by protecting liberal democracy or freedom, his sole ideology is Trumpism: corporate autocracy with a populist facade. And he surrounds himself with white nationalists even more hostile to liberal democracy than he is Also see the Daily Mail article from a couple of years ago: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3303677/Putin-declared-powerful-man-world-Forbes-magazine-Angela-Merkel-replacing-President-Obama-second-place.html Putin is declared the most powerful man in the world by Forbes magazine... with Angela Merkel replacing President Obama in second place Vladimir Putin is declared world's most powerful for third year in a row German Chancellor Angela Merkel steals runner-up from Barack Obama First year a sitting U.S. President has not made it into the top two It's a comment on how much power the US has supposedly lost due loss of trust in the US Gov't for negotiating power. Trump's pulling out of prior international agreements indicates to nations that the US cannot be trusted to keep an agreement, and therefore the US loses powerful leverage as a player among other nations. Germany keeps control over international monetary policy in a way that the US can no longer manage. And the potential drain on the "full faith and credit of the US Govt" backing our Treasury bonds. (The way we [USA] try to sell our debt to other countries to pay for things like Trump's trillion dollar tax cut to favor the wealthy. As it is we will have to raise interest rates on Treasury bonds to entice foreign countries to fund this trillion dollars.)

The most powerful person in the free world. And she's staring down at Donald Trump. It looks like, John Bolton, the most dangerous man in the free world was there, too.

When I was 16, an 18 year old friend played parts his favorite Cheech and Chong album for me. I recall about three things from the album that were funny and not too embarrassing to tell. One of them was an imaginary conversation between two dogs walking down to the street when one of them has to do his duty. The other dog is impressed by the shape and symmetry of the production. The conversation includes: "Wow! Did I do that?" and the response "Yeah! You're a real Rembrandt!" The fact that this is in Rotterdam seemed to trigger the fecetious memory.

The wanted poster supposedly uses the phrase: "McLean uses Kingdom Halls as cover to hide and may be in a Kingdom Hall near you!" Not to take anything away from the man's crimes, but this struck me as a "gloss" intended to speak more directly to JWs. So I checked it against the actual wanted poster and the phrase does not show up there https://www.usmarshals.gov/investigations/most_wanted/mclean/mclean15.pdf That and a few other small things on the picture above makes it look like this was a specially made version just to share with JWs. (There are multiple typos, misspellings, and capitalization problems on the updated wanted poster, which don't show up on any of the actual wanted posters.)

Is her name Sigrid? (Not to invade anyone's privacy of course, so don't answer publicly. But I stayed at the home of a sister in Hamburg who could easily match that description. It's a long shot, of course, because probably 100 other sisters in Hamburg would fit the description.)

I can tell it's not Brother Barber, but I never met Ernie Beavor. Remember this about him though, as G.A. already mentioned: *** w01 2/1 p. 15 par. 7 Are You Living Up to Your Dedication? *** One such individual was Ernest E. Beavor of England. He became a Witness in 1939 at the beginning of World War II, and he gave up a flourishing press photography business in order to take up the full-time ministry. Because of maintaining his Christian neutrality, he went to prison for two years. His family stood by him, and in 1950 his three children attended the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead for missionary training, in New York. Brother Beavor was so zealous in his preaching activity that friends called him Armageddon Ernie. He loyally lived up to his dedication, and right down to his death in 1986, he proclaimed the imminence of GodÂ’s war of Armageddon. He did not view his dedication as a limited-time contract with God! This is something like the way he looked in 1980. The pic above could be 6 years later, or earlier. Â

C.T.Russell therefore claimed it was appropriate to refer to the 144,000 (in which he included himself) as "The Christ" and "The Eternal Father" and "God manifest in the flesh." In fact, this was not just about creating titles, so that, for example, the 144,000 could say they were "the Prophet Greater than Moses." C.T.Russell actually claimed he was a part of the sacrifice made on behalf of the world. He claimed he was a part of the Atonement that would that would justify mankind. He was very literally included in the "Savior" of mankind. In fact, Russell taught that Christ was not his Mediator. Not the Mediator of the 144,000. At first, for nearly 30 years, he taught this topic correctly, but then he received "new light" by which he claimed that this idea of Jesus as Mediator of the 144,000 was now part of the"smoke of the dark ages." In our issue of 1906, p. 26, we said, "Our Lord Jesus in his own person has been the Mediator between the Father and the 'household of faith' during this Gospel Age." This statement is incorrect. No Scripture so declares. It is a part of the smoke of the dark ages which we are glad now to wipe from our eyes. The book "What Pastor Russell Said?" p. 99-100: CHURCH—Re Need of a Mediator. Q99:1 QUESTION (1907)—1—Do we as individuals need Christ as our mediator before we become members of His Body? ANSWER.—I answer that if we had needed Christ as a Mediator, then God would have provided Him as a mediator, and the fact that God did not provide Him as our mediator, proves that we do not need Him as such. The Scriptures never speak of a mediator except from the standpoint of a covenant. . . . If we are faithful we will be members of the mediator class of that new covenant. In other words, you and I are invited to become members of the mediator of the new Covenant. . . . We are under the original covenant, which required no mediator. The church does not need a mediator. This was repeated several times until Russell died, and was even kept on as official doctrine under Rutherford. It shows up in the October 15, 1921 Watch Tower, but was officially changed in the April 1, 1934 Watchtower. In time, of course (1979) it was changed to mean that ONLY the 144,000 could have Jesus as their mediator, even though up to 1974 it had finally been applied to all mankind. But the main point, related of course, was that the 144,000 are included in the sacrifice and atonement. This was taught even from the first few Watch Tower magazines. (e.g., Watch Tower September 1880, p.139). Tabernacle Shadows had said: the followers of Jesus are represented by this "Lord's goat," but also that their sacrifice, reckoned in with their Head, Jesus, constitutes part of the world's sin-offering. . . . yet even now, any member of the "Royal Priesthood" may say to those who believe and repent, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"--as did our Head, by faith looking forward, as he did, to the completion of the sacrifices for sins (p.77,100) The 144,000 were referenced in the expression "Christ and his joint-sacrificers." In the WT February 15, 1909 issue: Thus the sacrifice of Christ, Head and Body, has progressed for over eighteen centuries. We believe that the consummation is near at hand. When the High Priest shall have accepted the last member of his Body, and shall have finished the sacrificing, he will apply, beyond the vail, the blood, his own blood—the blood of his members—on the mercy-seat, on behalf of all the people. This was not just Russell of course. It was also a teaching under Rutherford until 1939, just a couple years before he died. For example, the Watch Tower in May 15, 1928, p. 147: ". . . the blood of Christ, including the body members', is presented and used to make atonement for the sins of the people." and in 1935, p. 284: "The slaying of the Lord's goat and the carrying of its blood into the holiest of all to be sprinkled on the mercy seat there foreshadowed the sacrificial death of that class who would constitute members of the body of Christ, and therefore constitute a part of Christ. . . " The essential part of this teaching still lasted through the writings under Rutherford, Knorr, and Frederick Franz: *** w51 1/15 p. 56 par. 25 Participation with Demons Forbidden *** So for the members of the body of the Christ to have ‘life in themselves’ means to share the privilege with Jesus of bestowing the benefits of his sacrificed life upon obedient mankind during the thousand years of his kingdom. They will become his heavenly bride, “the Lamb’s wife.” As such they will mother the earthly children of the “Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”, Jesus Christ. (Rev. 19:7-9; 21:9, 10; Isa. 9:6) So the “little flock”, the “bride” class, are the exclusive ones that drink the blood of the Son of man as well as feed on his flesh. *** w78 3/1 p. 10 Memorializing Christ’s Death—How Much Longer? *** It was the opportunity to gain inherent life with the Christ in the heavens, “life in yourselves.” (John 6:53) By reigning with him in heaven they could pass on to mankind the life-giving benefits of his sacrifice. Same as the 1985 edition of "Reasoning from the Scriptures:" Thus those who are granted to have "life in themselves" like Christ will share with him in imparting to mankind the life-giving benefits of the ransom sacrifice. In 1986, this expression was no longer applied just to the anointed but could include those who come out of the Millennium. (w86 2/15).

Balance is always good, and I know that's probably what you are looking for. There will be some who make note of an error (aka "bellyache") to deny the elders assigned to the GB any credibility at all, and there will be some who make note of an error (aka "bellyache") just to remind us where we should ultimately look to always find credibility. And to some, making note of any error on the part of respected elders is the equivalent of apostasy and poison. We don't disdain any older men or dismiss them for their failures, because we all fail many times, and if any of us were given the same responsibility I dare say we would fail as soon as we started. But does this mean we should not take notice of the errors of even our most respected elders? How would we know if they meet the qualification "free from accusation" if we always ignored any accusations? I think the answer is found in the Bible in just about every place where elders and those who take the lead are mentioned. We are asked not to severely criticize, but never asked not to criticize. Notice: (1 Timothy 5:17-21) 17 Let the elders who preside in a fine way be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard in speaking and teaching. 18 For the scripture says, “You must not muzzle a bull when it is threshing out the grain,” also, “The worker is worthy of his wages.” 19 Do not accept an accusation against an older man except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 20 Reprove before all onlookers those who practice sin, as a warning to the rest. 21 I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus and the chosen angels to observe these instructions without any prejudice or partiality. Paul instructs a very young elder, Timothy, to be careful about accepting an accusation against an older man, but not to ignore it, and in fact to accept it if the evidence is verifiable. So when Paul goes on to say he should "reprove before all onlookers" those who practice sin, the context is reproving "ALL" even if they be older, more respected elders. In fact, Paul adds the counsel that he needs to observe these instructions "without prejudice or partiality." What is even more interesting to me, is that the other famous time when Paul mentions counseling older men without prejudice or partiality, he is referring to reproving the "Governing Body." That's in fact, the very context of Galatians, where we teach that those highly respected elders that Paul spoke about here were the Governing Body at Jerusalem. Normally, when Paul speaks of accusing an older man, he does not speak in abusive terms, but when it comes to the Governing Body, all bets are off. Note another paraphrase of Galatians which actually reflects very accurately what Paul was conveying: (1:6-9) "There are certain people from the Governing Body at Jerusalem that are causing you trouble, and I'm surprised that you weren't able to see through the distortion. Sure, you might say, but they are the Governing Body at Jerusalem, 'Why should we question them?' Because, I say, I don't care if it's we or even an angel out of heaven speaking declaring anything different from the Biblical good news, let him be accursed. Whoever is declaring to you as good news something beyond what you accepted, let him be accursed. (1:10-20 ) Now you might say, but Paul, surely even you had to accept the authority of the Governing Body at Jerusalem, didn't you? How could you have an apostleship if the Governing Body didn't approve it? But that's not true at all! That's crazy! You think it's men whom I need the approval of, or God? You think this message I've been preaching came through the Governing Body? No! When God chose to reveal the good news to me, I did not immediately consult with any human; 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before I was, but I went to Arabia, and then I returned to Damascus. In fact, it was THREE WHOLE YEARS before I even saw ONE member of the Governing Body, Peter. And even then, I only stayed with him for two weeks. And I didn't see ANY of the other apostles, just James. I swear, I'm not lying! Nobody even got to know me around Jerusalem and Judea. (2:1-4) I never met with the Governing Body until I had already been preaching for FOURTEEN YEARS! And even then it was because I had a revelation to tell THEM. It wasn't that the Governing Body had anything useful to tell me! The whole reason I went is because the Governing Body was making a serious mistake. (Galatians 2:4-14) 4 But that matter came up because of the false brothers brought in quietly, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we enjoy in union with Christ Jesus, so that they might completely enslave us; 5 we did not yield in submission to them, no, not for a moment, so that the truth of the good news might continue with you. 6 But regarding those who seemed to be important—whatever they were makes no difference to me, for God does not go by a man’s outward appearance—those highly regarded men imparted nothing new to me. 7 On the contrary, when they . . . recognized the undeserved kindness that was given me, James and Ceʹphas and John, the ones who seemed to be pillars, gave Barʹna·bas and me the right hand of fellowship, so that we should go to the nations but they to those who are circumcised. 10 They asked only that we keep the poor in mind, and this I have also earnestly endeavored to do. 11 However, when Ceʹphas came to Antioch, I resisted him face-to-face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 For before certain men from James arrived, he used to eat with people of the nations; but when they arrived, he stopped doing this and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcised class. 13 The rest of the Jews also joined him in putting on this pretense, so that even Barʹna·bas was led along with them in their pretense. 14 But when I saw that they were not walking in step with the truth of the good news, I said to Ceʹphas . . . Of course, on the one hand we are supposed to be "imitators of Paul." But when it comes to imitating the way in which Paul found fault with the Governing Body, we would more likely hear: "Who do you think you are? The apostle Paul?" So there is probably some lesson and some balance that we are supposed to get out of this message in Galatians. But in any case, it's up to all of us as Christians to remain alert to what the respected older men are saying, because they are needed to take the lead in the example they set for the rest of us. We would never get in any trouble if they told us, this week we take the message to streetcorners, this week we take it to Russia, this week we take it from house to house, this week we give food and supplies to victims of this or that natural disaster, this week we collect coats for the homeless, soup for the unemployed, this week we will clean the Halls, this week we will meet in a convention. The primary thing to watch, just as with the Galatians, is whether the message is being distorted. (1 Timothy 6:3, 4) 3 If any man teaches another doctrine and does not agree with the wholesome instruction, which is from our Lord Jesus Christ, nor with the teaching that is in harmony with godly devotion, 4 he is puffed up with pride and does not understand anything. He is obsessed with arguments and debates about words. . . . (Titus 2:1, 2) 2 You, however, keep on speaking what is consistent with wholesome teaching. 2 Let the older men be moderate in habits, serious, sound in mind, healthy in faith, in love, in endurance. (1 Timothy 4:1, 2) 4 However, the inspired word clearly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired statements and teachings of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, whose conscience is seared as with a branding iron. (1 Timothy 3:7) 7 Moreover, he should also have a fine testimony from outsiders so that he does not fall into reproach and a snare of the Devil. etc. etc.

Another way to look at the data is to notice that the average global temperature always changed by LESS than one-tenth a degree from decade to decade for the first 100 years of recording, and for the first 50 years it was just as likely to be dropping (1880-1929) as rising. But starting in the 1914 decade, there have now been 11 decades in a row without a temperature drop in any of them. The rise was minimal, however, and the 40s, 50s, 60's, 70's were so flat (in terms of rise/fall) that they provide the effective baseline from which to measure the rest. But since the time of President Ronald Reagan and Vice-President Raymond Franz (the 1980's), the rise has consistently been MORE than a tenth of a degree from each previous decade. My iPhone weather app includes NYC, LA, Dubai, North Pole, South Pole simultaneously, and yesterday (June 7!!) it showed that it was warmer on the North Pole than in NYC. Also, the South Pole was 130 degrees colder than the North Pole.

I get it. You think the CO2 is an effect not the cause. But here's something to think about: Even though Venus is further from the sun, it's hotter than Mercury, the result of a killer greenhouse effect. The atmospheric composition is 96.5 per cent carbon dioxide. ( https://gizmodo.com/5948506/weirdly-venus-is-both-hotter-and-colder-than-earth ) Same article also states what happens on the same planet at very high places near the outskirts of the atmosphere of this planet: At 125 kilometres above the planet's surface, the weather is -175 °C with a good chance of carbon dioxide ice. It is the ice that causes the brighter regions in the atmosphere. It's much colder there than anywhere on Earth, despite the fact Venus is closer to the sun. The level of CO2 in an atmosphere is a much better predictor of average global air temperature in any planetary model than are solar cycles.

https://sfs.georgetown.edu/sfsevent/summer-film-series-2018-killing-gaza-with-max-blumenthal-and-dan-cohen/ These responses to Israeli terrorism are awful, but I wonder what Texans would do if Mexico decided to begin bulldozing Texan houses in Texas along the border and putting up houses for Mexicans where the Texans had lived, and murdering Texas journalists, so that the only news organizations to report back on what was happening were those who would be sure to side with Mexico. Â

That's the only good reason to share such "items" in the first place. I think it's why Br. Jackson himself evidently mentioned it. All of us could use a reminder now and then about where our true foundation lies. When and if a rug is pulled out from under us, we have a should have a cushion to fall back upon. That "cushion" would be our relationship with Jehovah upon whom we can throw our burdens.

That would have been either William Jackson or John (Jack) Barr, the only two GB members with other Bethelites there at the same time with the same name. Since it was chatty, it would more likely be Brother Barr. I liked them both.

I think you are right. It was around 1980. And remember that team (group) mentioned in the Awake! magazine you quoted? *** g84 4/22 pp. 22-23 MEPS—An Exciting Leap Forward in Publishing *** Industry Changes That Led to MEPS As many readers know, the publishing industry has been revolutionized by new methods of production during the past 20 years or so. Ever since the last century, operators of linotype machines turned hot, molten lead into single one-piece lines of metal type. These lines of metal type, called slugs, were then arranged into pages by a compositor. From these pages of metal type, molds were made for casting heavy lead printing plates that were used on rotary letterpresses. In the early 1960’s, by far the majority of newspapers, magazines and books were printed on letterpresses. Today practically none are. The method of printing with type produced from hot lead became obsolete almost overnight. Any factories using hot lead, if they wanted to continue printing, were soon forced to change with the industry. Thus practically all printing of newspapers, magazines and books is now done on lithographic offset presses. In January 1978, printing on rotary offset presses was begun at the headquarters printery of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York. The first publication was the color-illustrated My Book of Bible Stories. In offset printing the image to be printed is not raised as it is in letterpress, but it is on the same plane, or level, as the surface that surrounds it. This method of printing is accomplished by taking a photograph of the printed page and then using the film produced to make thin offset printing plates. To make these thin offset printing plates to produce My Book of Bible Stories and other literature published by the Watchtower Society, photographs had to be taken of proofs of linotype-produced pages. The film negatives were then merged with negatives of the pictures or illustrations. It was this slow, mechanical, prepress system of producing type from hot lead that needed to be replaced by some faster method. A group of Jehovah’s Witnesses investigated how to do this. That investigative "group" was pretty much completely disfellowshipped. T.Cabeen, R.Watters and a lot of their pressroom friends had the nerve to bring rosy reports about offset, plus the very successful experiment with the "Bible Stories" book that their same team had finished. This angered C.Chyke, R.Wheelock, M.Larson, etc. It meant that a younger generation was about to take over. By 1978, there was a bit of a backlash already, and then it also was known that Tom Cabeen, who spearheaded the offset printing work, was a good friend of R.Franz -- and B.Schroeder and T.Jaracz and G.Smalley were already gunning to get R.Franz and friends out of there after the success of the Aid Book. So as this younger group was pushing for further expansion of offset, some of the old guard wanted to prove them wrong and make some more of the biggest investments ever in letterpress. To them it would be like proving Jehovah right and proving Satan wrong. By late 1979, however, they finally took the biggest prize embarrassment (the world's largest letterpress press) off all factory tours so that no one would get a picture of it. It's mention was removed from the printed tour brochure.

Not really. You are mostly quoting what Seybold said, not IBM. The relationship with IBM soured quickly and often. One high-level IBM executive who could interface with IBM was a JW and a local brownstone-style apartment/house was made available to him. Any JWs who had worked for IBM or had programmed in Assembler on IBM Series 1 or IBM 360 equipment were invited to apply to Bethel and lived like all other Bethelites. My own brother who had no interest in applying to Bethel was asked to come in due to his work programming microprocessors and he stayed for 2.5 years. Non-JW IBM experts were called in to meet and discuss the project all along, and they were constantly frustrated by the decisions of Bethel overseers. Meanwhile there was a separate project going on up in Wallkill creating the pieces of the MEPS typesetting system. I drew up a couple of Greek fonts for it, and three years before they would ever see a part of it, I was even sent (alone) to the Athens Branch to help them set up a small pre-press facility so that they could ramp up to handling their own translating and page preparation there in Athens. One problem was that MEPS was all proprietary, and neither IBM nor IBM-trained JWs, could ever figure out how to get the IPS to talk to MEPS. After a few years either one could do a few things very well, but IPS (with IBM) faltered - and it was too expensive to get IPS to handle non-Roman fonts. MEPS, which had been assumed by many not to be the ultimate winner, was given free rein, no one to really watch over them, and the "kids" up in Wallkill made their own decisions about it. In 1977 there was already a non-working MEPS prototype up in the Factory 1 building, on the 9th floor (of an 8 story building) where the new computer department was. Wires fed down to a phototypesetting machine in a darkroom in a graphical arts department on the 8th floor. That never worked, at least not for 4 or 5 more years. But they were still able to use some of what they bought, like a large stat cameras in the darkroom had the ability to manually shine light through a negative with a font on it, which would then enlarge, one letter at a time, onto a piece of film below. So for years we could at least use it to make headlines in all kinds of fonts of any language, including Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Greek, etc. It's just that it took about 5 to 10 seconds to line up each letter. Until then, fancy fonts were done by hand -- calligraphy and calipers and French curves and Koh-I-Noor ink pens. It was Seybold, not IBM, who came in to see demonstrations after several years when the equipment became useful. They were rightfully impressed, especially by the MEPS. By 1982, after 5 years, both were useful. IPS had allowed several dozen typesetters to sit in front of terminals instead of hot lead. We were still using molten lead for some typesetting, but that phased out completely by about 1982, I think. It was better than the first commercial hit, Aldus Pagemaker, and ready two years prior. Of course, Pagemaker and other solutions were widely available in 85 and took off with the Macintosh. Much cheaper versions had already been made for Apple II, IIe, and IBM PCs, but these all suffered from pixelation, as no true raster-based fonts were integrated at that time. By continuing the work on the MEPS we never had to go with a commercial solution.

My elderly parents in Southern California have been attending their beautiful local hall for years and have been asked to go a few more miles to another hall for a few weeks while their own hall is being remodeled. Same situation. They just found out the beautiful hall is being sold and that was the reason for the remodeling. My father is still an elder but his health has now forced him to be the accounts auditor (just a second set of eyes on the accounts). And even he didn't find out the "bad" news until just a couple weeks ago, after it would be too late for the congregation to have any say. I am in the midst of helping them sell their old house and move, but they chose a new place before realizing where the new Hall would be. But it also forces some very odd meeting times, since they are squeezing 4 congregations from their original Hall into 3 nearby Halls. It seems that the new ownership of the Hall allows for decisions to be made without consulting any of the local elders of at least one of the congregations that used the Hall. Don't know if the other congregations were consulted. The year 2000 was supposed to be a big year for the organization when more experienced legal and management personnel began making financial decisions (instead of the GB who would become ecclesiastical). But according to these videos, the GB is still very much involved. But I saw first-hand in the late 70's early 80's and know experiences through the 90's that indicate some financially bad decisions were made by experienced brothers who were given their decision-making authority for their Bethel (bureaucratic) seniority, not for their minds. Brother Dean Songer was the closest they had to a mathematical mind and was sometimes called the "rocket scientist." But his decisions would be overridden by a Max Larson or Richard Wheelock or Daniel Sydlik. The younger factory overseers were the only ones who were being trained in the modern methods of printing, while some of the older decision-makers thought we should have the biggest presses in the world, but of the obsolete kind of presses they were accustomed to. Literally millions of dollars were wasted as they could never get the Behemoth to work. Then when my friends from IBM back home got brought in to Bethel in the new computer department, they claimed that it was a constant fighting match that wasted millions on bad decisions where the "spiritual" decision-maker who was put in charge (for Bethel seniority) kept using that as his leverage to throw out decisions by IBM managers who warned him of his lack of ability to manage any kind of computer project. I notice that a place in one video seems to throw Brother Sydlik under the bus for constantly quoting Psalm 50:10 and like verses to indicate that Jehovah will always provide, in spite of our mistakes. 10for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. . . . for the world is mine, and all that is in it. (NIV) I would say that these were exceptions, but I have also heard fairly good evidence that Barbara Anderson, a former accountant (prior to Bethel) and now ex-JW, was promoted to Research in Writing after exposing to Brother Don Adams that the JW construction companies they were using for windows or other supplies had been stealing hundreds of thousands from the Watchtower. She had seen the same things in her accounting job in the "world."