TrueTomHarley

It was a question directed to JWI, not my own thought. And he says that he doesn’t think it.

It was a question directed to JWI, not my own thought. And he says that he doesn’t think it.

No. That would actually be cynical. I was only saying that the idea I mentioned would sound cynical. Instead, I was proposing that someone wrote the original with no intent of implying anything ominous or "cult-ish." The GB would have checked it and it would have sounded perfectly innocuous, because they were also on the same innocent "wavelength" as the original writer.
Then as some others read it "in print" months later, they might have noticed the negative connotation and pointed it out. So the GB had a choice to clarify, or even admit it implied an unintended overstatement. As it was in a November 15th issue, it would be studied in the following year, and would have already made the bound volume by then, so that it was too late to edit it out. Later, in the February 2017 Watchtower, perhaps they thought that the statement was mitigated by admitting there that the GB is neither inspired nor infallible, and saying that may make mistakes not only in doctrine but in directions given.
But someone might have pointed out that this could sound even worse, admitting that we must be ready to obey fallible, mistaken direction.
So, since they probably originally intended things that would be understood better at the time when such issues came up, then the matter would best be cleared up when that type of issue might soon come up. I thought that the type of direction might come up with some of the brothers suffering persecution in Russia. As a made up example, perhaps some Russian brothers might be asked to stay and keep a low profile, while others might be asked take flight to Finland and Norway. "Why go there, so far away, when it's easier for us to just move to Crimea?" some Witnesses might ask. But the direction given might have been based on data that the central HQ of the WTS receives from many sources, perhaps even secret sources, not just the local information that Russian brothers might have had before some of their communications with WTS HQ broke down.
Anyway, the Covid19 case helped show that the original statement could easily refer to important, but potentially mundane directions, and didn't have anything to do with ominous or scary blind obedience. It was still a "weak" example as Anna pointed out, too. But it does help to defuse the overreach, so the GB were happy to use it.

You moron, nothing was said of “inside information” and he didn’t “say” anything—he “estimated”—there is a difference. Moreover, you ignore the overall inference of the above remark that everyone else likely has significantly more CSA than within JW.
I’m not sure that you care about children at all. If you do, that concern is far overshadowed by your mission to run down the Witness organization. What a hateful loon!

A pretty good guess, I would imagine. I like to think that is still quite low, in view of Invisiblechild.org  reporting that 1 out of every 5 children in the US will be suffer molestation before age 18. But such will never be known for sure because practically nobody other than JWs made note of abuse cases within the membership; Witnesses did so in the spirit of Romans 2:22– to ensure that they ‘practice what you preach.’ In doing so, they produce a ‘paper trail,’ the 1000 ARC cases that nobody else produces because everybody else was content to not look.
Their vigilance is readily used against them. It is the classic example of the cynical phrase, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ Had they stuck their heads in the sand, as was the pattern elsewhere, and cried like Sergeant Shultz: “I know nothing!!” they would have fared better.
 

How about this one: ‘Go my people into your interior rooms until the denunciation passes over’ being fulfilled right now?
What with everyone partying hearty, waving the flag for Trump, or parading to scale back the police—wait to see how many drop of the pandemic before venturing forth? It may blow over in time, but you can easily get the sense that if may just escalate, ‘each one his hand at his brother’s throat’ for wearing or not wearing a mask, for wanting or not wanting to send the police packing, for the rich getting richer yet, and the poor falling off the table entirely—and pulling down the tablecloth as they go.
And that one is mine: not the GB. And, no, I am not planning a book entitled, “Rolf with me is Okay: The GB has lost their Way. I know the scriptures better than They.“
I get from you the sense that the GB sends up little trial balloons here and there to gauge the response. You think the line of ‘being obedient even if a given direction seems to make little sense from a human point of view’ one of them? I will concede that with some, it has become what for want of a better phrase I will take one from the skeptics: ‘a woo line.’
Still, it might not be that way at all. The scriptures are full of such situations. One that immediately comes to mind is that of sending the singers out front of the army and telling them they need not be prepared to do anything but stand and watch. How much sense does that make? I think they must be dumbstruck at how far certain lines of theirs go, while others fall flat on their face immediately—like the aforementioned instructions on not saving seats, or even not venturing outside the recommended hotel list during conventions. I am told that some cities have had to be abandoned as venues when exceptions to that direction proved so numerous that hotels began to not cooperate with the rooming department.
I think the GB just doesn’t want to find itself in the shoes of Lot—who’s sons-in-law thought he was joking. They want to do the biblically supported role of herding sheep. They don’t want to be overbearing, but at the same time they don’t want to be so loose and vague that they find themselves herding cats.

Dennis Christensen was to be released after serving 3 years of his sentence—there is a formula in Russia for counting each day of pre-trial detention as 1.5 days of actual time—but the Ministry of Justice has appealed. He is now in a special holding cell. He was guilty of ‘misconduct’ during his term, the MOJ charges.
He had organized an English class for fellow inmates—how bad can his ‘misconduct’ be? They are trying to break him, Watchtower HQ says, and everyone with a brain in their head knows it is so. His ‘misconduct’ was not renouncing his faith.
I couldn’t believe it when I heard of his early release. Two days later, I saw that I was right not to believe it. The reason I could not believe it is that it flew in the face of recent Russian escalation of efforts to stamp out the faith. The stiffest prison term yet had just been imposed upon sixty-one-year-old Gennady Shepakovsky. Is he not a little old for such harshness, especially when his “crime” is no more than worshipping God per the tenets of his faith? The judge of the case suggested that Jehovah’s Witnesses (there are 175,000 of them!) go to a country where their faith is “more needed.” I thought of how the prophet Amos was told exactly that by rebellious servants of the king:
“Off with you, seer, flee to the land of Judah and there earn your bread by prophesying! But never again prophesy in Bethel for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.” It is exactly how an anti-God world responds to hearing his words.
This comes directly on the heels of the MOJ appealing its own victorious verdict against another Witness because the sentence imposed was insufficiently harsh. This comes directly on the heels of another Witness having his citizenship revoked.
These penalties are unheard of—even a crime-boss does not have his citizenship revoked—the Ministry of Justice comes across as unhinged in its hatred of a faith—for that’s all these ones are—members of a faith—and everyone of sense knows it. Russian enemies are fighting Christianity, for none of these convicted ones are guilty of anything other than being Christian—and the most exemplary of Christians at that: Christians who will not kill, Christians who will not steal, lie, fall into sloth, do drugs, abuse alcohol, Christians who do more than their share to contribute to the common good.
It is possible to overplay one’s hand and in so doing provide a glimpse into a deeper reality. There is no human explanation that makes sense for such over-the-top ill-treatment. Therefore, it dawns upon some to look for a super-human explanation. At the Kingdom Hall, a weekly segment for 2 or 3 years running has been a consideration of the book, Jesus’ Life and Ministry, detailing events of his life in chronological order. Last night, his post-Passover final meeting with his disciples came up for examination. Was it to be always easy sailing for those who would stick with him?
“Men will expel you from the synagogue. In fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he has offered a sacred service to God”—Jesus’ words of John 16:1-2 were reviewed. See why Dennis is not unprepared? He has been fortified with these words all his of his life. 
He has also been fortified by Revelation 2:10: “Look! The Devil will keep on throwing some of you into prison so that you may be fully put to the test, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Prove yourself faithful even to death, and I will give you the crown of life.” It is also to be mentioned John 15: 19-21: “If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world...for this reason the world hates you.  Keep in mind the word I said to you: A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me [Jesus], they will also persecute you; if they have observed my word, they will also observe yours.  But they will do all these things against you on account of my name, because they do not know the One who sent me.”
So Dennis is not unprepared. He is bummed, no doubt—how could anyone not be? but probably not unprepared. He knows who he is battling, and it is not men. If I didn’t believe his early release, he probably didn’t, either—“not until it is in the bag,” he would have said. He knows he is up against the Devil, standing up as a test case almost like that of Job. The humans don’t matter—if one of them forgets his/her lines or has a change of heart, he is replaced by someone true to the wicked cause of a play that has not only continued from Jesus’ time but is coming to a head. A friend who has traveled to Russia tells me that the brothers there are cautious—but they have always had to be cautious. They find satisfaction in knowing that their resolute stand answers the taunts of the Wicked One before the entire world.
Of course, Dennis had no way of knowing that he would be the test case—no doubt he does not like that. Or maybe he does. You never know. Some Witness survivors of the Holocaust are on record as saying that they would not have traded away their experience if they could, for it gave them opportunity to give answer to the Devil before the world. They mirror the attitude of certain first-century Christians who, upon release from abusive treatment, went out “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy to be dishonored in behalf of [Jesus’] name. (Acts 5:41)
Is it a coincidence that the weekly Bible reading schedule that Witnesses adhere to has rolled around to Exodus chapter 5, about how Moses’s first foray to Pharaoh initially went badly for the Israelites?
‘Afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel says, ‘Send my people away so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’”... “The king of Egypt replied to them: ‘Why is it...that you are taking the people away from their work?’... That same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters and their foremen: “You must no longer give straw to the people to make bricks. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.... Make them work harder, and keep them busy so that they will not pay attention to lies.” (Exodus 5: 1-9)
“Hmm. Is there anything today that corresponds to supposedly good news being turned on its head like in Moses’s time and unexpectedly made harsh news?” I asked myself, and then I read about Dennis being shoved back into the slammer. The events even parallel in how the faithless ones back then charged that Moses had made a hash of his assignment and should have left matters alone—just as faithless ones today have charged that the Witness organization reads the situation wrongly and makes it worse for the Russian Witnesses. “They’re no Moses!” the villains will say. Maybe not, but in this case the developments could not have paralleled those of Moses more closely. In fact, the modern Russian brothers put the Israelites to shame, for the latter did blame Moses for their problems. “May Jehovah look upon you and judge, since you have made Pharaoh and his servants despise us and you have put a sword in their hand to kill us,” they accused the one assigned to deliver them. (vs 21)
“There’s something happening here—what it is ain’t exactly clear,” sings the Buffalo Springfield—50 years too soon and on the wrong stage. The fog is dissipating fast. Russia becomes the most visible nation to fight against God. “The kings of the earth take their stand, and high officials gather together as one against Jehovah and against his anointed one” (Psalm 2:2), and Russia acts as though wanting to lead the charge. You never know when a given king will read ahead and decline to play the game, for the ending bodes ill for them: “Ask of me, and I will give nations as your inheritance,” God says to his son, “and the ends of the earth as your possession. You will break them with an iron scepter, and you will smash them like a piece of pottery.” So far, though, most are adhering to script.
Matters are coming to a head—you can smell it. Is it reasonable to insist that Exodus 5 finds a parallel in today’s Russian events? No. But it’s reasonable to suggest it—just as it was reasonable to suggest that the then-scheduled Bible reading of the Assyrian army assaulting Jerusalem prepared the hearts of Russian brothers who were facing immanent ban of their organization in 2017.
Is it reasonable to look at these parallels? It hardly matters. Reason has had its day in the sun. It has been weighed in the scales and found wanting. The point of 2 Timothy 3: 1-5 is that in the last days people would forget all about reason, and a host of other stabilizing qualities. Does it seem that reason is the order of the day in light of the Covid 19 epidemic, as punctuated by protests escalating to riots as a black man’s death at the hands of police stokes mayhem around the world? Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the few—at least in my American home—who without fuss don masks. Normal meetings and methods of ministry are suspended, and it is almost as though ones are retreating to interior rooms until the denunciation passes. Anger, not reason, becomes the order of the day, and it is not so foolish to lie low.
The world is not friendly to Christian values. The persecution that Jesus guaranteed would visit his followers is not to be averted. But it can be guaranteed, as Paul said to Agrippa, that this thing will “not be done in a corner.” It will receive maximum publicity so that whoever is of good heart will be moved by it. This the Witness organization has done and continues to do.

...This post will soon be appended to the free ebook: Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses write Russia. The book is in ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ version—the only difference being that in ‘safe’ version, all quotes from Watchtower publications are redacted. Even if is the New World Translation quoting Jesus on how we must love our enemies. “Redacted for reader safety,” it will say.

Dennis Christensen was to be released after serving 3 years of his sentence—there is a formula in Russia for counting each day of pre-trial detention as 1.5 days of actual time—but the Ministry of Justice has appealed. He is now in a special holding cell. He was guilty of ‘misconduct’ during his term, the MOJ charges.
He had organized an English class for fellow inmates—how bad can his ‘misconduct’ be? They are trying to break him, Watchtower HQ says, and everyone with a brain in their head knows it is so. His ‘misconduct’ was not renouncing his faith.
I couldn’t believe it when I heard of his early release. Two days later, I saw that I was right not to believe it. The reason I could not believe it is that it flew in the face of recent Russian escalation of efforts to stamp out the faith. The stiffest prison term yet had just been imposed upon sixty-one-year-old Gennady Shepakovsky. Is he not a little old for such harshness, especially when his “crime” is no more than worshipping God per the tenets of his faith? The judge of the case suggested that Jehovah’s Witnesses (there are 175,000 of them!) go to a country where their faith is “more needed.” I thought of how the prophet Amos was told exactly that by rebellious servants of the king:
“Off with you, seer, flee to the land of Judah and there earn your bread by prophesying! But never again prophesy in Bethel for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.” It is exactly how an anti-God world responds to hearing his words.
This comes directly on the heels of the MOJ appealing its own victorious verdict against another Witness because the sentence imposed was insufficiently harsh. This comes directly on the heels of another Witness having his citizenship revoked.
These penalties are unheard of—even a crime-boss does not have his citizenship revoked—the Ministry of Justice comes across as unhinged in its hatred of a faith—for that’s all these ones are—members of a faith—and everyone of sense knows it. Russian enemies are fighting Christianity, for none of these convicted ones are guilty of anything other than being Christian—and the most exemplary of Christians at that: Christians who will not kill, Christians who will not steal, lie, fall into sloth, do drugs, abuse alcohol, Christians who do more than their share to contribute to the common good.
It is possible to overplay one’s hand and in so doing provide a glimpse into a deeper reality. There is no human explanation that makes sense for such over-the-top ill-treatment. Therefore, it dawns upon some to look for a super-human explanation. At the Kingdom Hall, a weekly segment for 2 or 3 years running has been a consideration of the book, Jesus’ Life and Ministry, detailing events of his life in chronological order. Last night, his post-Passover final meeting with his disciples came up for examination. Was it to be always easy sailing for those who would stick with him?
“Men will expel you from the synagogue. In fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he has offered a sacred service to God”—Jesus’ words of John 16:1-2 were reviewed. See why Dennis is not unprepared? He has been fortified with these words all his of his life. 
He has also been fortified by Revelation 2:10: “Look! The Devil will keep on throwing some of you into prison so that you may be fully put to the test, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Prove yourself faithful even to death, and I will give you the crown of life.” It is also to be mentioned John 15: 19-21: “If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world...for this reason the world hates you.  Keep in mind the word I said to you: A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me [Jesus], they will also persecute you; if they have observed my word, they will also observe yours.  But they will do all these things against you on account of my name, because they do not know the One who sent me.”
So Dennis is not unprepared. He is bummed, no doubt—how could anyone not be? but probably not unprepared. He knows who he is battling, and it is not men. If I didn’t believe his early release, he probably didn’t, either—“not until it is in the bag,” he would have said. He knows he is up against the Devil, standing up as a test case almost like that of Job. The humans don’t matter—if one of them forgets his/her lines or has a change of heart, he is replaced by someone true to the wicked cause of a play that has not only continued from Jesus’ time but is coming to a head. A friend who has traveled to Russia tells me that the brothers there are cautious—but they have always had to be cautious. They find satisfaction in knowing that their resolute stand answers the taunts of the Wicked One before the entire world.
Of course, Dennis had no way of knowing that he would be the test case—no doubt he does not like that. Or maybe he does. You never know. Some Witness survivors of the Holocaust are on record as saying that they would not have traded away their experience if they could, for it gave them opportunity to give answer to the Devil before the world. They mirror the attitude of certain first-century Christians who, upon release from abusive treatment, went out “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy to be dishonored in behalf of [Jesus’] name. (Acts 5:41)
Is it a coincidence that the weekly Bible reading schedule that Witnesses adhere to has rolled around to Exodus chapter 5, about how Moses’s first foray to Pharaoh initially went badly for the Israelites?
‘Afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel says, ‘Send my people away so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’”... “The king of Egypt replied to them: ‘Why is it...that you are taking the people away from their work?’... That same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters and their foremen: “You must no longer give straw to the people to make bricks. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.... Make them work harder, and keep them busy so that they will not pay attention to lies.” (Exodus 5: 1-9)
“Hmm. Is there anything today that corresponds to supposedly good news being turned on its head like in Moses’s time and unexpectedly made harsh news?” I asked myself, and then I read about Dennis being shoved back into the slammer. The events even parallel in how the faithless ones back then charged that Moses had made a hash of his assignment and should have left matters alone—just as faithless ones today have charged that the Witness organization reads the situation wrongly and makes it worse for the Russian Witnesses. “They’re no Moses!” the villains will say. Maybe not, but in this case the developments could not have paralleled those of Moses more closely. In fact, the modern Russian brothers put the Israelites to shame, for the latter did blame Moses for their problems. “May Jehovah look upon you and judge, since you have made Pharaoh and his servants despise us and you have put a sword in their hand to kill us,” they accused the one assigned to deliver them. (vs 21)
“There’s something happening here—what it is ain’t exactly clear,” sings the Buffalo Springfield—50 years too soon and on the wrong stage. The fog is dissipating fast. Russia becomes the most visible nation to fight against God. “The kings of the earth take their stand, and high officials gather together as one against Jehovah and against his anointed one” (Psalm 2:2), and Russia acts as though wanting to lead the charge. You never know when a given king will read ahead and decline to play the game, for the ending bodes ill for them: “Ask of me, and I will give nations as your inheritance,” God says to his son, “and the ends of the earth as your possession. You will break them with an iron scepter, and you will smash them like a piece of pottery.” So far, though, most are adhering to script.
Matters are coming to a head—you can smell it. Is it reasonable to insist that Exodus 5 finds a parallel in today’s Russian events? No. But it’s reasonable to suggest it—just as it was reasonable to suggest that the then-scheduled Bible reading of the Assyrian army assaulting Jerusalem prepared the hearts of Russian brothers who were facing immanent ban of their organization in 2017.
Is it reasonable to look at these parallels? It hardly matters. Reason has had its day in the sun. It has been weighed in the scales and found wanting. The point of 2 Timothy 3: 1-5 is that in the last days people would forget all about reason, and a host of other stabilizing qualities. Does it seem that reason is the order of the day in light of the Covid 19 epidemic, as punctuated by protests escalating to riots as a black man’s death at the hands of police stokes mayhem around the world? Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the few—at least in my American home—who without fuss don masks. Normal meetings and methods of ministry are suspended, and it is almost as though ones are retreating to interior rooms until the denunciation passes. Anger, not reason, becomes the order of the day, and it is not so foolish to lie low.
The world is not friendly to Christian values. The persecution that Jesus guaranteed would visit his followers is not to be averted. But it can be guaranteed, as Paul said to Agrippa, that this thing will “not be done in a corner.” It will receive maximum publicity so that whoever is of good heart will be moved by it. This the Witness organization has done and continues to do.

...This post will soon be appended to the free ebook: Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses write Russia. The book is in ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ version—the only difference being that in ‘safe’ version, all quotes from Watchtower publications are redacted. Even if is the New World Translation quoting Jesus on how we must love our enemies. “Redacted for reader safety,” it will say.

Dennis Christensen was to be released after serving 3 years of his sentence—there is a formula in Russia for counting each day of pre-trial detention as 1.5 days of actual time—but the Ministry of Justice has appealed. He is now in a special holding cell. He was guilty of ‘misconduct’ during his term, the MOJ charges.
He had organized an English class for fellow inmates—how bad can his ‘misconduct’ be? They are trying to break him, Watchtower HQ says, and everyone with a brain in their head knows it is so. His ‘misconduct’ was not renouncing his faith.
I couldn’t believe it when I heard of his early release. Two days later, I saw that I was right not to believe it. The reason I could not believe it is that it flew in the face of recent Russian escalation of efforts to stamp out the faith. The stiffest prison term yet had just been imposed upon sixty-one-year-old Gennady Shepakovsky. Is he not a little old for such harshness, especially when his “crime” is no more than worshipping God per the tenets of his faith? The judge of the case suggested that Jehovah’s Witnesses (there are 175,000 of them!) go to a country where their faith is “more needed.” I thought of how the prophet Amos was told exactly that by rebellious servants of the king:
“Off with you, seer, flee to the land of Judah and there earn your bread by prophesying! But never again prophesy in Bethel for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.” It is exactly how an anti-God world responds to hearing his words.
This comes directly on the heels of the MOJ appealing its own victorious verdict against another Witness because the sentence imposed was insufficiently harsh. This comes directly on the heels of another Witness having his citizenship revoked.
These penalties are unheard of—even a crime-boss does not have his citizenship revoked—the Ministry of Justice comes across as unhinged in its hatred of a faith—for that’s all these ones are—members of a faith—and everyone of sense knows it. Russian enemies are fighting Christianity, for none of these convicted ones are guilty of anything other than being Christian—and the most exemplary of Christians at that: Christians who will not kill, Christians who will not steal, lie, fall into sloth, do drugs, abuse alcohol, Christians who do more than their share to contribute to the common good.
It is possible to overplay one’s hand and in so doing provide a glimpse into a deeper reality. There is no human explanation that makes sense for such over-the-top ill-treatment. Therefore, it dawns upon some to look for a super-human explanation. At the Kingdom Hall, a weekly segment for 2 or 3 years running has been a consideration of the book, Jesus’ Life and Ministry, detailing events of his life in chronological order. Last night, his post-Passover final meeting with his disciples came up for examination. Was it to be always easy sailing for those who would stick with him?
“Men will expel you from the synagogue. In fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he has offered a sacred service to God”—Jesus’ words of John 16:1-2 were reviewed. See why Dennis is not unprepared? He has been fortified with these words all his of his life. 
He has also been fortified by Revelation 2:10: “Look! The Devil will keep on throwing some of you into prison so that you may be fully put to the test, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Prove yourself faithful even to death, and I will give you the crown of life.” It is also to be mentioned John 15: 19-21: “If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world...for this reason the world hates you.  Keep in mind the word I said to you: A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me [Jesus], they will also persecute you; if they have observed my word, they will also observe yours.  But they will do all these things against you on account of my name, because they do not know the One who sent me.”
So Dennis is not unprepared. He is bummed, no doubt—how could anyone not be? but probably not unprepared. He knows who he is battling, and it is not men. If I didn’t believe his early release, he probably didn’t, either—“not until it is in the bag,” he would have said. He knows he is up against the Devil, standing up as a test case almost like that of Job. The humans don’t matter—if one of them forgets his/her lines or has a change of heart, he is replaced by someone true to the wicked cause of a play that has not only continued from Jesus’ time but is coming to a head. A friend who has traveled to Russia tells me that the brothers there are cautious—but they have always had to be cautious. They find satisfaction in knowing that their resolute stand answers the taunts of the Wicked One before the entire world.
Of course, Dennis had no way of knowing that he would be the test case—no doubt he does not like that. Or maybe he does. You never know. Some Witness survivors of the Holocaust are on record as saying that they would not have traded away their experience if they could, for it gave them opportunity to give answer to the Devil before the world. They mirror the attitude of certain first-century Christians who, upon release from abusive treatment, went out “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy to be dishonored in behalf of [Jesus’] name. (Acts 5:41)
Is it a coincidence that the weekly Bible reading schedule that Witnesses adhere to has rolled around to Exodus chapter 5, about how Moses’s first foray to Pharaoh initially went badly for the Israelites?
‘Afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel says, ‘Send my people away so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’”... “The king of Egypt replied to them: ‘Why is it...that you are taking the people away from their work?’... That same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters and their foremen: “You must no longer give straw to the people to make bricks. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.... Make them work harder, and keep them busy so that they will not pay attention to lies.” (Exodus 5: 1-9)
“Hmm. Is there anything today that corresponds to supposedly good news being turned on its head like in Moses’s time and unexpectedly made harsh news?” I asked myself, and then I read about Dennis being shoved back into the slammer. The events even parallel in how the faithless ones back then charged that Moses had made a hash of his assignment and should have left matters alone—just as faithless ones today have charged that the Witness organization reads the situation wrongly and makes it worse for the Russian Witnesses. “They’re no Moses!” the villains will say. Maybe not, but in this case the developments could not have paralleled those of Moses more closely. In fact, the modern Russian brothers put the Israelites to shame, for the latter did blame Moses for their problems. “May Jehovah look upon you and judge, since you have made Pharaoh and his servants despise us and you have put a sword in their hand to kill us,” they accused the one assigned to deliver them. (vs 21)
“There’s something happening here—what it is ain’t exactly clear,” sings the Buffalo Springfield—50 years too soon and on the wrong stage. The fog is dissipating fast. Russia becomes the most visible nation to fight against God. “The kings of the earth take their stand, and high officials gather together as one against Jehovah and against his anointed one” (Psalm 2:2), and Russia acts as though wanting to lead the charge. You never know when a given king will read ahead and decline to play the game, for the ending bodes ill for them: “Ask of me, and I will give nations as your inheritance,” God says to his son, “and the ends of the earth as your possession. You will break them with an iron scepter, and you will smash them like a piece of pottery.” So far, though, most are adhering to script.
Matters are coming to a head—you can smell it. Is it reasonable to insist that Exodus 5 finds a parallel in today’s Russian events? No. But it’s reasonable to suggest it—just as it was reasonable to suggest that the then-scheduled Bible reading of the Assyrian army assaulting Jerusalem prepared the hearts of Russian brothers who were facing immanent ban of their organization in 2017.
Is it reasonable to look at these parallels? It hardly matters. Reason has had its day in the sun. It has been weighed in the scales and found wanting. The point of 2 Timothy 3: 1-5 is that in the last days people would forget all about reason, and a host of other stabilizing qualities. Does it seem that reason is the order of the day in light of the Covid 19 epidemic, as punctuated by protests escalating to riots as a black man’s death at the hands of police stokes mayhem around the world? Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the few—at least in my American home—who without fuss don masks. Normal meetings and methods of ministry are suspended, and it is almost as though ones are retreating to interior rooms until the denunciation passes. Anger, not reason, becomes the order of the day, and it is not so foolish to lie low.
The world is not friendly to Christian values. The persecution that Jesus guaranteed would visit his followers is not to be averted. But it can be guaranteed, as Paul said to Agrippa, that this thing will “not be done in a corner.” It will receive maximum publicity so that whoever is of good heart will be moved by it. This the Witness organization has done and continues to do.

...This post will soon be appended to the free ebook: Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses write Russia. The book is in ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ version—the only difference being that in ‘safe’ version, all quotes from Watchtower publications are redacted. Even if is the New World Translation quoting Jesus on how we must love our enemies. “Redacted for reader safety,” it will say.

You moron, nothing was said of “inside information” and he didn’t “say” anything—he “estimated”—there is a difference. Moreover, you ignore the overall inference of the above remark that everyone else likely has significantly more CSA than within JW.
I’m not sure that you care about children at all. If you do, that concern is far overshadowed by your mission to run down the Witness organization. What a hateful loon!

A pretty good guess, I would imagine. I like to think that is still quite low, in view of Invisiblechild.org  reporting that 1 out of every 5 children in the US will be suffer molestation before age 18. But such will never be known for sure because practically nobody other than JWs made note of abuse cases within the membership; Witnesses did so in the spirit of Romans 2:22– to ensure that they ‘practice what you preach.’ In doing so, they produce a ‘paper trail,’ the 1000 ARC cases that nobody else produces because everybody else was content to not look.
Their vigilance is readily used against them. It is the classic example of the cynical phrase, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ Had they stuck their heads in the sand, as was the pattern elsewhere, and cried like Sergeant Shultz: “I know nothing!!” they would have fared better.
 

So much can go wrong with trying to read too much into the numbers. Even if there is a database of 12,000 or more pedophiles, this does not mean that all of them were found to be actively committing crimes in the congregation. A big reason for such a database is clearly to keep a lookout for danger even if the person had been convicted or suspected long before becoming a Witness. Some were probably cases of incest, and crimes of opportunity, where the children are no longer in direct danger after they leave the household. (And this is another reason why the WTS would want to protect the privacy of such a database.) Many of the persons involved are likely dead by now. Remember that the brother who estimated this percentage was giving a rough estimate, not of how many are currently in the congregations, but the number that a typical congregation might "have had." If it was 1% over a period of a couple decades, then I would suspect it's more reasonable to conclude that there was another 1% or so who got away with it. But even here, we are talking about a period of decades, not a current number.
Recently, closer attention to the subject has helped to drive down the opportunities. It has helped parents stay more alert and better equipped to protect their children. I think you remember that years ago, on this forum, I complained that the WTS had not yet done nearly enough to change the process and the basic direction of the way such crimes were treated. In the last year, I have explained that I agree with the current direction. I have seen important changes to these processes, and important changes to the basic direction of the judicial focus. (There is no longer an implied element of protecting the reputation of the congregation, and the focus has shifted almost completely to the protection of children, and recognizing that the shame is on the perpetrator and no one else.) I am satisfied that the WTS did about as much as it was possible to do for now, and that most of the current issues are carry-overs from prior to these last changes.

You moron, nothing was said of “inside information” and he didn’t “say” anything—he “estimated”—there is a difference. Moreover, you ignore the overall inference of the above remark that everyone else likely has significantly more CSA than within JW.
I’m not sure that you care about children at all. If you do, that concern is far overshadowed by your mission to run down the Witness organization. What a hateful loon!

A pretty good guess, I would imagine. I like to think that is still quite low, in view of Invisiblechild.org  reporting that 1 out of every 5 children in the US will be suffer molestation before age 18. But such will never be known for sure because practically nobody other than JWs made note of abuse cases within the membership; Witnesses did so in the spirit of Romans 2:22– to ensure that they ‘practice what you preach.’ In doing so, they produce a ‘paper trail,’ the 1000 ARC cases that nobody else produces because everybody else was content to not look.
Their vigilance is readily used against them. It is the classic example of the cynical phrase, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ Had they stuck their heads in the sand, as was the pattern elsewhere, and cried like Sergeant Shultz: “I know nothing!!” they would have fared better.
 

A pretty good guess, I would imagine. I like to think that is still quite low, in view of Invisiblechild.org  reporting that 1 out of every 5 children in the US will be suffer molestation before age 18. But such will never be known for sure because practically nobody other than JWs made note of abuse cases within the membership; Witnesses did so in the spirit of Romans 2:22– to ensure that they ‘practice what you preach.’ In doing so, they produce a ‘paper trail,’ the 1000 ARC cases that nobody else produces because everybody else was content to not look.
Their vigilance is readily used against them. It is the classic example of the cynical phrase, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ Had they stuck their heads in the sand, as was the pattern elsewhere, and cried like Sergeant Shultz: “I know nothing!!” they would have fared better.
 

I don’t know why this is so hard. Nobody gets everything they want. The U.S. political system of calling the leader of the other party a jerk works so well that he wants to bring it into the congregation.

He didn’t really introduce a sect, did he? He just blasted away at the existing arrangement so someone else could introduce a sect to fill the vacuum he created.

I don’t dare cross @Arauna

Here’s one of them:
 

I don’t dare cross @Arauna

I wonder if the yo-yo has taken to plastering a ‘Question Authority’ bumper sticker on his Yugo. Probably not, because there is only one authority that he cares about—unless he has modified it to: “Question GB Authority.” This will cause all his neighbors to think he is nuts, but perhaps they already think it.
You don’t have to question authority on every piddly little thing—that’s why the world is chaotic and most of what is done is quickly undone.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (He wrote books, 4Jah, he was a writer, he goes on and on and on, and sometimes readers tire after a paragraph or two because he doesn’t slam the Governing Body and place a laughing emoji at chaper’s end) wrote of Hester Prynne, that “It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.“ Nobody speculates more boldly about this world than Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Hawthorne didn’t say it, but the opposite is also true. This who cannot conform with the most most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society tend to be the most timid of all.
(Now watch him go ballistic that I have attributed a Yugo to him—a sly JW trick he knows well, he will say.   )

Not only was it a good try—it knocked the ball out of the park.
With a certain type of hyperbolic person, sarcasm is well-nigh irresistible. It may be the ‘language of the Devil’ but there are certain times when it is exactly the way to go.

It’s true. With Zoom, I thought I could get away without wearing a tie. When the speaker noticed it, he told the cable company to cancel my ISP, and now I have to communicate through smoke signals.  I had imagined that the beard I have grown would have covered up the lack of tie, but no such l**k.
On the other hand, it might have been the Farmer Mort pants my wife has taken to wearing.

I wonder if the yo-yo has taken to plastering a ‘Question Authority’ bumper sticker on his Yugo. Probably not, because there is only one authority that he cares about—unless he has modified it to: “Question GB Authority.” This will cause all his neighbors to think he is nuts, but perhaps they already think it.
You don’t have to question authority on every piddly little thing—that’s why the world is chaotic and most of what is done is quickly undone.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (He wrote books, 4Jah, he was a writer, he goes on and on and on, and sometimes readers tire after a paragraph or two because he doesn’t slam the Governing Body and place a laughing emoji at chaper’s end) wrote of Hester Prynne, that “It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.“ Nobody speculates more boldly about this world than Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Hawthorne didn’t say it, but the opposite is also true. This who cannot conform with the most most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society tend to be the most timid of all.
(Now watch him go ballistic that I have attributed a Yugo to him—a sly JW trick he knows well, he will say.   )

Not only was it a good try—it knocked the ball out of the park.
With a certain type of hyperbolic person, sarcasm is well-nigh irresistible. It may be the ‘language of the Devil’ but there are certain times when it is exactly the way to go.