Awake! Magazine April 22 1970

[Jack Ryan]

from page 232 of the bound volume:

Quote

The churches are in rapid decline. Even in the United States, were religion still enjoys perhaps the greatest popularity, nearly three out of four persons polled said that it is losing influence. Why is there this decline in religion?

One of the reasons is that people are disturbed by what is happening in their churches. Yes, millions of persons have been shocked to learn that things they were taught as being vital for salvation are now considered by their church to be wrong. Have you, too, felt discouragement, or even despair, because of what is happening in your church?

A businessman in Medelling, Colombia, expressed the effect the changes have had on many.

"Tell me", he asked "how can I have confidence in anything? How can i believe in the Bible, in God, or have faith? Just ten years ago we Catholics had the absolute truth, we put all our faith in this. now the pope and our priests are telling us this is not the way to believe any more, but we are to believe "new things". How do i know the "new things" will be the truth in five years?

 

[JW Insider]

2 hours ago, Jay Witness said:

The churches are in rapid decline. Even in the United States, were religion still enjoys perhaps the greatest popularity, nearly three out of four persons polled said that it is losing influence. Why is there this decline in religion?

One of the reasons is that people are disturbed by what is happening in their churches. Yes, millions of persons have been shocked to learn that things they were taught as being vital for salvation are now considered by their church to be wrong. Have you, too, felt discouragement, or even despair, because of what is happening in your church?

A businessman in Medelling, Colombia, expressed the effect the changes have had on many.

"Tell me", he asked "how can I have confidence in anything? How can i believe in the Bible, in God, or have faith? Just ten years ago we Catholics had the absolute truth, we put all our faith in this. now the pope and our priests are telling us this is not the way to believe any more, but we are to believe "new things". How do i know the "new things" will be the truth in five years?

 

If this is in the controversial section because it looks like they misspelled the word "where" as "were," and forgot to use single quotes for quoted words inside the double quotes, and forgot the comma after the phrase "he asked," and used a lower-case "i" instead of upper-case "I," etc., then there really is no controversy. These mistakes are not in the original bound volume, nor are they in the original single issue.

Also, you can check the WT Library CD, where you can find this in the April 22, 1970 Awake! on page 8. Hopefully this will help build confidence to know that such mistakes are not in the original. Also, it might be good to know that where any errors such as these have been published in the original magazine, they have, with only few exceptions, been faithfully kept in the bound volume and the WT Library CD. There are very few such errors, but now and then you will find some, especially in the older Watchtowers and Awake!s on the CD. But they are so rare now that it you can also have confidence that the quality of these publications is not in decline.

[HollyW]

I figured it was in the controversial forum because what the article says about the Catholic church is true of the WTS also.

There could be two ways to look at it:

1. What the businessman of Medelling Columbia said about his church could very well echo what some Jehovah's Witnesses say about their church;

and/or,

2. if it's okay for the Catholic church to change what they said was the truth, it's okay for the WTS to do likewise.

No?