I was going through my inbox and deleting old e-mail when I came across one that I had forgotten about. An ex-JW friend of mine sent me a scan of a recent Watchtower publication that is causing quite a stir. It seems like the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society doesn’t want Jehovah’s Witnesses studying the Bible.
T
he September, 2007 issue of the “Kingdom Ministry” warns JWs from conducting their own study of the Scriptures and compares it to “foolish questionings.” Click on this image to see a larger version of the document so that you can read it for yourself. As you read through it (the part in the blue box), notice how independent Bible study is viewed in a negative light. If JWs want to be fed spiritually, they should read the publications of the Watchtower. Accurate knowledge comes from reading Watchtower material, but reading the Bible alone is “unprofitable and futile.”
I pray that JWs reading this edition of Kingdom Ministry will recognize how this is just plain sick.
The Watchtower is not afraid to be absurd on this one!
Yeah, this was a BIG mistake for the WT. It seems that all the WT had going for them was those trusty “internet apologists.” It will be interesting to see what happens next. I actually attended the Ministry School meeting when they discussed this article. It was one of the saddest moments of my life in realizing how enslaved these people are. But it really put things in perspective as to how JW’s think. I wrote a detailed response to the KM article that can be found here in case anyone is interested:http://apologeticfront.blogspot.com/2007/09/tightening-leash-watchtowers-attempt-to.html#links
This is a little beside the point, but I just spotted a Kingdom Hall just down the road from our place, here in South Africa. I wonder how homogeneous JW’s really are.-Randy
Randy, as one who has done triangulated, sociological research on the “unity” amongst JW’s, I can predict a very high liklihood that the only variance you will see is that they’ll all be wearing different colored ties.