Ann O'Maly

Sorry meant Watchtower authored. Thanks for the correction. 
None of the books I listed were published by the Watchtower Society.

There will likely be more prosecutions in the aftermath of the ARC, @Barbara Snook. This is a good thing. This former JW may have been targeting 'worldly' children since he left the Org. Other unreported molesters may still be active members of congregations. Former JW or current JW, what has been hidden is coming to light and, if convicted, the community should be that little bit safer.
Also, if you really don't like these kinds of news stories - and the thread title was sufficiently clear on what it was about - then choose not to read them! 

I missed this part of your earlier post. You do realize that 5 of the books you list ......  
Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation  Jesus God or the Son of God Trinitys Weak Links Revealed Concepts of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit  Chronicles of the Unholy Fathers ... were written by JWs?
As a general point about your list, I suggest you go through each book and each of your favorite claims in those books and consider:
"Before trusting it, ask: (1) Who published this material? What are the author’s credentials? (2) Why was this published? What motivated the writer? Is there any bias? (3) Where did the author get the information? Does he supply sources that can be checked? (4) Is the information current?" - Watchtower, 8/15/2011, p.4
Many of the older works which allege various pagan connections to Christian beliefs and practices (especially if targeting the Catholic church), are derived from Hislop's book.
You may find this thread helpful as a case in point of how poor sources and ideas can be recycled and perpetuated so that one thinks a piece of information has been independently verified by lots of different people, when actually it traces back to just one author.
Then you'll be able to weed out the dodgy research and use that which is more solidly grounded.  

Don't remember that Hislop himself recanted, although a huge portion of his work has been debunked. But there have been persons who spent years promoting and repackaging his work, who have since apologized and recanted after realizing through more serious research that they had been duped.
The Watchtower stopped citing him directly based on some information that came to light in researching the Aid Book, which was published in 1972. The Watchtower was supposed to stop quoting him after that, but one article slipped through around Christmas in 1978. Fred Rusk was the Watchtower Editor at the time and didn't let it happen again. (The Awake! had a different editor, Colin Q., and let a couple more Hislop references get through into the mid-1980's.)
Unfortunately, Hislop's work had already seeped into some Bible commentaries, including some of  the favorite ones that the Watchtower has especially depended on from the late 1800's, and which we still quote from now and then. This has allowed some of Hislop's debunked ideas to get quoted indirectly. 

It would be nice to see a discussion of Trinity or one of it's sub-topics without so much diversion into topics about the phoenix bird, war, fish, and the pope's clothes. Someone said something about the phoenix and then someone else goes off on a tangent about how the word might have been translated in the LXX???? 
Oh wait. That was me. Sorry.
I usually stay out of Trinity discussions lately because I'm not very good at staying on topic.
I have seen well-organized, well-written topics started on related subjects though. Such as a topic about how the Bible writers spoke about the holy spirit, and why it appears to be treated as a person. As I recall, hardly anyone responded at all. Maybe because it wasn't worded as a question, and most people who share in discussions here already knew what the poster thought.
Here, Cos has asked a question, and the answers and responses range from mature to childish, some points are excellent and some are completely off-topic.
Rather than add to the discussion as it is, I would just like to clarify something I added earlier.
I don't know whether the earliest manuscripts of Job or the earliest LXX mentioned the phoenix bird. If it did, it does not necessarily mean that it was a real animal anyway. Apparently the book of Job makes use of references to symbolic animals or uses some "poetic license" and might even reference folklore. Getting off-topic, we claim that Jesus was doing the same when he drew on the common Jewish beliefs about life-after-death when he spoke of the "rich man and Lazarus." Perhaps this was no different than making a point while telling a humorous story that starts out: "A rabbi and a priest and a beggar all die at the same time and they are all standing at the Golden Gates in front of Saint Peter . . . ."  [How's that for a diversion!]
I personally doubt that the book of Job ever intended to refer to the phoenix bird, and I doubt that there is enough evidence to show that the LXX originally had a reference to such a bird in this place. Once something is believed to be true, it's easy enough to go searching for proof texts to support it. But we can't rely on human translators, and we can't rely even on learned rabbis from any century in history to tell us anything definitive. A lot of very good and interesting material comes out of their commentary and a lot of really stupid stuff is there too.
I like to imagine that we fretted over certain specific lines in the Bible for years, and maybe even "spilled a ton of ink" over it, and then we have an opportunity someday to ask Job what he meant here. I imagine he might laugh and say something that we would not have thought of in a million years:
"A 'phoenix bird'? That's what you thought I meant? No. A 'phoenix' was the name my Egyptian friend always called this big, loud annoying bug, a special kind of cicada that flew up from Egypt. We called it the Nile bug, and some people have now called it the '17-year locust.' You see, it disappears for 17 years and then keeps coming back. I wasn't talking about resurrection, anyway, just the fact that I always thought that I might live a long and comfortable life and if anyone tried to get rid of me, I'd always come back; I'd always be there.  Since the topic is really about Trinity, I'll divert my attention to that topic for a minute. I don't think it's fair to say that Arians didn't appear until the 4th century. I don't think it's fair to tie a fish symbol to Egyptian hieroglyphics (or to imply that Christians should be under Jewish laws about the use of graphics and symbols. I don't think it's fair to say that a word must appear in the Bible before we can discuss whether the teaching is there. There is no mention of the word Neutrality, yet we have a Neutrality doctrine. Someone already mentioned that the term "Governing Body" is not in the Bible. For that matter there is no "Seven Gentile Times" either, and yet some Witnesses pretty much treat some of these teachings as if they are the central doctrines of the Witnesses.
bruceq mentions that he has no problem saying Jesus is God (with a capital G). Not every JW would agree, but this is a good starting point, since we have some potential common ground to begin a serious discussion about Trinity without just "fighting about words." A lot of Trinitarians who put too much emphasis on a specific definition of Trinity would be happy to understand that we have a lot of good, Scriptural backing for our belief. On the subject of capital letters, I wondered how the NWT in German would get around the fact that, grammatically, it MUST put a capital G on "god" or any noun, even a "falsch Gott."
(John/Johannes 1:1, NWT German/Deutsch) Im Anfang war das WORT, und das WORT war bei GOTT, und das WORT war ein Gott.
Anyway, I'm not disciplined enough as a poster to try to get too involved in this conversation, but for the most part I'm enjoying it. Thanks.

@Allen Smith - most can see through the sensationalist language used, but it is reporting a true story.
How naive are you?
Victim: "I was attacked and beaten, and I have life-changing injuries which will require therapy for the rest of my life!"
Allen: "You are very brave to speak up. There, there. Now don't you feel better?"
Victim: "So is my attacker to be penalized for what he did?"
Allen: "You having a voice is enough. On your way."
"Some here claim"? Hahaha. This is what Watchtower Australia claimed - they categorized the 1006 cases as child sexual abuse allegations. (Idiot.)
 

JWs already believe that God is not triune. The argument is a rhetoric device used by JWs on those they are evangelizing. But there are some Christians who have come to the conclusion, based on Scripture, that God is not a Trinity. One notable example is Patrick Navas - https://truthmattersradio.wordpress.com/tag/patrick-navas/
As I say, the doctrine was a work-in-progress. Certainly before Tertullian, the ANFs tended to be Binitarian. The whole debate centered on the divinity of Christ, his ontological relationship with and his derivation from the Father. The reason I asked was because you seemed to be asserting something without giving anything in support and I wondered what you had in mind.
 

Baloney. 
 

Baloney. 
 

Classic! 
Anyway, the picture is actually a record of this event:
 
 

The full statement from the transcript:
MR O'BRIEN: Because that is the policy. But again, as
I think I pointed out in my evidence, and I think
Mr Jackson did as well, here we're talking about somebody
who is of an age where they have qualified for baptism, so
they are somebody who is either approaching adulthood or an
adult, making that decision, understanding the implications
of choosing either to disassociate themselves, knowing the
consequences will be shunning, or simply ceasing activity
with the congregation but not taking the stand of
disassociation. So it is a choice on the part of the
person. - Transcript, Day 259, p. 26539
O'Brien lumps together the age for having been qualified for baptism with someone who is an adult or approaching adulthood and then making the decision to disassociate. It does give the impression that he is referring to an adult or near-adult who qualifies for baptism. If that isn't what he meant, he worded it poorly. However, to qualify for baptism a person studies the Organized book which would include the part about 'Disassociation.' But would a naive, true-believer 10-year old really absorb the implications of how the 'disassociation rules' would affect them personally once they were dunked? I wonder.
And the question asked at the ARC remains a good one: 
"Why is it necessary, when
someone feels that they can no longer abide the
organisation and has to disassociate - why is it necessary
to shun them? Why can't they keep having social contact
with those people who happen to remain in the organisation?"
 

On the 10th of this month, the Australia Royal Commission held Case 54 which was a review of the responses of Jehovah’s Witnesses to the Commission’s findings.  The representatives from the Australia branch swore on the Bible “to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.  Did they comply with this solemn oath before God?  You be the judge after watching this video:
 

That is not a Kingdom Hall.  

President Donald Trump Attends Inauguration National Prayer Service ...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQGUYlB1aUs   Traduire cette page 168 × 94 - 21 janv. 2017 - January 21, 2017 C-SPAN News http://MOXNews.com President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and their families attended the ...   FNN: President Donald Trump Attends National Prayer Service at ...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCnYchWoIEY   Traduire cette page 1280 × 720 - 21 janv. 2017 - President Donald Trump opened his first full day as president Saturday at a national prayer service, the final piece of transition business for the ...   President Donald Trump attends National Prayer Service. Jan 21 ...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_o4vxBqHKo   Traduire cette page 168 × 94 - 21 janv. 2017 - President Donald Trump. National Prayer Service. Jan 21. 2017. Washington National Cathedral. President Donald Trump speech. President ...   January 21, 2009: National Prayer Service in Celebration of the Fifty ...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6wNARsXkj8   Traduire cette page 168 × 94 - 13 mars 2016 - SERVICE LEAFLET: http://cathedral.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/20090121InauguralPrayerServiceBarackObama.pdf National Prayer ...   LIVE Stream: President Trump Attends National Prayer Service - ALiPAC
  -------------------------------------------
It is not a Kingdom Hall....
 

Oh no, not another one! A friend of mine sent me the first fake news about Trump offering the Witnesses asylum. This is how our conversation on messenger went:
Me (initial enthusiasm): "Wow! Thank you for sharing"!
(10 minutes later) "I am finding out that now that this may be fake news"
Friend: "What makes you think so?"
Me:This has been posted 5 days ago already and anything Trump says is reported on other news sites and so far I have not found anything about it at all in any of the serious news sites. This website looks untrustworthy. If there is anything else I find out about it I will let you know
Friend: OK
Friend next day: I just found out that it's not fake mail. Trumps son in law married to Ivanka , he handled the sale of the New York properties. He spent a great deal of time at Bethel and knows what J.W.s is all about. I think they bought some of the properties in Brooklyn. That came from the N.Y. News paper. FYI.
Me: What came from the N.Y. news paper?
Friend: The fake mail. It's not fake
Me:So the report about Trump warning Russia about banning Witnesses and giving Witnesses asylum in the States you read in a N.Y. news paper?
Friend:I didn't read it. One of our brothers let our friend know about it. We know friends in Bethel. They keep in touch. That article about trump was real news.
Me: Ok, could you please ask them which news paper was it. I'm just interested. Thanks
Friend: OK
Needless to say she never got back to me about that, but sent other news articles (this time from reputable news sites) unrelated to this Trump thing, but related to the Witnesses in Russia.
I am just posting our conversation as an example of how some of us get easily sucked into this kind of thing. "I have friends who have friends who know friends in Bethel and they said...she said" kind of thing. But there is absolutely no concrete evidence for anything...Perhaps this is good in a sense that we can all learn not to be hasty in accepting "news", or anything for that matter until we have solid evidence it is true. Although the Bible itself gives that very advice, we still seem to have a hard time applying it, as we have seen with the plethora of fake news surrounding the Witnesses in Russia, which friends were spreading as supposed "facts".
 

I think the man with the loudspeaker is walking up and down past the hospital building rapping and beatboxing at the top of his voice, but really, really badly, and he won't shut up. He's been going at it for 5 hours straight and believes his new composition is the best he's done yet so he wants the exposure. Meanwhile inside, a mother and child are in great distress - see the child is crying. This contributes to the awful din being heard inside the hospital, so much so, that the patients and hospital staff are getting severe headaches. Everyone is in a state of high anxiety. To throw off all that anxiety, throw things at the man.
Hope that helps.

Why banning the Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t work for Russia
BY EMILY B. BARAN APRIL 20TH 2017 The Supreme Court of Russia has a decision to make this week about whether to label the Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organization and liquidate its assets. This act would transform the religious community into a criminal network, and make individual Witnesses vulnerable to arrest simply for speaking about their faith with others. While the court case has attracted recent media attention, this move is the culmination of two decades of increasing state hostility to Witnesses. In the late 1990s, Moscow took the Witnesses to court to deny them legal standing in the city limits. After several years of court hearings, the city banned the organization. In more recent years, anti-extremism laws drafted in the wake of domestic terrorism have been turned against Witness magazines and books. Currently, over eighty publications have been placed on the federal list of extremist materials. Even their website is now illegal. So is My Book of Bible Stories, an illustrated book for children, listed alongside publications by terrorist organizations.
If the state criminalizes the Witnesses, it will represent a major deterioration in religious toleration in post-Soviet Russia. It will also put Russia at odds with the European Court of Human Rights, which has repeatedly ruled in favor of the Witnesses in the past two decades. It may make other minority faiths vulnerable to similar legal challenges. In the 1990s, scholars spoke of a newly opened religious marketplace, in which post-Soviet citizens, freed from the constraints of state-enforced atheism, shopped around among the faith traditions. It is fair to say that these days, this marketplace has fewer customers, fewer stalls, and more regulations.
If history is any guide, Russia will find it nearly impossible to eliminate Jehovah’s Witnesses. Soviet dissident author Vladimir Bukovsky once admiringly wrote of the Witnesses’ legendary persistence under ban. When the Soviet Union barred religious literature from crossing its borders, Witnesses set up underground bunkers to print illegal magazines for their congregations. When Soviet officials prohibited Witnesses from hosting religious services, they gathered in small groups in their apartments, often in the middle of the night. Sometimes they snuck away to nearby woods or out onto the vast steppe, where they could meet with less scrutiny. When the state told believers that they could not evangelize their faith to others, Witnesses chatted up their neighbors, coworkers, and friends. When these actions landed them in labor camps, Witnesses sought out converts among their fellow prisoners. Witnesses are certain to revive many of these tactics if placed in similar circumstances in the future.
Moreover, technology makes it far more difficult for Russia to control the religious practices of its citizens. Although the Witnesses’ official website is no longer available in Russia, individual members can easily share religious literature through email or dozens of other social media platforms and apps. While Soviet Witnesses had to write coded reports and hand-deliver them through an underground courier network, Witnesses today can text this information in seconds. Technology will also facilitate meeting times for religious services in private homes.
The Russian government simply does not have the manpower to enforce its own ban. It is hard to imagine that local officials could effectively prevent over 170,000 people across more than 2,000 congregations from gathering together multiple times per week, as Witnesses do worldwide. The case of Taganrog is instructive. Several hundred Witnesses lived there in 2009, when the city declared the organization illegal. A few years later, it convicted sixteen Witnesses for ignoring the ban and continuing to gather their congregations for services. The state spent over a year in investigations and court hearings for sixteen people, a tiny fraction of the total congregation, and then suspended the sentences and fines rather than waste more resources in following through on its punishment guidelines. There are not enough police officers in Russia to monitor the daily activities of each and every Witness, and the Witnesses know it. Under a ban, everyone will face more scrutiny, a few will be dealt more serious consequences, and most will continue practicing their faith regardless.
Russia may nonetheless decide that all of this conflict is worth it. After all, Soviet officials were fairly successful in relegating Witnesses to the margins of society. Few Russians will complain if Witnesses no longer come to knock on their door. After all, even Americans rarely have kind words for religious missionaries at their own doorsteps. In my own research, I have never heard a single Russian, other than a scholar, say anything positive about Witnesses. For the record, my experience with Americans has been similar. On a more basic level, Russian citizens may not even notice the Witnesses’ absence from public life. While the post-Soviet period saw a religious revival for all faiths, far fewer joined the Witnesses than the Russian Orthodox Church. For all their recent growth in membership, the Witnesses remain a tiny minority in a largely secular society.
The vocal determination of Witnesses not to acquiesce to state demands should not cause observers to overlook the very real damage a ban would do to this community. Yes, Witnesses have faced similar challenges before and have dealt with them. For decades, they held their baptisms in local rivers and lakes under cover of night. In the post-Soviet period, new members were finally able to celebrate their baptisms in full view of their fellow believers at public conventions. A long-time Witness who attended one of these events in the early 1990s recalled, “What happiness, what freedom!” A new ban would mean a return to this underground life, to a hushed ceremony in cold waters. This is not what freedom of conscience looks like in modern states.
Emily B. Baran is the author of Dissent on the Margins: How Jehovah’s Witnesses Defied Communism and Lived to Preach About It. Her work explores the shifting contours of dissent and freedom in the Soviet Union and its successor states. She is Assistant Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University.

Why banning the Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t work for Russia
BY EMILY B. BARAN APRIL 20TH 2017 The Supreme Court of Russia has a decision to make this week about whether to label the Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organization and liquidate its assets. This act would transform the religious community into a criminal network, and make individual Witnesses vulnerable to arrest simply for speaking about their faith with others. While the court case has attracted recent media attention, this move is the culmination of two decades of increasing state hostility to Witnesses. In the late 1990s, Moscow took the Witnesses to court to deny them legal standing in the city limits. After several years of court hearings, the city banned the organization. In more recent years, anti-extremism laws drafted in the wake of domestic terrorism have been turned against Witness magazines and books. Currently, over eighty publications have been placed on the federal list of extremist materials. Even their website is now illegal. So is My Book of Bible Stories, an illustrated book for children, listed alongside publications by terrorist organizations.
If the state criminalizes the Witnesses, it will represent a major deterioration in religious toleration in post-Soviet Russia. It will also put Russia at odds with the European Court of Human Rights, which has repeatedly ruled in favor of the Witnesses in the past two decades. It may make other minority faiths vulnerable to similar legal challenges. In the 1990s, scholars spoke of a newly opened religious marketplace, in which post-Soviet citizens, freed from the constraints of state-enforced atheism, shopped around among the faith traditions. It is fair to say that these days, this marketplace has fewer customers, fewer stalls, and more regulations.
If history is any guide, Russia will find it nearly impossible to eliminate Jehovah’s Witnesses. Soviet dissident author Vladimir Bukovsky once admiringly wrote of the Witnesses’ legendary persistence under ban. When the Soviet Union barred religious literature from crossing its borders, Witnesses set up underground bunkers to print illegal magazines for their congregations. When Soviet officials prohibited Witnesses from hosting religious services, they gathered in small groups in their apartments, often in the middle of the night. Sometimes they snuck away to nearby woods or out onto the vast steppe, where they could meet with less scrutiny. When the state told believers that they could not evangelize their faith to others, Witnesses chatted up their neighbors, coworkers, and friends. When these actions landed them in labor camps, Witnesses sought out converts among their fellow prisoners. Witnesses are certain to revive many of these tactics if placed in similar circumstances in the future.
Moreover, technology makes it far more difficult for Russia to control the religious practices of its citizens. Although the Witnesses’ official website is no longer available in Russia, individual members can easily share religious literature through email or dozens of other social media platforms and apps. While Soviet Witnesses had to write coded reports and hand-deliver them through an underground courier network, Witnesses today can text this information in seconds. Technology will also facilitate meeting times for religious services in private homes.
The Russian government simply does not have the manpower to enforce its own ban. It is hard to imagine that local officials could effectively prevent over 170,000 people across more than 2,000 congregations from gathering together multiple times per week, as Witnesses do worldwide. The case of Taganrog is instructive. Several hundred Witnesses lived there in 2009, when the city declared the organization illegal. A few years later, it convicted sixteen Witnesses for ignoring the ban and continuing to gather their congregations for services. The state spent over a year in investigations and court hearings for sixteen people, a tiny fraction of the total congregation, and then suspended the sentences and fines rather than waste more resources in following through on its punishment guidelines. There are not enough police officers in Russia to monitor the daily activities of each and every Witness, and the Witnesses know it. Under a ban, everyone will face more scrutiny, a few will be dealt more serious consequences, and most will continue practicing their faith regardless.
Russia may nonetheless decide that all of this conflict is worth it. After all, Soviet officials were fairly successful in relegating Witnesses to the margins of society. Few Russians will complain if Witnesses no longer come to knock on their door. After all, even Americans rarely have kind words for religious missionaries at their own doorsteps. In my own research, I have never heard a single Russian, other than a scholar, say anything positive about Witnesses. For the record, my experience with Americans has been similar. On a more basic level, Russian citizens may not even notice the Witnesses’ absence from public life. While the post-Soviet period saw a religious revival for all faiths, far fewer joined the Witnesses than the Russian Orthodox Church. For all their recent growth in membership, the Witnesses remain a tiny minority in a largely secular society.
The vocal determination of Witnesses not to acquiesce to state demands should not cause observers to overlook the very real damage a ban would do to this community. Yes, Witnesses have faced similar challenges before and have dealt with them. For decades, they held their baptisms in local rivers and lakes under cover of night. In the post-Soviet period, new members were finally able to celebrate their baptisms in full view of their fellow believers at public conventions. A long-time Witness who attended one of these events in the early 1990s recalled, “What happiness, what freedom!” A new ban would mean a return to this underground life, to a hushed ceremony in cold waters. This is not what freedom of conscience looks like in modern states.
Emily B. Baran is the author of Dissent on the Margins: How Jehovah’s Witnesses Defied Communism and Lived to Preach About It. Her work explores the shifting contours of dissent and freedom in the Soviet Union and its successor states. She is Assistant Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University.

Why banning the Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t work for Russia
BY EMILY B. BARAN APRIL 20TH 2017 The Supreme Court of Russia has a decision to make this week about whether to label the Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organization and liquidate its assets. This act would transform the religious community into a criminal network, and make individual Witnesses vulnerable to arrest simply for speaking about their faith with others. While the court case has attracted recent media attention, this move is the culmination of two decades of increasing state hostility to Witnesses. In the late 1990s, Moscow took the Witnesses to court to deny them legal standing in the city limits. After several years of court hearings, the city banned the organization. In more recent years, anti-extremism laws drafted in the wake of domestic terrorism have been turned against Witness magazines and books. Currently, over eighty publications have been placed on the federal list of extremist materials. Even their website is now illegal. So is My Book of Bible Stories, an illustrated book for children, listed alongside publications by terrorist organizations.
If the state criminalizes the Witnesses, it will represent a major deterioration in religious toleration in post-Soviet Russia. It will also put Russia at odds with the European Court of Human Rights, which has repeatedly ruled in favor of the Witnesses in the past two decades. It may make other minority faiths vulnerable to similar legal challenges. In the 1990s, scholars spoke of a newly opened religious marketplace, in which post-Soviet citizens, freed from the constraints of state-enforced atheism, shopped around among the faith traditions. It is fair to say that these days, this marketplace has fewer customers, fewer stalls, and more regulations.
If history is any guide, Russia will find it nearly impossible to eliminate Jehovah’s Witnesses. Soviet dissident author Vladimir Bukovsky once admiringly wrote of the Witnesses’ legendary persistence under ban. When the Soviet Union barred religious literature from crossing its borders, Witnesses set up underground bunkers to print illegal magazines for their congregations. When Soviet officials prohibited Witnesses from hosting religious services, they gathered in small groups in their apartments, often in the middle of the night. Sometimes they snuck away to nearby woods or out onto the vast steppe, where they could meet with less scrutiny. When the state told believers that they could not evangelize their faith to others, Witnesses chatted up their neighbors, coworkers, and friends. When these actions landed them in labor camps, Witnesses sought out converts among their fellow prisoners. Witnesses are certain to revive many of these tactics if placed in similar circumstances in the future.
Moreover, technology makes it far more difficult for Russia to control the religious practices of its citizens. Although the Witnesses’ official website is no longer available in Russia, individual members can easily share religious literature through email or dozens of other social media platforms and apps. While Soviet Witnesses had to write coded reports and hand-deliver them through an underground courier network, Witnesses today can text this information in seconds. Technology will also facilitate meeting times for religious services in private homes.
The Russian government simply does not have the manpower to enforce its own ban. It is hard to imagine that local officials could effectively prevent over 170,000 people across more than 2,000 congregations from gathering together multiple times per week, as Witnesses do worldwide. The case of Taganrog is instructive. Several hundred Witnesses lived there in 2009, when the city declared the organization illegal. A few years later, it convicted sixteen Witnesses for ignoring the ban and continuing to gather their congregations for services. The state spent over a year in investigations and court hearings for sixteen people, a tiny fraction of the total congregation, and then suspended the sentences and fines rather than waste more resources in following through on its punishment guidelines. There are not enough police officers in Russia to monitor the daily activities of each and every Witness, and the Witnesses know it. Under a ban, everyone will face more scrutiny, a few will be dealt more serious consequences, and most will continue practicing their faith regardless.
Russia may nonetheless decide that all of this conflict is worth it. After all, Soviet officials were fairly successful in relegating Witnesses to the margins of society. Few Russians will complain if Witnesses no longer come to knock on their door. After all, even Americans rarely have kind words for religious missionaries at their own doorsteps. In my own research, I have never heard a single Russian, other than a scholar, say anything positive about Witnesses. For the record, my experience with Americans has been similar. On a more basic level, Russian citizens may not even notice the Witnesses’ absence from public life. While the post-Soviet period saw a religious revival for all faiths, far fewer joined the Witnesses than the Russian Orthodox Church. For all their recent growth in membership, the Witnesses remain a tiny minority in a largely secular society.
The vocal determination of Witnesses not to acquiesce to state demands should not cause observers to overlook the very real damage a ban would do to this community. Yes, Witnesses have faced similar challenges before and have dealt with them. For decades, they held their baptisms in local rivers and lakes under cover of night. In the post-Soviet period, new members were finally able to celebrate their baptisms in full view of their fellow believers at public conventions. A long-time Witness who attended one of these events in the early 1990s recalled, “What happiness, what freedom!” A new ban would mean a return to this underground life, to a hushed ceremony in cold waters. This is not what freedom of conscience looks like in modern states.
Emily B. Baran is the author of Dissent on the Margins: How Jehovah’s Witnesses Defied Communism and Lived to Preach About It. Her work explores the shifting contours of dissent and freedom in the Soviet Union and its successor states. She is Assistant Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University.

Actually the focus on this sister was really your contribution (admittedly early on) to a discussion generated by an original post about a number of people claiming "total control" whilst being members of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. So it isn't really going off topic, yet.
I appreciate your concern regarding what you see as a dangerous line of reasoning however, but remember this is a public forum. We are all at liberty to stay clear of discussions that we feel stray across our personal boundaries for consideration.

I put this under "controversial" because I was going to tell about a "Family Night" experience that was a bit troubling. But I'm going to tell about another one that was more funny at the time, and I didn't realize how serious it was until a few months later. Here's the background:
Family Night is a kind of talent show along with some experiences that helped Bethelites get to know each other better. It was held in the local Brooklyn Heights Kingdom Hall attached to the back of the 107 Building, but it had less than 500 seats, and there were at least 3 times that many Bethelites who wanted to attend. It was very popular, and soon the "shows" were actually televised via CCTV.
There's a song that was written by a Witness many years ago that became internationally famous, sung by Frank Sinatra and Doris Day, for example. During Family Night, a small choir sang a nice rendition of the song with different words, that some might call a parody, but it wasn't meant to be a funny parody. It was "Sentimental Journey" written by Bud Homer. The lyrics can be found here: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/doris+day/sentimental+journey_20279019.html
The original lyrics included a stanza:
Seven, that's the time we leave, at seven
I'll be waitin' up for heaven
Countin' every mile of railroad track
That takes me back
In the Family Night version, this was changed to:
Seven, Bethel text begins at seven
To the fact'ry I'll be headin'
. . . . To serve the Lord
For his reward.
At the rehearsals, I once or twice sat only a couple seats away from Bert Schroeder. When the words were sung, either Brother Gehring or perhaps someone else on the Family Night Committee leaned over to question Schroeder (I think it was Bill G., but can't say for sure): "You think those words are alright? Doesn't sound too 'works centered?'"
Schroeder chuckled, "The words are fine. If they don't like it, let them stew!"
I had no idea who these people were who would "stew" at the words. This was before I had heard about any "apostasy" brewing. But I couldn't help thinking of a brother I worked with, in construction, just a couple years earlier, before I came to Bethel. (We set up the frames for pouring concrete basements/walls, and I also learned to do some "curb and guttering.") Now this brother was not an elder, and I always figured it was partly for his propensity to curse. But whenever I made a mistake, I'd ask if I should do something over, and his typical response was: "It's fine. If they don't like it, @#$% them!"
I left that evening rehearsal thinking that Brother Schroeder had just said the equivalent of "@#$%  them!" but had found a much nicer way of saying it than old Brother M--- back home. I wasn't even thinking about who these people were who might "stew." It was at least a year later when the two books "Commentary on the Letter of James" and "Choosing the Best Way of Life" were released, and it was only after reading those books and listening to some of the arguments over them that I finally understood the controversy.

Numbers 12:1,10

Here's the story. Anyone recognize it?
A man marries a black woman.
People around him are not happy about it.
So God punishes one of those people by turning that person partly white. 
 

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