TrueTomHarley

Given my newfound resolution, I am exploring whether I feel that there any value whatsoever in starting threads on this open JW forum. I am not sure that there is. The ones who object are not doing any more than they have done from Day one, but just rubber-stamping what they have said many times in the past—they get me worked up to no purpose. I do like to keep my finger on the pulse of what the opponents are up to, and I have benefited in some cases by seeing where they are coming from—still there are many many ways of keeping up to date. I mean, when you repeatedly see such remarks as “dear old Elder Tom because he is deliberately using thousands of words to say what could be said in two sentences,” I have to bite my tongue every time so as not to scream, “the problem is that you are too stupid to read more than two sentences!” Or as when he commends Witness, though saying some of her thoughts were “over his head,” not to hit back with “anything is over your head!” Who needs the aggravation?

There are some people whose heads would be laughing at you if the wheelbarrow was carting them off from the guillotine. I have made my opening remark the ‘pinned’ post on my blog, and it will in time include links elsewhere. Some posts made here have not yet appeared on my site, and by the time they do I will have refined them a little. There may someday be a TrueTom vs the Apostates—Round 2!’ But I have a few other irons in the fire as well, and my wife still thinks I should mow the lawn or snowblower the drive from time to time—strange woman.

Why 1980?

The one area where detractors have some validity is in saying that the children of JWs do not make the same choice as did their parents. The parents searched, sometimes for decades. They weighed both paths carefully before choosing the pathway of serving God over the pathway of pursuing the common goals of the world. Their children have never made this search—they were ‘born into the truth’—something we portray as a great asset, and yet something that contains the same drawbacks as being born into wealth. We probably are naive to think that ‘born into the truth’ does not make one vulnerable in some respects. The first generation makes the wealth and is thereafter grounded in life. The second generation inherits it, and deprived of that values-forming experience, becomes insufferable, unappreciative, profligate, isolated from the common people—some combination of the foregoing. It doesn’t have to work that way, but it does enough times for the pattern to become a stereotype. What’s a wealthy person to do? Cast his son out to live in the refrigerator box until he earns his own wealth? Obviously not. Better to be born into wealth than into poverty. Better to be born into a spiritual paradise than into a spiritual dessert. But the wealthy parent that has any sense makes his son experience what he did himself to the degree possible—makes the kid start on the factory floor as a regular worker, for example—makes the kid earn privileges, doesn’t just hand him things—makes him work his way into his inheritance. The Witness parent who simply expects the offspring to ‘make the truth your own’ without allowing him a glimpse into the other side—well, couldn’t that be likened to the wealthy parent who expects his offspring to ‘make the family wealth your own’ without allowing the character-building and adversity-overcoming experiences that formed he himself? It is a matter of degree as to how that is done—I would not suggest that nobody is doing it—and each family must find its own. Since the beginning of time, parents have endeavored to bring their children up in principles they have convinced themselves are true. Since the Industrial Age at least, general society has tried to pull those children away into its own paths. There certainly is no educational reason that children should be schooled away from their parents at ages as young as 4. It is for societal reasons that compulsory public schooling began. Children ought be separated from the pernicious influence and prejudices of their parents, the thinking went, to make them more compliant to the greater aims of whatever times they live in. So Witnesses are going to train their children in godly principles—that is only to be expected. It is not the case that if you leave children untrained, they will grow up free, unencumbered, and when of age, with choose their own values from the rich cornucopia of life’s offerings. No. All it means is that someone else will train them. The anti-JW activists are only bellyaching because they want to be the trainers—they do not raise the same protest with regard to the children of anyone else.

I don’t follow him as a matter of routine—once in a while I peek—because if I do so I am tempted to respond and if I do that he is nothing but taunting and contemptuous. It is not as though I cannot hold my own & make even inroads but there is hardly any point to it. It is a been there/done that. Besides, I told the elders that I will not do that anymore (not regarding him specifically) and if they ask me again I don’t want to be tempted to lie. Should I cave a time or two, I will readily forgive myself—not to worry on that score—but I would rather not cave by putting the temptation before myself constantly. “Some people just needs ‘Killeen ’” says JTR, but that doesn’t mean you ought be the one to do it. It has a way of sucking out large chunks of time that can better be used elsewhere. There are a few here that I have come to put in the same category as Evans and at most hastily skim their remarks because if I do more than that I am tempted to respond—with the same drawbacks as with he. Today detractors charge what they do before a worldwide audience—the very people whom we are trying to reach, and they at least can be expected to mull it over because there is nothing to counter it. Granted, there are so many other horrific things to monitor in the world that it is hard for anti-JW activists to put their ‘good news’ on the front burner, but it would be silly to say that it has no effect. It wouldn’t take much to counter it. Even a talk parallel to what Bro Losch just gave at the annual meeting regarding dates that failed to come true might do the trick. Once a matter is spoken or written about once, you can keep referring back to it. The idea is not to silence opposers, for that cannot be done. The idea is to give some who may be swayed by them, even some of our own, something to offset their charges. The organization may choose to do that someday. Or maybe not—time will tell. It certainly is not the ‘whatever is righteous, whatever is chaste, true, lovable,’ etc where we like to remain, so that is good reason to avoid it. But there may be some who feel some sort of defense would come in handy. Opposers will always have limits to their efforts because they have nothing to replace what they would take away, and most people became Witnesses in the first place because they felt exploring the world that is yourself only goes so far as a philosophy of life. Still, I have seen people gleefully saw off the branch on which they are sitting and laugh with victory as they crashed to the ground, like the Dr. Strangelove cowboy who rides the nuke down to destruction, whooping and waving his hat as he drops, so some generalized pushback might be in order to prevent that whenever possible. Is Lloyd doing what you say, trying to paint Kingdom Halls as dangerous places and JWs as dangerous pedophiles? Good. Nasty people usually overplay their hand and in so doing torpedo their own case—never before their followers, of course, but before anyone of sense, it happens. I’m not suggesting anyone get into a play-by-play scenario with the ‘good news‘ of those who oppose. I was struck by how, after the first Montana verdict, there were persons who wanted to rub my nose line by line into that first verdict so as to point out how the courts ruled JWs violated law! and then after reversal of that verdict, they said, ‘well, what do you expect? Witnesses follow the law—it’s the law that is not written right.’ People like to follow play-by-play in ongoing court trials these days to the extent that I almost say, ‘Well, send the jury home, then—they don’t want to be there anyway. Put it all on social media and decide the matter by ‘likes’. I never weigh in on developing matters—it is nothing more that common sense modesty to realize that since you can see but 1% of what the judge or jury sees, it is a fool’s mission to go there. I’m not speaking of anything detailed as a defense, because details will not be constant from one situation to another. They represent non-repeatable human idiosyncrasies, and I have no problem accepting that people can do and say wrong and dumb things. No. Just something like the generalized facts I outlined in the post, so that if anyone wants to research our stand on matters, they will have more to research than a statement that we “abhor child sexual abuse.” I am usually shouted down when I bring up Anna’s example—the kumbaya site practically chased me out with pitchforks (though not everyone)—but her example strikes me as a very sensible one—to familiarize herself with “apostate” ideas, so that, in the event her teenage son stumbles across them one fine day and is stumbled, she is able to help him. It is only icing on the cake that the kid is now an adult, has apparently never wobbled, and wonders why is mom is blowing so much time with those crazies on the internet. If there were a few resident experts at each Kingdom Hall, people who knew how to keep tabs on what is bad and knew that doIng so you does not require you to watch every Jerry Springer episode on the topic, and you don’t want to because if you immerse yourself in what is sordid in any subject it affects your well-being—you know, balanced people—that it would be a good thing, not a bad thing, because then you might be able to help ones stumbled.. You don’t want to encourage people to go there, just like you don’t want to encourage people to go anywhere that toxic people hang out. These days, pop psychologists win approval by telling you do dump friends and even family members who are “toxic” in favor or those who are not. But to all but forbid people to go produces a strange effect of fleeing from the apostate as one would flee from the bogeyman. You have scenarios like that played out in the drama where the Russian brother inquires of his old friend only to hear that the old friend succumbed to reading literature critical of the organization and is no longer serving Jehovah—as though that’s all it takes to derail decades of service to God—read a few brochures and you are toast. It’s ridiculous. Better to say, in my view, ‘go there if you must and be on the lookout for the unforgiving slave, for Demas, for the ones who went out because they are not of our sort, for the one fixated on the straws in others’ eyes, for the slave that buried the talent because his master was harsh, effectively saying ‘You want disciples? Go out and make them yourself! I’ve got things to do!” Any drama is better, easier to follow, and easier to appreciate, when there are bad guys in the plot. But won’t some go there and decide the ‘bad guys’ are actually the good guys? Probably. But I suspect no more than when we counsel so strongly not to even glance in a certain direction, and by so doing we appear exactly like a cult to people brought up in its modern definition. Drop down a notch to ‘investigate with caution if you must’ and the perception disappears. Amber Scorah has “her eyes opened” only when she goes into missionary work in China and begins correspondence with an “apostate” for whom it appears that she later dumped her husband In order to run off with? She should have had “her eyes opened” a long time ago, and if she had, that ridiculous phrase would have disappeared from the vocabulary by now. She herself would not be saying that she had her eyes opened—she would be saying that she went off because, like Demas, she prefers the world that JWs have fled—that JWs allowed her to see both plainly, and she chose the pathway that they did not. The reason that this change of tactics will happen only by small degrees, if it happens at all, is due to what the scriptures say about those taking the lead. They are like the loyal shepherd who sees the wolf climbing the fence and holds the sheep out of harm’s way. They are like the farmer who knows that when you look behind, your plowing goes awry and the rows get all funny. They are like the strategist who says that they will slam you no matter what you do, so ignore them and press the pedal to the metal. They are like the doctor who says to keep away from what will raise your blood pressure and knot your stomach in favor of what is soothing to the soul. They are like the pop psychologist who says you should dump those toxic relationships. They are like the nursing mother who treats the flock tenderly and with protectiveness. They are not like the mom who says, “Alright, lean on that hot stove—see if I care! HA! Burned yourself, ya little snot? That’ll teach ya!” And they certainly are not like the brainwasher who says don’t go there, —‘all the better for me to manipulate you, my dear, hehehe:))))))’ even though that is the only way opposers, and to an increasing respect, the overall world sees it. Why play into their hands? Why go out of our way to prove Jesus’ words that the sons of this system know which way the secular wind blows but the sons of the light wouldn’t even know how to tie the laces of a secular shoe if you gave them one?

I think you talents are better spent in discussing end-time prophesy with Kos.

Do you feel that Victor Blackwell was wrong, then, to legally defend my brothers?

Do you feel that Victor Blackwell was wrong, then, to legally defend my brothers?

The problem stems because the world has no concept of how to do spirituality as Jesus did it. Religion for them is a commodity. It is a product to be hawked, just like one might hawk soap, or used cars, or real estate, or anything. Religion is a career path for them. Your school guidance counselor might advise you, in view of your religious aptitude, to follow the career path to become a church minister or priest. No way would he ever advise you follow the career path to become an elder or a Bethelite, because it isn’t a career to them—they don’t make any money. Go to seminary, take some courses from Professor Ehrman, so that you do not actually believe the stuff, and then go look for a church that will hire you as minister—it is a booming job market out there. Victor Blackwell called them “mercenary ministers”—they do it for pay. It is the only model that the world recognizes. He would represent pioneers and special pioneers and congregation servants (back when it was 100+ hours) during WWII when they applied for draft exemption due to minister status. Church ministers never had the slightest difficulty in landing such exemptions, he reports. Pioneers, special pioneers, congregation servants, anyone associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses, were invariably denied. Judges recognized only ministers who 1) “had a church” and 2) got paid. So what do you do when it is necessary to interact with the legal system of the world? In a world where there is some respect for God, the organization role of elders is what will be recognized as the equivalent of clergy, notwithstanding that elders do it for free. But as the world loses respect for God, then it is the salary that becomes the determining factor—do they make a living with it or not. You’d almost think that one claiming to be a Witness could get his head around the distinction.

You should hear him carry on about Mexico whenever they cross him.

Well, I did see him gore Biden, Warren, and Sanders recently. Maybe that counts to fulfill a prophesy that has stood a mystery for thousands of years. There were several others he slammed but you cannot count them. They’ll screw up the numbering.

Tell Kos and others to drop to the bottom of the page and hit the link “Go to top listing.” I think that will satisfy him (and me). He just wants to get to notifications.

This is because whenever he appears on media, he is responding to one of their accusations. What! Would you hold up the media as revealer of Truth? You do not see that they plainly have an agenda of their own? This is downright childish, Kos. Watch him at one of his rallies and he will not appear “fierce” at all. He will be appear almost as jolly as Santa Claus.

It reminds me of Anthony Morris telling how he was starting to sweat it because he urgently needed the sale of his house to go through and it wasn’t—it came right down to the wire. As he recalled at the 2016 Regional Convention (with a glance upward): “Of course, he’s God—he can do what he wants.)

If there has been kickback on manipulation and ‘control’ charges, and if there has been kickback on ‘flip-flopping’ charges, then I would like to see kickback on charges that Witnesses ‘cover up’ child sexual abuse. A good place to start is by pointing out that leaving reporting up to the involved parties is not the same as ‘covering up.’ Instead, the Witness organization states that it “abhors child sexual abuse,” which, in combination with its reluctance to go there otherwise, is spun by determined enemies as though they love the stuff. Not all will do what reporter Elizabeth Chuck did and attribute it to a “penchant for privacy.” Why do they not respond in more detail? It may be that the sheer wickedness of the charge takes their breath away and makes them look like deer caught in the headlights. Yes, they know well the verse, “every sort of wicked thing will be lyingly said about you” but this—this is the wickedest thing of all! And the proactive arrangement started with such good intentions. Not so many years ago the notion of a religion “policing its own” was lauded as the ultimate in practicing what one preached. It wouldn’t be hard to do—to provide a brief defense of criticisms leveled at them. It might start with points such as: “Covering up” is not the same as leaving it to the digression of ones affected to report. There wouldn’t be anything to be accused of covering up had not the Witness organization practiced what almost nobody else did—policing its own. Countless persons are arrested with regard to child sexual abuse. Their religious affiliation or lack of is never reported. The reason that it is so with Witnesses is that they tried to do something about it among their own. Unlike virtually anywhere else, where the leaders of an organization are themselves the abusers, the leaders of the Witness community are accused of botching the handling of instances—bad, perhaps—history will judge—but nowhere near as bad as being the ones who commit it. That’s a few for starters. More could be added, such as The current “gold standard” of child sexual abuse to “go beyond the law” will inevitably cause you problems with those who, not surprisingly, expect you to abide by law. Child sexual abuse would appear to be the primary gross planetary product—30 years into all-out war against CSA and barely a dent has been made. Therefore efforts to prevent it ought to be given at least as much creedence as efforts to secure the barn door after the cows have fled. Nobody, but nobody, has done what the Witness organization has done, gathering every member in the world to consider detailed scenarios in which child sexual abuse might occur so that parents, obviously the first line of defense, can be vigilant. This was done as part of the program of the 2017 Regional conventions. The reason that the greater world will never make inroads with regard to child sexual abuse it that it feeds with one hand what it is trying to punish with another. The TicTok app taking young people by storm has been described as a pedophile’s dream come true. Though it is parallel and thus not exactly the same thing, the 2020 NFL halftime show demonstrates that objectifying woman is the force that makes the world go round—the MeToo movement is doomed from the start. The matter of CSA does not go away. It is not being solved. Rather, each month brings some new revelation of how the very elements of this world keep it firmly entrenched as a societal ill. It’s intricate involvement with the Child Protective Service agencies recently was reviewed in a story I must have missed. “We have set up a system to sex traffic American children” said Newsweek in January 2018: And the latest scandal—pediatricians! “Sheds light on a problem that could rival priest scandals,” states an article extrapolating from a notorious case just how many there might be. And to think I got into a squabble with that nasty O’Mally, determined to put down the Caleb and Sophia video “Protect Your Children,” while she heralded one that specifically said that it was okay for a doctor to touch you in private areas. “Ask the young women of the U.S. Gymnastics Olympic team which video they think would have offered them more protection,” I told her. Just a few basic tenets of defense for those who would like to have some response to when workmates, schoolmates, or neighbors hit them over the head with what they just saw on TV. It doesn’t cover every tiny thing—just the general outline. The nature of critics everywhere is that they would like their complaints on center stage, to the exclusion of whatever else used to be there. Maybe its not a good idea to indulge them so. Maybe it’s enough to correct matters that need it, such as making it crystal clear to members that there is no reproach in reporting child sexual abuse to police, since the abuser has already brought about the reproach. Maybe it is enough to focus on creating an atmosphere where CSA is less likely to happen. Maybe. But sometimes you do wish there was more (or any) of a public response. I did like the WT attorney’s words at the reversal of the Montana verdict. “There are no winners in a case involving child abuse. ‘No child should ever be subjected to such a debased crime....Tragically, it happens, and when it does Jehovah's Witnesses follow the law. This is what the Montana Supreme Court has established.”

Well, what in the world do you expect? “Yeah, I know that I was impeached, but I am really guilty—can’t believe I fooled them on that—they really should have convicted me.” You think he’s going to say that, or think that? Do you know what acquittal means? It means not guilty. So when the process finds him not guilty, as he never thought he was, in the face of critics vehemently insisting that he was guilty as sin, even a traitor to the country—and given his personality not to shrink from a fight, would you not expect him to do a victory lap or three? Do you even know what he was impeached for? Most Americans had only a hazy idea and if you explained it to them in more detail, many couldn’t see how it was an especial big deal—it is not as though the charge he made of the former VP’s son was untrue, after all. You’re kidding me! And everyone else in town has the countenance of an angel? Everyone is successful until their denunciation comes to a finish. C’mon, Kos! Ask JTR to tell you about how Cool Hand Luke kept coming at George Kennedy even though he had nothing. Look, some find the guy’s candor refreshing. You lap up the commentator painting a picture of a Congress shocked—shocked!—that he would carry on so at a prayer breakfast, as though business as normal for them is devotion to prayer?! Enough of the stuff to float the Spanish Armada on, methinks. At most, he is an example of the clay that does not mix with the iron. You might think of him as a bull in a china shop, but would you really want to liken government status quo as a ‘china shop?’ Call him a junkyard dog in a junkyard and you are on safer ground. But the only dog in Revelation is the one that goes down with about a half-dozen other types of scoundrels. And don’t start pumping a prophesy out of that—it was just a throwaway line! 4Jah’s true annointed, to manifest itself out of nowhere within ten years, may have an opening for head prophet, but as for me and my household, I can find a better one at any Seven-Eleven store.

Well, yeah, but if you see fulfillment of prophesy every time Trump blasts away at an opponent, the entire Book of Revelation will be fulfilled within the week. If Kos must go into prophesy fulfillment, tell him to focus on how Trump vs Whoever has illuminated 2 Timothy 3:1-5. It used to be that if you read those verses and the householder didn’t agree that now is the time they are taking place, there wasn’t much you can do about it. Plainly, they are subjective, It is very hard to deny it now, though, with a straight face. Trump vs his enemies constitute Exhibit A of the world losing its mind. But it is only Exhibit A—one must not forget B-Z.

They’d better not be tying to fool us again.

“Recalculating...”

Please don’t look for end-time prophesies here, Kos. And please don’t present network TV as the channel of love. Please don’t tell us that love emanates from Harvard. Nor tell us that Congress starts each day with consideration of the daily text: “Can’t we all just get along?” Just don’t—on any of those counts. Go back to your meetings, won’t you? Join your wife and kids. Tell the brothers that you’ll try to refrain from running ahead. Work on your people skills. You don’t have to parrot every little thing. It is enough not to grab the wheel. Why is everything so American with you? NYC is Babylon the Great? Trump is the Man of Lawlessness? How are those in India or Romania going to get their heads around that? If JTR got back in due to cherishing the core teachings, anybody can. Don’t present yourself as a true prophet arising in our midst and you’ll do fine. It’s okay to present yourself as a person having doubts about this, that, or the other thing. Congregation elders have mercy toward such ones. (Jude 22) But the mercy will wear thin if you present yourself as instructor to the worldwide organization.

It must have been the old hen who made this into its own thread, and my second comment I no longer remember what that was about—some sort of inside joke that no longer is relevant, I suppose. But if you have actually been beat up and much as you say you have—I have never heard of such a thing—than I think you should focus on was even a little tiny bit of it your fault and work on that. It is much easier to work on yourself than on others. Since you treasure the core that is JW, know it is found nowhere else, and are determined not to forsake it, you should work on making peace with the earthly organization. Otherwise you simply have the worst of two worlds. Why should that be? Change. If you want to present that you have been wronged, I will grant that. Still, you must move on. For crying out loud, go to the AA meeting if you have to and memorize their prayer—it may not be from us but it is not bad at all: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Focus on the first and third phrases, for you have NO problem with the second.

I’ve always enjoyed the Hornblower series of novels, starting with rookie or Midshipman Hornblower progressively up to Lord Hornblower. In a sort of osmosis way I picked up a vague familiarity with nautical terms.

JTR: I was circumspect in my answer because, after 20 years, I didn’t want to be reckless. Recollections can fade after that much time. I wanted to be sure as I dusted off the cobwebs of my back memory. You were so firm in your counter-response that I thought maybe you were aware of something concrete. But now I learn that Of course! All as reported by those who would be happy if JWs were to vanish off the planet. I go back to my own memory of things with more confidence. Of course they were ‘special’ but the question not addressed is ‘What was special about them?’ They were special because they were the reports of judicial committees reporting disfellowshipping for any reason. You think that’s not ‘special?’ Do you think that half the mail volume at Bethel is reports of people disfellowshipped? The idea behind sending such reports in a color coded envelope was so that Madge, the Bethel secretary, or whoever was filling in for her, would not be the one to open them. Blue envelopes were forward directly to Della White, Perry Bethel’s private secretary. As judicial reports, they would contain sensitive material that you didn’t want to broadcast to every Tom, Dick, or Madge. The idea behind all reports was so when someone was disfellowshipped in one congregation, he just couldn’t slip back into another congregation with his past expunged and start anew. Any religion ‘policing its own’ would of course have such an arrangement. Since few, if any, did, it will sound quite novel. What they did with the info I don’t know. Perhaps just kept them filed away by name after a quick review in case that name ever came up again from another congregation. As to writing detailed reports of anyone ever accused of CSA, as I said, I certainly would have remembered that because I would have been the one charged to write it. I suppose it is possible that such a request was received and I do not recall it because we didn’t have anyone to write about. Maybe I wasn’t even serving as an elder by 97, though my recollection was that it was about 99 or 00 that I discontinued serving. I do get a little hazy as to which years I served as secretary and which not, but it would have been most of them and certainly the ones at the tail end of my service. I suppose I could dig up some records and check, but Would it make a difference? Or if the answer came back not what you have already concluded, would you not just say that he is a ‘company man’ saying whatever he thinks will cover his own rear end and that of HQ? As it is, 4Jah demands what proof I have that what I answered to you is the truth. The moron! The ‘proof’ I offered was the greatest proof any individual can offer—the evidence of an eye-witness. For many years I always had 3 or 4 of those blue envelopes in my desk, for whenever the need might arise. Use one, and they would send another in the next literature order, or maybe separately. Every other congregation secretary had a few of them as well. Yet I never sat in on or reported one matter of CSA. Therefore, they were for general ‘judicial’ use, and ‘special’ for that reason.

The original post about manipulating—who does it, to what degree, and whose is the most serious, brought out some predictable comments on the ‘never is heard a discouraging word’ website. ‘Unity of belief means brainwashing?’ one woman said. She thought not. She suggested that convincing followers to drink poisoned Kool Aid so they could all go to heaven was brainwashing. She suggested that flying your hijacked airplane into the Twin Towers so as to achieve the same goal was also brainwashing. She thought withdrawing from society to live in communes was brainwashing, as well. But she thought that if you live, school, and work in the general community, plus directly visit members of that community one-on-one to discuss your hope with them, plainly making connections in the Book that everyone has (or did) but almost nobody understands, that is not brainwashing. How bad can the ‘manipulation’ be, someone else observed, if it results it results in people unselfish, with good family values, respectful of laws, honest, peaceable, and so forth? Why—if people were manipulated to be like that, you wouldn’t have to fear going out at night, you could lighten up on carrying keys for everything under the sun, and in general enjoy much less stress. The old trite saying even came out that ‘given the state of our brains, they can use a good washing.’ It may be trite, but that does not mean that it is untrue. Witnesses have been nothing but benefited by choosing adherence to God’s direction. Jehovah’s Witnesses make a mistake should they take to heart the cry of their opposers about ‘manipulation.’ Essentially, the cry is no more than the accusation that Witnesses march to the beat of a different drum, which none of them would deny. The manipulation that is detrimental is in just the opposition direction. “We know that we originate with God,” says John, “but the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19) Must “the whole world” not be ‘controlled’ or ‘manipulated’ for that to be the case? “The Devil is misleading the entire inhabited earth,” states Revelation 12:9. So when the cry is made that “Jehovah’s Witnesses are manipulated!” simply translate it as “Jehovah’s Witnesses believe the Bible” and you will be fine—the two statements are equivalent. Witnesses are no more than the modern counterpart of Joshua, famous for his Declaration of Dependence: “Now if it seems bad to you to serve Jehovah, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve...but as for me and my household, we will serve Jehovah.” (Joshua 24:15) Furthermore, stick it right back to those who favor independence from God to produce the fine world that their independence has brought them. Don’t settle for shallow answers such as pointing to clever gadgets like the iPad that I am putting to excellent use right now. Don’t settle for the admission that things may be getting worse right now, but the world is about to make a brilliant turnaround. Were that to happen, would it not be akin to a cry of ‘peace and security’ that I have read about somewhere? Learn to apprise the world’s offerings as did the Joker in the art gallery, flipping through paintings and rendering instant judgement: “crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.” In doing so, you will not be far from the Bible’s own conclusion—that there is a generation pure in its own eyes that has not been washed from its own filth. (Proverbs 30:12) Don’t walk around all glum as though there is no joy to be had in the present life, for that is plainly not so and JWs do not carry on as though it were. But don’t be ashamed to proclaim the real life of 1 Timothy 6:19, and don’t let modern opponents manipulate you into thinking that this life is the real one. No. This one is the irretrievably broken one set to be replaced when God’s kingdom comes. Tell your critics to produce evidence of the child sexual abuse and human trafficking epidemic that they have stopped dead in its tracks. Ask them even to show how they have reached their laudable goal of no longer objectifying women—perhaps they will point to the Super Bowl halftime show (2020) as Exhibit A. How about the drug abuse problem that they have vanquished, or the homeless problem? “Why is it you Jehovah’s Witnesses always have to insist that things are getting worse?” one brother was asked by a detractor. “What does that view do for you?” He replied that it helped him to explain why the Doomsday Clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight (the latest revision) and not 10:30 AM.

Well, in the face of such a confident challenge (given that you always speak that way).....I’m not iron-clad sure, big boy. But I think so. I was an elder for 20 years until about 2000. I served as secretary for most of those years. Blue envelopes were well-known to me and to the elder body. Yet I never sat in on or forwarded any judicial case involving CSA. So I start to revert back to what I said in the first place—for me to recall them so well, even submitting them I think, they would have had to have been for any form of wrongdoing. Furthermore, had there been a specific request, in 1997 or any other time, to write detailed reports of anyone in the congregation who had.ever been accused of CSA, I certainly would have remembered it, because I would have been the one charged to do it. I would not have been like Pilosi ripping up the letter. I took letter-writing seriously, something that should hardly be a surprise to anyone. So that’s my evidence. I could be wrong—20 years time is enough to forget details—but I don’t think so. What is your evidence? Do you have any? Or are you just repeating what you have read on the internet?