Various

 

Some of you know that I took a bad fall. I’m still suffering the effects, sleeping more than usual and not up to working much. So, if you have a blog post you want me to consider, please send it on. Also, you may want to further Jerome’s research. It’s excellent, and adds important detail that doesn’t fit in the Separate Identity narrative.

I would appreciate your comments on this: I have many vintage anti-Watchtower booklets. Among these are many from the 1940s. As is true of most anti-Witness controversialist material they are full of poor reasoning, lies, ad hominem, and stupidity. But they are historical documents, and some add detail to the narrative. I’m considering republishing them in an annotated edition.

I hesitate to do this given their offensive nature. But they ARE part of our history. What do you think?

Now on to other things. A recent email said: “WTS has been trying to remove and cleanse their history, and it's becoming harder to find old documents.” I want to state here that this is total nonsense. One cannot expect them to oppose their own theology. But there do not buy up, erase, or otherwise hide documents. One can find every Watchtower, Awake, Consolation, Golden Age, booklet and book they ever published. Most are online; the rest are available through interlibrary loan or direct request to the institution owning the material.

No ethical academic would call Jehovah’s Witnesses a cult. Those who fear them, who cannot refute their doctrine except by repeating that they do not agree use the term to color the Witnesses in shades of black. That is the same thinking behind the Catholic Inquisition. And there ARE clergy and anti-cult writers who would gladly burn Witnesses at the stake if the law did not prevent them.

Assume personal responsibility. The person who wrote the email I’ve mentioned did not like the restrictions Witness theology places on its adherents. You cannot fornicate, steal, use illegal drugs, or misbehave in other ways. Fine. You don’t want to live under those restrictions, just don’t. No-one is forcing you to do that.