How many of you are old enough to remember the fateful year of 1975?
If you are, you may be surprised to learn that the Watchtower Society, the Jehovah's Witnesses themselves, totally disavow any claims that Armageddon was to come by 1975. It never happened, so they say. "Overzealous brothers putting words in Jehovah's mouth," is pretty much how they explain it away. Those of us that were there for 1975 (I was baptized... "immersed" for God's sake, in 1973, at age 16) remember it well - elders were encouraging from the platform for brothers to "quit your jobs, sell your homes, yank your children out of school, give away your dogs, and pioneer, for the end is certainly near, yea, Armageddon is just around the corner!" But now, in 2015, a mere forty years later, the Witnesses flat-out deny that any such claims were ever made. "Brother Franz never 'promised' that the new system would be in place by 1975. He only speculated, based on Bible chronology, that such a time may be possible, but no man knoweth the hour, and no man can speak for Jehovah, who has his own timetable." And as 2034 is now less than two decades away, the WTBS is careful not to 'promise' anything, but to merely suggest, as they have been doing since 1879, that Armageddon could be here in the 'Biblically significant' year of 2034.
Hence the subject of my introductory blog, to which I welcome everyone to comment, post, add to, and even criticize. Many exJWs have many specific events/categories of JW dogma that stand out in their lives. My research tells me the most prominent one is shunning, disfellowshipping as they call it. That is the number one pet peeve of former Jehovah's Witnesses. Most exJWs have paid for that psychological, mental, and physical freedom with their very families. Disfellowshipping is one of the most heinous of the JW practices, in that it literally destroys entire families from the inside out. I have a few of my own tales of disfellowshipping instances to relate. But back to point, it seems everyone has a so-called pet peeve stemming from their time spent in the organization. Aside from disfellowshipping, there is the blood issue, holidays and birthdays, voting, smoking, spying/reporting, and tons more. My own peeve is the 1975 thing, especially since they ball-face flat-out deny that it ever happened.
I follow and belong to several exJW Facebook groups and forums, and my cousin and I even started one of our own several years ago just after we published the book, the Facebook group Former Jehovah's Witnesses www.facebook.com/groups/39289263666/. It is one of many good solid platforms for us Kingdom Expats to socialize and make new friends. Several members have written some excellent books based on their experiences, life and times, and relevant events of their time spent as Witnesses. I can think of ten excellent books that I have read over the past few years, and I believe there are a few more in the works from these fine and brave folks. For former Jehovah's Witnesses to rise above their mental persecution, brainwashing, and subsequent escapes to actually sit down and relegate the whole mess to paper for others to read is a worthy accomplishment, and they are deserving of as much support as they can get. Now back up a few sentences, I did say my cousin and I (raised from infancy as JWs, entire childhoods spent as JWs, eventually escaped from the JWsd) also published a book, and I'd like to promote our book as well, now that it is available as an e-book as well as a paperback. Just check out www.thearmageddonproject.com
Time, again, is one of my pet quirks, and I have found the different years that Armageddon was supposed to arrive, and the reasoning behind these years (and the fact the years keep changing, as noted by the fact that Armageddon still has not arrived), to be fascinating. 1914, 1918, 1925. 1975. 1975 was the biggest fiasco, because they literally proclaimed that it was definite, and there is plenty of their old and out of print literature floating around out there to prove it. 1975 actually cost the organization membership, meeting attendance dropped dramatically, after record increases in 1974. The same thing happened in 1925... It is one thing to expect something to happen at a certain time and have it not take place, it is a far heavier thing to plan one's life around such an expectation, as many of the Witnesses did as 1975 drew near. And passed by...
This blog is open to any JW-related topic, any reason at all as to why you are now an exJW, or not; open forum, feel free to vent, praise, bitch, sing, opine, repeat, tell jokes, and speak your piece. Have fun. We as exJWs always look back on that time in our lives with trepidation and caution, with mixed feelings and roiling emotions. And there are some fascinating stories out there, on the group websites, forums and platforms, in those books, all around. Let's be heard!
Next up we'll talk about some of the interesting things that happened in 1975 and just before, and why 2034 is Biblically significant.
www.thearmageddonproject.com
