Aight, imma take
@Cribby in this. Imma try not to be long winded, but I am a bit of a historian as to this religion, which is y I bounced.
The JWs tend to cherry-pick scriptures for rules, doctrines, etc. to give the appearance that what they are doing is biblical, while either willfully ignoring full context, or being completely ignorant of full context. (Both are true as this religion frowns upon Bible scholars while championing itself as God’s only spokes people on earth, having zero theology background).
The religion actually started as a book publishing company. Their founder, who was not only a false prophet, but a self appointed fulfillment of a scriptural parable turned prophecy (only by JW’s theology) was in love w his own writings. Back in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s, the JWs formerly known as Bible Students were tasked to be door to door salesmen for his books. The 2nd leader, took it a step further by adding a scriptural connotation for this activity, so it gave them a sense of following Jesus’ disciples. However, there were many articles written in earlier times in which JWs today have zero access to that literally says “We’re here to sale books, not to preach; if individuals want a sermon they can come to our meetings.”
Many JWs have no idea why they are called “publishers” “pioneers” etc. b/c none of these terms are found in the Bible; it’s b/c back in the day sales ppl went from door to door like the vacuum guy, the encyclopedia guy, the magazine subscription guy, etc.
JW leadership also said their members had to do certain quotas to be considered righteous in God’s eyes, and that the “hours they gave to His ministry” were required by him (Again, nothing scriptural). Since 1990, the courts ruled that taxes had to be paid on these things, so the JWs from 1990 have been slowly reducing their ministry requirements every 5 years. To make up for the loss of publishing revenue, they turned to something more sinister: Have congregation members pay for real-estate and they take full control of all real estate properties free of charge.
They now have billions of dollars of world wide real estate, from either donations, free labor, or simply seizing Kingdom Halls bought and paid for by congregants. They no longer have a need of door to door; they simply peddle their message through their website, and have their members just sit there under the guise they are doing this for God. They rather parents bring up the next group of JWs b/c it’s easier and less time consuming vs. searching for vulnerable ppl through their prior practice of book selling.
It’s why JWs will slowly take u to their publications and their version of the Bible b/c it’s foundation is book publishing, but it’s now evolving into a real estate conglomerate.
That’s literally the PG-condensed version w/o getting to grimey and super detailed in it.
