Craig Daily Press

Tonika (Anonymous) says…

I saw "Extreme Makeover, Home Edition" last night and thought about the similarities between what happens when this show brings a community together to help one of their own and what happens when the Watchtower's building committee brings a congregation together to build a kingdom hall.

Historically, Americans help others. Extreme Makeover clearly organizes local businesses and individuals in the same tradition as the old church-raisings. Like the pilgrims and the pioneers helped each other build. Natural love of our fellowman is ingrained in us all.

Profit? Sure. Suppliers' and contractors' contributions are great advertising. But profit in the spirit of brotherhood bringing scores of people together to work to help friends or strangers is far greater.

I've helped build kingdom halls. The labor's all voluntary. Financing usually is through the Watchtower Society's building fund process.

JWs started a formal program in 1983 to fund kingdom halls (Kingdom Ministry, September, 1983) Worth noting: the Watchtower holds mortgages to these properties. (See, for example, Cook County, IL, Docket No. 04-PT-0036, Finding of Fact #8, Dept of Revenue, State of Illinois.) It's practical to pool money for community use. Still, the parent organization is in the position of being a gigantic moneylender.

With the building program is publicity with press releases for the local media. They want you to be interested in their "kingdom message."

JWs believe that anyone who has not joined their group is under the power of Satan and slated for destruction at an Armageddon, "just around the corner." They believe the "Christian love" shown in building projects is a product of their association with a tiny group of anointed men who are the "remnant" of the Bride of Christ still on earth in "these last days" and the only way to approach Christ is through them.

They can't see what's right in front of their faces: love of one's fellowman is part of us all. They believe any goodness the rest of us show is a trick of the devil and they believe it themselves. They're so manipulated they can't understand people who'll come together to build a new home for families of widows, foster parents and injured veterans. Their focus, they believe, is practical for the "soon" to come future. While they chase a carrot on a stick, the world passes them by.

Before you're sucked in, realize they're not the safe refuge they want you to believe. You don't need to join the JWs to bring out your own human goodness. I was one of them for decades but quit them when I learned of things going on behind the scenes that negated the truth of their claims to be a channel of communication from God. The media made that information accessible in a way that I could see it, starting with the investigation by the Louisville Courier-Journal in 2001. It cascades from there.

They're no different from anyone else- except in some cases, they're far worse. Go look on the net.

On ‘Extreme Makeover’