Bridge of Reason

  I recently spent a day in London as a tourist. I had come down to spend time with my son who works in London and lives just inside the M25 ring. During the day I had the opportunity to interact with a number of Jehovah’s Witness teams on their carts. The conversations went much like I expected, having had many such conversations, but there were a few points that stood out for me. The first team I noticed were outside the tube station in Theydon Bois where my son lives. This was at 7:30am, just as the morning commuter rush hour was getting going. This cart couple were well dressed, as always, and made no attempt to interact with us as we passed, as always. My immediate thought was why were they there at that time and place bearing in mind that no one had the time to stop and chat at that point in their days?  I think the most likely reason was that they didn’t expect anyone to  stop, which was the whole point of choosing that time and place. Many former-Jehovah...

  The following is a contribution from Barry Amor, one of our team here at Reachout central: I have spent many hours debating with Jehovah’s Witnesses, online, via email, and face-to-face on the carts or over a table. I t is understand able how easy it can be to become disappointed with the seeming lack of effect of this time spent with them. They promise to go away and research what you have said and get back to you and yet they rarely do. The Scriptures you show them and the arguments you present seem to wash over them with no apparent effect and you go away discouraged. By way of encouragement, though, I think an alternative look at the parable of the sower from Matthew 13: 1-23 has much to help us. There are two ways of looking at the parable in this context: F irstly, the sower seems to accept the fact that some of the seed that he is sowing will have little or no result by way of fruit, yet he keeps sowing. Some seed will undoubtedly be wasted, but there will be a har...

Someone over at Quora asked this question and I was curious to know the answer. The reply on Quora, from an inactive Witness with a still faithful family, talks about video conferencing among other things. The Memorial Meal, where gathering was prohibited, took place online, with a leader giving the talk on Zoom. They made bread according to the prescribed recipe, had some wine, and afterwards threw it away in the kitchen bin I imagine. It will come as no surprise to find everyone dressed for this as though they were going to the Kingdom Hall, even though they were at home. The door-to-door work and the cart witnessing are cancelled of course. However, undaunted, they have resorted to telephone witnessing, calling back their call backs on the phone. Some are letter writing, again no surprise given the way the Society can marshal their army of members to mass produce letters of protest at the drop of a hat, clogging up the already burdened mailing system. You can r ead more here. ...