genlando
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Where I am today... - 2005/05/21 03:53
At the onset, let me briefly identify myself: I am currently an elder in a JW congregation in the United States, and have served as one for about 16 years.
For 26 years, I have associated with and considered myself to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
At the start of 2005, I suddenly started questioning my religious beliefs. Although I still attend worship services with this religion, I'm mainly doing this to keep from confusing my family. They're still devout, and they don't know that I've started having doubts.
Here's my dilemna: Since I'm an "insider" within the organization, I became aware of a contemptible scheme that the leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses are involved in. The ingenuity and deviousness of their plan is so astonishing, that most of the believers aren't the least bit aware of how they're fleecing the congregations for BILLIONS of dollars each year.
Here's how it works: About 20 years ago, the Watchtower Society started a program where congregations would obtain financing for building projects directly from the organization. The organization charges the local congregation interest. Furthermore, the headquarters instituted a "Kingdom Hall assistance fund," where most of the congregations in the United States would automatically send the headquarters a monthly donation to help "needy congregations" to build new buildings.
On the surface, this seems ok; however, you've got to understand this fact: For years, our organization has bragged that they don't pass a collection plate. However, they've quietly started skimming money from every congregation--plus, they now hold the deeds to most of the places of worship in the United States, Canada, and Europe. And when the buildings are paid off, they start encouraging the congregations to build new ones, so just about all of the congregations are now financed through the headquarters.
Let me sum this up as follows:
1) The Watchtower receives monthly payments from every congregation in the US--based on their number of members (called "publishers"). This translates into millions of dollars going into the Watchtower's coffers every month.
2) The Watchtower uses some of this money to fund the building of new Kingdom Halls. They loan this money back to congregations, and make more money on the interest. These loans have terms from 5-10 years.
3) By the time the congregation pays off their loan to the Watchtower, they're strongly encouraged to either build a new Kingdom Hall, or do a "major remodel," which almost costs as much as building from scratch. Of course, the Society by default finances the work. Therefore, most of the congregations in the US are endebted to the Watchtower for their property.
My organization has never publicly announced how much money they pull in through this scheme. However, I estimate that they're probably pulling in at least $1.5 billion each year.
In my opinion, they're probably not doing anything that would put somebody in jail; however, they're not telling anyone about the enormous sums of money that they're handling either--which makes me suspect that a lot of the money is "disappearing."
Once I started looking at this Kingdom Hall scam, other issues that I'd known about but basically dismissed before, came back to my attention: The Circuit Overseer's car fund; Circuit & District Assembly financing; and what happens with the millions of dollars that each Assembly Hall has in their budgets.
In addition to financial issues, doubts regarding the Witness' doctrines have appeared--most notably, their prohibitions on blood.
Hopefully, this won't be the last post that I make here; I'll drop updates periodically.
I'm also setting up a blog at:
http://search4themanbehindthecurtain.blogspot.com/
Drop in and visit sometime.
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