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                              By Joni Valkila

In addition to Watchtower’s concerns about financial donations, the age pyramid threatens their membership. While I don’t have the hard numbers internationally, I have the numbers for Finland.

It is worthwhile to note the following interrelated factors:

1) a low birth-rate among Jehovah’s Witnesses because Watchtower has discouraged its members from having children for decades
2) a decline in the number of converts since the mid-1990s
3) a collapse in the number of baptisms since the mid-1990s
4) young people leaving the organization.

The net result is a very aged population.

We have fairly reliable government statistics about the age structure of JWs in Finland. Guess how many are over 65 years old? It’s 28% of JWs in Finland. This is a population of very poor future prospects.

There have been fewer JWs in proportion to the population since 2001. As the decline no doubt continues, at some point it could lead to a collapse of congregations and the organization. It’s a sinking ship.

Who wants to give their money or time to an organization that doesn’t seem to have a future? Kingdom halls are being sold. The few people who still go to meetings are mostly old people.

But, I have to say though that the product JWs sell—eternal life in a paradise earth, albeit at a heavy price to the members—is very good. Watchtower still might find new markets and millions of new gullible people who want to believe they can live forever, and are willing to give their money to help make that possible.

You can get to know more about Joni Valkila by going to his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/valkila

On May 10, 1962, my first day at Bethel, I was told that I would need to attend the Monday night study of the Watchtower, if I wanted to have a successful career at Bethel. My first Monday-night meeting occurred four days later, with Fred Franz conducting.

I was 18 at the time and flabbergasted listening to Franz conduct the Watchtower Study. I had never seen anyone convene a meeting like this. He was extremely self-absorbed and acted as if he might be going crazy. He talked in a deranged-like high-pitch and drifted into tangents unrelated to the study article. One inane comment was a premonition he shared with 600-plus Bethelites, in the Bethel Kingdom Hall, saying, “I don’t know when, but I will die on a Friday the 13^th.”

Lee Marsh

Many survivors of sexual abuse among Jehovah’s Witnesses opt to sue the Watchtower Society and the congregation where the abuse happened. This is a very difficult and trying decision to make and subsequent action to take.

These kinds of lawsuits are not tried in a criminal courtroom, although at one level I think they should be. These kinds of cases are filed as civil law suits against agencies that not only hid the abuse but threatened the victims and their families with disfellowshipping if they reported the abuse to the police or others in the congregation. Many of them were told that if they reported the abuse they would cause divisions within the congregation and would not be submissive.

This effectively acted as a gag order. Victims and their parents are not even permitted to tell extended family members about the abuse, leaving the abuser free to find other victims. When the  abuser is a direct family member, who lives with the victim, the child often winds up being further abused and knows that going to the elders will not stop the abuse; it might make it worse. So there is no protection, not for them and not for others.