The Last Days (July 17-23, 2023)
Issue No. 14
Welcome to the fourteenth edition of The Last Days newsletter.
The Last Days delivers a collection of curated JW-related news articles from around the world, and other entertaining information, straight into your inbox every weekend. You choose what you want to read, believe, download, listen to, watch, or subscribe to.
You can find the last edition of TLD covering July 10-16, 2023, here if you missed it. If you prefer to read The Last Days on our webpage click here.
This special late edition of The Last Days, covering the week of July 17-23, 2023, contains our leading Feature of the Week: Watchtower Victim’s Memorial Day; JW News from Germany; a JW Fact Check on propaganda; a video from YouTuber The Truth Hurts; and more!
Enjoy the Last Days! . . .
“The events unfolding around us, are making clearer than ever, that we’re living in the final part of the Last Days, undoubtedly the final part of the final part of the Last Days, shortly before the Last Day of the Last Days.” - Stephen Lett, member of the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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July 26: Watchtower Victim’s Memorial Day
An Annual Event
Article originally published by Say Sorry and republished with permission
Each year on the 26th of July, Jehovah’s Witness survivors and friends commemorate Watchtower Victim’s Memorial Day.
This international day is to mourn and respect victims of the unconscionable and dangerous corporate policies of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the parent organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
On the 26th of July 1931, the president of the Watch Tower Society, J. F. Rutherford, invented the name ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’.
Watchtower Victim’s Memorial Day honors, by remembering, the thousands of Jehovah’s Witness abuse victims and survivors. Such due honor is often expressed by peacefully leaving a note or stuffed toy attached to the gate of a local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
A reason to Say Sorry
In 2015 and 2017 the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse ("Child Abuse Royal Commission”) published findings that among 68,000 active Jehovah’s Witnesses in Australia, there were over ‘1800 alleged victims of child sexual abuse’ associated with the religion. Not a single one of these cases was reported by the church to the authorities.
The Child Abuse Royal Commission’s Final Report Recommendations for Case Study 29 stated:
‘The Jehovah’s Witness organisation should abandon its application of the two-witness rule in cases involving complaints of child sexual abuse.’ (Recommendation 16.27)
‘The Jehovah’s Witness organisation should revise its policies so that women are involved in processes related to investigating and determining allegations of child sexual abuse.’ (Recommendation 16.28)
‘The Jehovah’s Witness organisation should no longer require its members to shun those who disassociate from the organisation in cases where the reason for disassociation is related to a person being a victim of child sexual abuse.’ (Recommendation 16.29)
The leaders of Jehovah’s Witnesses
The current all male members of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses have not publicly acknowledged the suffering of even one single child abuse victim and they have refused to recognise the official figures released by the Child Abuse Royal Commission.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to say sorry to child abuse survivors within their own institution.
In Remembrance
Please show your support for the survivors and victims and help us all receive an apology.
Watchtower Victim’s Memorial Day is an annual opportunity for everyone to be supportive and show solidarity.
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Germany - published on July 20, 2023
Australian activists and survivors, Lara Kaput and Steven Unthank from Say Sorry, met with the German Kommission in Berlin on July 20 and shared their experiences with the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and their knowledge on the Jehovah's Witnesses institution.
Protect Yourself from Propaganda
“By clever and persevering use of propaganda even heaven can be represented as hell to the people, and conversely the most wretched life as paradise.”—ADOLF HITLER, MEIN KAMPF. - as quoted in the Awake! magazine, June 22, 2000, published by Jehovah’s Witnesses
To stay safe and healthy, JW News Fact Check searched on JW.ORG for any warnings about protecting oneself from propaganda and misinformation.
Note the following warning advice on propaganda as published by Jehovah’s Witnesses:
The cunning propagandist loves such shortcuts—especially those that short-circuit rational thought. Propaganda encourages this by agitating the emotions, by exploiting insecurities, by capitalizing on the ambiguity of language, and by bending rules of logic. - Awake! magazine, June 22, 2000
Name-calling as a means of spreading propaganda
The above quoted Awake! article had the following to say on the dangers of name-calling:
Some people insult those who disagree with them by questioning character or motives instead of focusing on the facts. Name-calling slaps a negative, easy-to-remember label onto a person, a group, or an idea. The name-caller hopes that the label will stick. If people reject the person or the idea on the basis of the negative label instead of weighing the evidence for themselves, the name-caller’s strategy has worked. - Awake! magazine, June 22, 2000
An example of name-calling
The Jehovah’s Witnesses website states:
Does the Bible really say that apostates are “mentally diseased” or is this a potential example of both propaganda and name-calling?
The above online article refers to 1 Timothy 6:3,4 as a reference to the claim that “the Bible says that apostates are mentally diseased”.
Upon clicking the link one discovers that the Bible scripture referenced in the Jehovah’s Witnesses online library and online article, namely 1 Timothy 6:3,4, does not actually say that “apostates are mentally diseased”. In fact, neither the word ‘apostate’ nor the phrase ‘mentally diseased’ appears in the referenced Bible scripture from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. See below screenshot.
Verdict
By their own words the Jehovah’s Witnesses have condemned their own flagship magazine, The Watchtower.
A classic example of both propaganda and misinformation.
Protect Yourself from Propaganda and Misinformation
To stay safe and healthy, JW News Fact Check searched on JW.ORG for any warnings about protecting oneself from ‘misinformation’ or from accessing ‘misleading news’.
Our in depth research found the following ironic warning from the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses:
Protect Yourself From Misinformation
- Do not believe everything you see or hear
What the Bible says: “The naive person believes every word, but the shrewd one ponders each step.”—Proverbs 14:15.
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In this YouTube video The Truth Hurts explores the following two questions:
How does it feel to wake up in your seventies and know that you have spent most of your life plugged into the Jehovah's Witness Matrix?
Is it possible to be happy and optimistic, or is the glass half empty?
On Wednesday, February 22, 2023, it was announced at the World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses that
“Brother Anthony Morris III is no longer serving as a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
Still no news on the reasons for the removal of Anthony Morris III from the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but he has been found in Lumberton, New York.
Found!
1 Tim. 6:4 "mentally diseased " Strong's coded #3552 any ailment of the mind; to have a morbid fondness for. Thayer's G to E Lex.