The Last Days (June 5-11, 2023)
Issue No. 8
Welcome to the eighth 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 May 29 - June 4, 2023, here if you missed it. If you prefer to read The Last Days on our webpage click here.
This edition of The Last Days, covering the week of June 5-11, 2023, contains our leading Feature of the Week: InvestigateWest wins journalism award for feature on Jehovah’s Witnesses; JW News from Japan, the United States, and England; a reality check JW News Fact Check; a JW Book Review; your regular JW Celebrity News ‘gossip’ section with this week’s celebrity in focus… The Purple One, Prince; and a new video from YouTube content creator, EXJW Diaries.
To lighten the news and keep you awake!, this week we feature a JW Quote of the Week from Jesse Morris, son of Anthony Morris III.
We hope you continue to like our new format and colour scheme, which is based on our JW News Facebook page colour scheme, that has been in constant use since 2012.
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
Please support The Last Days for as little as the cost of a coffee.
InvestigateWest wins journalism award for feature on Jehovah’s Witnesses
June 5, 2023
US-based InvestigateWest has won an impressive eight awards in the 2022 Northwest Excellence in Journalism contest. This annual contest, administered by the Society of Professional Journalists, judges entries from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska.
Congratulations to Wilson Criscione and InvestigateWest for their First Place, Investigative Reporting award, as featured below.
Japan - published on June 4, 2023
United States - published on June 7, 2023
England - published on June 9, 2023
Download documents via JWLEAKS.ORG The Kingdom Hall Trust
Do not trust a news item unless you can check the original source. - JW.ORG
A year ago this week, the official Jehovah’s Witnesses website JW.ORG, published an article headed: “Kenyan Government Issues Directive Upholding the Rights of Schoolchildren”.
An image of the communiqué, issued by the Kenyan Ministry of Education, also appeared on the JW.ORG website (see below).
This JW.ORG news article opened by stating:
Paragraph 2 of the article then provides the Jehovah’s Witnesses centric background to the story when it states:
Is there a link between these two events?
No.
According to the article Kenyan Ministry of Education Declares that ‘Religious Beliefs Can Enter into Schools’, by Joshua Malidzo Nyawa, an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, the communiqué
comes after a long battle within domestic courts. Kenyans brought cases against the state in the Rastafarian decision (which challenged the decision of the school to suspend a Rastafarian student), the Fugicha decision (which challenged the ban on wearing hijabs) and the Seventh Day Adventist case (which challenged the decision of Alliance school to compel students to sit exams on Saturdays, conflicting with the Sabbath observed by students belonging to the Seventh Adventist Church). These cases indicate that the Kenyan judiciary has helped to provoke political momentum by illuminating constitutional issues surrounding religious freedom.
See also the following related Kenyan-based article:
Read the full Ministry of Education Statement here
Verdict
The JW.ORG news article on Kenya is click-bait containing misleading news.
Protect Yourself From Misinformation and Misleading news
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.
The governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses have authorized a ‘deforestation’ project to further their preaching work, which includes the teaching that Jehovah will bring to ruin those ruining the earth - including those ruining it by deforestation projects.
In a JW Global News release, dated June 6, 2023, spokesperson for Jehovah’s Witnesses, Brother Robert McRedmond, credits this new deforestation project to Jehovah.
We have seen Jehovah remove many obstacles, and we look forward to seeing how he will help us overcome future ones. - Brother Robert McRedmond
The forest clearing is for the new Jehovah’s Witnesses Audio Video Production Center in the Town of Ramapo, NY.
The latest Jehovah’s Witnesses newsletter on the JW AV Production Center, the 155 Sterling Mine Road Newsletter, explains what really happened:
Following receipt of a special permit, our appointed contractor began felling trees on February 22, 2023. Using only chainsaws, the work was carried out safely and efficiently in compliance with state imposed restrictions. The work was completed ahead of schedule on March 18, 2023.
“Environmental harm foretold”
Share your views on Reddit or read the comments
The Situation
JW Congregation Support wants to build a new Kingdom Hall.
The Arrogance?
JW Congregation Support does not wish to comply with township ordinances when building the new Kingdom Hall.
Relief request by JW Congregation Support
“The plan proposes 59 parking spaces, about half of the 116 spaces required by township ordinance. The plan also calls for five façade signs, when only one is permitted. Concrete curbing is proposed in the parking lot while the township ordinance requires granite block curbs.”
Let’s face it, there are a lot of actors, singers, musicians, artists, sports stars, and celebrities that are former or even current Jehovah’s Witnesses, or that were raised as children within the religion.
In focus: Prince
Prince Rogers Nelson, passed away seven years ago on April 21, 2016, of an accidental fentanyl overdose. He was 57 and a baptized member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
This week, on June 7, Prince would have turned 65. As a Jehovah’s Witness, Prince did not celebrate birthdays. Why?
The governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses explicitly forbid celebrating birthdays.
What does the Bible really say?
the Bible does not explicitly forbid celebrating birthdays. - JW.ORG
Happy 65th Birthday Prince Rogers Nelson!
It has been said that by reading the Watchtower and Awake! magazines, along with other publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a person will receive, over a period of years, a considerable and broad education.
…Would you like to grow in knowledge, obtaining an education of even much greater value than can be received in any college? You can do so by reading regularly this magazine and its companion, Awake! - The Watchtower magazine, June 15, 1983, p. 31.
Does reading the Watchtower and Awake! magazines really give you a ‘considerable and broad education’ along with ‘an education of even much greater value than can be received in any college?’
At the recent 153rd Gilead Graduation, Jesse Morris, member of the United States JW branch committee, and son of former governing body member Anthony Morris III, gave a talk in which he incongruently conflated “critical thinking” in education with a cynical, critical, pessimistic attitude, i.e. ‘negative thinking’.
Upon reading The Watchtower Jesse Morris is quoting from, one discovers that the subject under discussion in the quoted paragraph, is not ‘critical thinking’, but rather ‘negative thinking’.
Watch the entire talk via by Jesse Morris on JW.ORG [starts at 0:11:20 mark]: JW Broadcasting - June 2023: 153rd Gilead Graduation.
Is critical thinking negative thinking?
What is critical thinking?
The Foundation For Critical Thinking provides the following definition of ‘critical thinking’:
A well cultivated critical thinker:
raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely;
gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and
communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.
Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.
(Taken from Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2008)
- Defining Critical Thinking: The Foundation for Critical Thinking
UPDATE: Since this issue of The Last Days newsletter was published…
The below YouTube video, by Self-Aware NPC, develops the above subject matter on ‘critical thinking’ v ‘negative thinking’ in greater detail, complete with appropriate quotes and evidence.
Combating Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan, PhD
Steven Hassan, PhD (pronounced /hɑːsɪn/), is an expert on Undue Influence, brainwashing and unethical hypnosis and author of the best-selling book, Combating Cult Mind Control.
He is a licensed mental health professional, cult expert and undue influence expert with professional experience in the United States and abroad including consulting, coaching speaking, media appearances, activism, writing, researching, teaching, intervention and recovery services, and expert consulting and witness work to assist individuals and families with problems related to undue influence.
His expertise includes undue influence in cases of destructive one-on-one relationships, families, parental alienation, mini-cults, religious cults, therapy and self-improvement groups, professional abuse, institutional abuse, corporations, multi-level marketing, political groups, human trafficking, hate and violent extremism, and other situations. He writes and speaks out about the importance of viewing terrorist groups as destructive cults. - Freedom of Mind
In this YouTube video EXJW Diaries interviews a former Jehovah's Witness Elder who tells his story of joining the Watchtower, serving as an elder and seeing first hand the heartache that comes from the shunning policy.
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, or his whereabouts, although online speculation continues to abound.
The JWs said the end was coming in 1975 and destroyed countless life's!