B J Kotwall
(Investigator 43, 1995 July)
For 88 years,
from 1904 to
1992, The Watchtower
Society (WTS) discouraged higher education:
"Many schools now have student counselors who encourage one to pursue higher education after high school, to pursue a career with a future in this system of things. Do not be influenced by them. Do not let them 'brainwash' you with the Devil's propaganda to get ahead, to make something of yourself in this world. The world has very little time left! Any 'future' this world offers is no future… Make pioneer service, the full-time ministry, with possibility of Bethel or missionary service your goal. This is a life that offers an everlasting future!" (The Watchtower1969 March 15 p. 17)
"Therefore as a young person, you will never fulfill any career that this system offers. If you are in high school and thinking about a college career, it means at least four, perhaps even six or eight more years to graduate into a specialized career. But where will this system of things be by that time? It will be well on its way towards its finish, if not actually gone." (Awake! 1969 May-22 p.15)
"Countless
youths fresh
out of school…are
finding that they cannot obtain the kind of employment they had
anticipated…an increasing number of (school) graduates are heading back
to school
rather than to the workplace. Indeed the rewards seem attractive…
College
graduates receive degrees that can open the door to employment
opportunities…
All Christians therefore, are keenly interested in education."
(Awake! 1994
August 22
pp. 3-9)
Nowhere in these 1992 & 1994 articles is acknowledgment or apology made for having previously misguided youngsters and lured them away from higher education with false predictions. Around 1970 the WTS was predicting the end of the world in about 1975 – which obviously failed! (Jehovah’s Witnesses: A Statistical Survey 1992 p. 201)
Why has the WTS made this turnabout on higher education?
My guess is that it’s a part of the process of easing over predictions for the 1914 generation which has all but passed away without Armageddon in sight. (J Ws: A Statistical Survey, pp. 199, 201, 213.)
There is also the predictions of Armageddon "within our twentieth century". (The Nations Shall Know... 1971 p. 216)
Opposition to
higher
education was in part
a consequence of such prophecies. Getting the "higher education" fiasco
out of the way might make future prophetic adjustments less
embarrassing
and condemnatory for the WTS.
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"…almost
all of the
students have become agnostics or infidels." "All this
study put
into many books which do not issue forth through
Jehovah’s Theocratic Organization, has merely wearied mankind…" "…going to
college
or university would be a waste of precious time that
could be used to aid honest hearted ones to gain accurate knowledge…" "…they are
subjected
to a constant onslaught of ungodly ideas at college
while separated from other Christians." |