A recent letter to elders in selected congregations in the United States urges them to encourage Indian nationals to return to India

The Watch Tower Society has circulated a letter, dated May 11 2013, to selected bodies of elders in the United States. The letter’s subject heading is “Request for Indian nationals to serve in India.”

The brief letter, which stresses that its contents should be kept confidential, urges elders to make “exemplary” Indian Witnesses aware of their “opportunity” to return to India due to the “potential for further growth” in that land.

Indian elders, ministerial servants and regular pioneers are to be particularly encouraged “to consider whether their circumstances may allow them to return to India to assist with the preaching work.”

India is home to one seventh of the world’s population. It is also one of a number of countries in Asia where the Society is floundering in its attempts to attract new publishers. According to the most recent report for 2012, India averages only one publisher per 33,708 people. The situation is considerably worse in Pakistan (1 in 205,540) and Bangladesh (1 in 885,071).

This website has already pointed out the enormous “black hole” in worldwide publishers, which encompasses one third of the global population. An immense zone of governmental opposition to the preaching work sweeps across 33 countries from West Africa right across to East Asia, as demonstrated in the map below…

As you can see, the zone of opposition (where the average is one Witness per 70,000 people) bypasses the Indian subcontinent. However, the disappointing figures in the Society’s own statistics for that region indicate that Witnesses are even struggling in Asian countries where their work is not currently under ban. This latest plea for Indian emigrants to return and bolster the numbers seems to represent an attempt to redress the balance.

This news should also be considered in the context of the Society’s conviction that Matthew 24:14 has already been fulfilled in readiness for Armageddon. If the “good news of the kingdom” has truly been preached “in all the inhabited earth,” then why is a third of the world’s population virtually untouched by the preaching work, and why are publishers even being asked to return to their country of origin in an effort to compensate for flagging growth?

 

58 thoughts on “Watchtower urges US elders to ask Indian nationals to consider returning to India

  • July 9, 2013 at 2:22 pm
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    One note, the term disfellowshipping / excommunication is used throughout Adventist community and prior years was used in terminating a person’s membership in a church community. The fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses cling to the notion reflects that group’s dependence on central authority and dominance over individuals that wander into its domain. It is rare to see this “power” exercised in other denominations except where a priest, bishop or high-minister is overtly defying the denominations’ tenets or common Christian tenets and expectations. Catholicism diocese archbishops have been known to threaten to withhold communion–excommunication, but typically only when it is a public and notorious act.

    An example would be most of the leadership in the Millerite/Adventism movements and related Christadelphians were excommunicated or disfellowshipped from their home churches–Methodists to Presbyterians–for advocating adventism.

  • March 3, 2015 at 8:54 pm
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    Matthew 10:23 says, ” When they persecute you in one city, flee to another, for truly I say to you, you will by no means complete the circuit of the cities of isreal until the son of man arrives…”

    Indicating to his followers that the preaching work will have not been completed when the Lord returns…

  • March 3, 2015 at 9:29 pm
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    I wanted to let those know that I quoted Matthew10:23 in defense of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I am not a witness, but when I was younger the witnesses used to teach that despite the prophecy at Mathew chapter 24, concerning the preaching work being fulfilled there would be area’s where the preaching work will not have been accomplished in, at least that is what the witnesses taught back in the 60’s & 70’s, if the Jehovah’s witness teachings have changed since then, I am sorry for that comment… Years ago when I use to have association with the Jehovah’s witnesses, they were cracker jacks with that bible, they always had a scripture to support what they were saying…

  • March 4, 2015 at 12:55 am
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    It has been rightly stated, that you can prove most things with the bible. The reason being, people read into scripture what ever suits their agenda. JWs are masters of this, and can pull out completely opposite meanings of a subject whenever they want to. When the world is doing well, they will say that the bible says the world leaders will be talking about peace and security, and then the end will come. Then if the world is going through a difficult time, they will show you end time scriptures, which speaks of bad things happening all over the earth.
    Same with worldwide preaching work. They will tell you that they have accomplished a worldwide preaching work, when in fact a third of the world has never ever heard the JW message, and most of the rest have no idea what witnesses believe.

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