Is it Later Than You Think?

Apparently it is. Notice, this magazine was published 42 years ago in 1968.

And the questions asked on the cover?

• is it later than you think?
• is time running out for this generation?
• what will the 1970s bring?

It turns out that, no, it isn't later than Jehovah's Witnesses were led to think in 1968. 42 years later this "old system" keeps lumbering onwards. Imagine being 18 years old when you received your copy of this Awake! magazine. You'd now be 60. Has your life turned out as you expected it to at the end of the 1960s?

And during those 42 years it became clear that the answer to the second question is 'yes', time had run out for 'this generation'. Thrice, in fact. First, in 1995 when the Governing Body decided that Jesus evidently meant 'this generation' referred to all of the wicked people who refused to repent since 1914. 

Then in 2008 the Governing Body decided that Jesus evidently meant the anointed on earth right now where 'this generation'.

And now, in 2010, again the Governing Body has decided that 'this generation' is actually two overlapping generations, as illustrated by the life of Fred W Franz (baptised in 1913) and the lives of the current members of the Governing Body, some of whom were born many years after 1935.

Of course, with each 'new'* iteration of what Jesus evidently meant by 'this generation', 7 million Jehovah's Witnesses automatically, by default, change what they evidently understand 'this generation' to mean.

But then they are instructed to view the words of the Governing Body as being the words of Jehovah God himself.**

What about the answer to the third question? Well, quite simply, the 1970s brought another failed prophetic expectation from the Governing Body, as published in magazine articles such as this 1968 Awake! With the failed expectations, many left the ranks of the Watch Tower Society.

I wonder what the rest of this decade will bring?

* the change in understanding published in 2008 was actually a re-hash of what they understood Jesus to evidently mean back in 1928.

** see references to the September 2010 Study Edition of the Watchtower magazine.