Bad experience as young teenager with the YPA book and those leaving the religion

Jeni Lundblom looks at her bad experience as a young teenager going through her teenage years having all that literature which did not seem to help really, perhaps it was also presented with a collection of often foolish advice that offered her no real support. For her some of the topics she encountered were embarrassing, though at that time she really believed the book Questions Young People Ask Answers That Work, or the “YPA” book, would be able to help her answer any questions I had. Today she finds the book being nothing but a propaganda piece with contents that did nothing but attempt to bolster her paranoia of the outside world.

When according to a 2008 study from Pew Research, only 37% of people raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses continue with the religion as adults we may wonder how it comes so many leave the religious group their family is part of.


she now also questions:

When you consider the many (a number of whom I’ve privately corresponded with) who stay just to keep the community and familial ties intact, one has to wonder how many stay true believers from childhood on?

Normally we would expect it much easier for children just to continue in the religion they were brougth up. In most countries this is what most regularly happens. For people it is more difficult to come to an other religion. Though today we notice also that lots of children just leave religion at the site and concentrate on worldly matters.

Though for a religious organisation which builds its instructions and its life on the Word of God, we would expect the turn over would be much better. Lundblom notices

It turns out, Watchtower isn’t so good at “inculcating” children as Deuteronomy 6:6-8 instructs. Instead, the organization seem to be setting kids up for failure and their often-inevitable exit from the religion.

Read more about it:

The Friday Column: Questions Young People Ask – Answers That Don’t Work

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Russell and his beliefs

Often we hear it mentioned that Russell found the non-trinitarian group which is known as the "Jehovah's Witnesses."  Russell, of course, did not found an organization called "Jehovah's Witnesses." He never heard of such an organization; he did not believe in such an organization, and he preached against the formation of such an organization until the day he died. Russell refused to allow himself or the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society to become a "central authority" over the local congregations, although, individually, and as congregations, many of the Bible Students had come to view him as such.

Russell learned the Biblical truths about hell, the condition of the dead, and about the trinity, as well as "the ransom for all," from others who had become before him. His understanding of these matters did not originate from out of the blue, nor were they simply his own thoughts. It was the proper Biblical understand ing of these matters that led him to reaffirm his faith in the Bible, in the God of the Bible, and in Jesus as the Son of God who gave himself a ransom for all.

Russell had, through his own self-study educated himself along many lines. The fact that he did not receive his education at the hands of humanly-recognized sectarian theological schools does not mean that he did not understand what he was writing about. That Russell did correctly present the usage of Hebrew and Greek words was confirmed, with some few minor exceptions, by Paul S. L. Johnson, who was well-educated and who was a thoroughly trained scholar in both Hebrew and Greek.

Russell gave a summation of his beliefs, what he stood for, in the January 15, 1912 issue of the Watch Tower, page 28:
>What Did Charles Taze Russell Stand For?

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• For more information of the condition of the dead, hell, hades, sheol, lake of fire, eternal torment, etc., see:
  http://hereafter.reslight.net
  
• For more information about the "ransom for all," see:
  http://atonement.reslight.net
  
• For more information about the "trinity," see:
  http://godanson.reslight.net
  
  

• Russell Questioned His Faith
  

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