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In Reply to: Re: Secular school - Higher education - Real change in the Family? posted by Wonk on September 03, 2009 at 03:11:18:
...one has to see it in perspective! Much like the emergence of the "Charter" in 1994, which was basically a negotiated settlement between judge Ward and the Family, this recent so called "Change Journey" has come about by pressure which academics, formerly favorable to the family, applied on the leadership. Do it or you lose our support type of a deal. Pressure was also mounting from young former members who held meetings with top leadership.
The mass exodus of young people from the Family has continued unabated through the years. Even though numbers are hard to come by, it is estimated that about 75-80 percent of young adults have left the Family. Peter in a recent letter diplomatically called it "more than 50%"...
Pressure has mounted recently on top TFI leadership to turn the ship around before it sinks. Hence the new letter series "Change journey" in which monumental changes are being announced:
Another very straightforward apology to ex-members has been offered and published, members are being urged to totally change their mind sets toward ex-members, who Berg categorically labeled "back-sliders". Higher education is now being encouraged and even promoted. Employment and business activities are now being kindly looked upon and not considered "compromise" anymore, even for the highest form of membership - FD.
Of course, again, if looked at in perspective - if members will send their kids to college and university, they have to come up with the bucks to pay for this education. They wouldn't be able to do this by canning or selling their music wares door to door. Despite years of promising and promoting financial abundance, the average Family home is still dead poor and people are beginning to wake up to the fact that their religion has not delivered what it promised.
So this has to be seen as a last ditch effort to turn the ship around. Rest assured, it won't. Once those kids get educated and the regular members enter the job market, they inch further and further away from their core teachings.
I believe we're seeing the beginning of the end of the Family. There will probably always be a hard core contingent around "Mama" and Peter, but I dare say they will even lose a great deal of their WS folks. They'll see that the elite religion they thought they were working for, step by step, just turns into another religion like the Mormons or the Jehovas Witnesses - main-stream!
It's intersting to watch them slowly disintegrate.
