I happened to have a few minutes of free time this Friday
morning and I decided to briefly attend a large meeting being held at the Burns
Arena for the Jehovah's Witnesses. It took me a while to catch on to what the sermon
was about. At first all it seemed like the preacher talked about was a list of
changes being made through out their church presently and in the near future.
This did not seem like it was much of a sermon.
After listening further, it occurred to me: this was the real subject of the
sermon. The preacher turned to the topic of truth. "We support the
truth," he said, "and we do it by upholding organizational
changes." He then turned to some scripture passages (I wasn't quick enough
to catch the references) in order to support his point. He continued, "We
need to accept changes wholeheartedly, we don't want to get left behind as the
church adapts to better suit its needs." After expounding on changes that
are being made to increase their missionary efforts, he concluded this part of
his speech by saying, "God's congregation will continue to support the
truth".
The epistemic approach applies with this situation very
well, mainly because in this case the very topic covered by the preacher was on
truth and change. The preacher called for the members to accept these changes
and asserted that in doing so they uphold the truth. His last statement was
perhaps the strongest of all in his appeal. He implied that if they are God's
people (and who among them doesn't believe or want to believe this?) then they
will endorse change and put up no protests.
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