Quote:
Originally Posted by NeitherFirstnorLast
A poster recently remarked "WN did outsmart the British, at least initially: his movement grew and theirs (implying that this was a movement of Britain, and not of God) waned."
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That was in my post and it was based not on fact but on memory of what I had read in LSM history, which is arguably biased. Thanks for not letting it pass without challenge. It's nice to know people read our posts!
Generalizations can be true, but misleading. Here is an example:
My group grows from six to fifty members over a two-year span. Another group declines from 18,000 to 16,000 during that time. So I can say that my group is growing and another is declining. True, but it doesn't mean that in ten years mine will be 20,000 and the other will be 1,200. It just means that my group has recently increased while the other hasn't.
Or my group grows from six to fifty and another grows from 2,000 to 4,000. I can still say that we have "the fasted growing group", although we gained 44 members and they gained 2,000. Because my group's increase was sevenfold and the other group was twofold.
All of which is to say that my earlier post about different churches "growing" and "waning" in either size or influence was merely a reflection of perception, and not of actual events.