How should the congregations be disciplined ?

by vitty 8 Replies latest jw friends

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  vitty

  I dont think disfellowshipment itself is wrong, its the enforced shunning that causes the damage. I think a lot of posters here agree. Personally I think the public reproof is just sick and when a person is marked!

  And as we are on a eXJW forum here, on what grounds "should" the WT or any religion DF a person.

  Sometimes I used to wonder how a person "got away" with their supposed "crimes" but I did then have my WT blinkers on.

  Should the serial fornicator be DF, the liar, the adulterer or a gossip? When does it become a congregational issue, rather than someones personal business and that they have to take the consequences of the sin ?

  Ive often wondered this, since so many here were DFd and talk about a kangaroo court, and ask "Who are these elders anyway, that they can judge them ?"

  There are so many sides to this, Id like to hear your opinions .
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  mann377

  I don't think the congergation has any business DF'g anybody on an organized level. After all the bible tells one to quite judging one another. If some one is engaged in conduct that you do not approve then tell them how you feel and why. These people will avoid you after you tell them. Problem solved!
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  AlmostAtheist

  The DF'ing scriptures in the Bible strike me (after my blinderectomy) as applying to individuals. Paul's words seem to be advice, not commands. When "Bob" becomes known as a fornicator (meaning he does it, and intends to do it again) the individuals within the congregation would be wise to follow the advice to keep him out of their lives. They are trying to live by their accepted set of standards, and being around Bob might cause them to question or even abandon those standards.

  But once Bob makes it clear that he doesn't intend to keep in this course, he wouldn't qualify for shunning. It looks like individuals in the congregation were authorized by Paul to take that drastic step, not commanded to do so. And once he didn't qualify anymore, that authorization would be revoked.

  Just my take on it, You'll wanna check with BrownBoy to get the Faithful Slave's ok on this. ;-)

  Dave
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  Mary

  I think pedophiles and people who beat their mates and children should be disfellowshipped. Ironically, these are the only group that they don't DF!!
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  AuldSoul

  I agree with Dave's take on this. Paul was writing to the individuals in the congregation, not to the elders. Currently, the congregation in general is not aware of the reason for any action taken (although there is plenty of speculation and slander).

  The Scriptural standard is to "reprove before all onlookers." (1 Timothy 5:20) Including older men who sin. Paul put it into practice on the occasion of Peter separating himself from the Gentiles when the men from James arrived.

  But now, they call it "public reproof" when they announce the sentence on the individual who sinned. Reproof is the counsel, not the sentencing. But that is kept behind closed doors before three men. Everyone else has to accept those men judged rightly, so there is no opportunity for exercise of personal conscience.

  The fact is, the way Jehovah's Witnesses handle "gross wrongdoing" is incredibly different from the examples shown in the Bible. There is no instance in the Bible of a judicial committee being arranged to act on behalf of the congregation in the matter of judging right from wrong and sentencing. These men, knowingly or in ignorance, set themselves up to judge their "brother" and "sister" for the entire congregation without one ounce of authority to do so.

  They draw comparison to the arrangement Christ dissolved. In other words, there is more similarity between the congregational arrangement of Jehovah's Witnesses and the arrangement under the Mosaic Law. That Law was described as a burden that Christ freed us from.

  AuldSoul
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  sammielee24

  I dont think disfellowshipment itself is wrong, its the enforced shunning that causes the damage

  I take it you are asking wether or not it's the act of disfellowshipping or the act of shunning which hurts more? You can't separate the two since the disfellowshipping is nothing without the shunning. If I had been disfellowshipped only and my 'privileges' taken away then emotionally and mentally things would have been easier. The shunning, the death of your entire world by that one act, usually causes the most damage. This is not addressing the issue of wether or not it is biblical or not, it's just addressing the fall out from the application. The organization, if it had any common sense at all, would have looked at this issue logically. Most disfellowshipped/shunned people leave and never return. Those that do, often do so for complex reasons and not often because they believe it's the truth. As an elder I used to wonder about that..now I know why. It's because when you are cast out, from all of your family, shunned, dead - then you are forced to acknowledge and accept just how expendable you really were to an organization and how little you meant to any member of any family you belonged to. Being forced 'into the world' and surviving, means being forced to accept the real truth - the truth that your life was cocooned by belief in a lot of untruths...the word and act of disfellowshipping won't kill you but shunning sometimes will.
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  Darth Yhwh

  What rite does the WBTS have to disipline a JW?
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  greendawn

  I think the leadership should be disfellowshipped for systematically lying to the R&F and misleading them with ideas they know well that are false (the devil is the father of lying) for acting presumptuously against their fellow "annointed" slaves whom they exclude from all effective power and generally for acting like Nazis following Hitler's advice of:
  
  "never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame, tell big monstrous lies because most persons will not believe that one could have the nerve to distort the truth so audaciously and they will thus accept them as real"
  
  One big audacious lie is the FDS sole channel claim. Rutherford was especially good at telling such big lies.
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  fullofdoubtnow

  Speaking as one who is about to face congregation discipline, probably disfellowshipping and, inevitably, the shunning that goes with it (thats if I don't get the chance to jump before I'm pushed), I have to say that I am far more apprehensive about the shunning part of the process. I have always been uncomfortable with that anyway, it has always seemed such an unloving thing to me. For many who have left, and probably for me soon, that seems to be the most damaging form of discipline that the congregation can mete out. For that reason I can't see that policy ever changing