by undercover 15 Replies latest watchtower bible
Like Parakeet I'm skeptical of that story. I don't own a hat but if that stories true I'll go out and buy a hat and then eat it.
The funny thing with these apocryphal stories is that other cults have very similar ones. The mormons probably have a version where it's an Amish crowd in Guatamala knocking on the gates of their temple asking to be taught about their ways.
This load of crap was the last "real" meeting for me and if you don't believe it just check my join date here and the date of the article.
The PO gave this study and described it with such disgust that he looked like a Jew with a BLT sandwich. This is the same turd with FOUR daughters all DF'ed and a wife dying of cancer that they are not able to visit or even speak with.
I remember "studying" the WT beforehand and then watching in disbelief as the sheep sat there in slack-jawed interest
The way this is written (at least the selected parts of the initial post) makes me think a secret apostate wrote this as some "WT satire" to get the sheep to think. I mean come ON, who could read that and not be disgusted at how they are shunned without having creeping disgust in the back of their own mind for the JWs own disfellowshipping tactics?
-K
“We cannot do as you ask,” replied one of the family heads. “Those people came to teach us the Bible.” How did the elders react? They expelled them for studying the Bible! This was a cruel blow indeed. The cart belonging to the colony cheese factory passed by the home of one family without collecting their milk, denying them their only source of income. One family head was dismissed from his job. Another was turned away from buying supplies at the colony store, and his ten-year-old daughter was expelled from school. Neighbors surrounded one home to take away the wife of one of the young men, asserting that she could not live with her expelled husband. Despite all of this, the families who studied the Bible did not give up their search for the truth.
I smelled a rat when I first saw this article, so I asked Google about Mennonite shunning.
The Amish practice of shunning--avoiding a former member in every way possible, excluding that person from both the church and community--is considered a means of guarding the Amish culture.
The idea behind shunning is based on Matthew 18:15-17: "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you . . . But if he will not listen, take one or two others along . . .. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." Other references are
1 Corinthians 5:11 and Romans 16:17.Mennonites today do not practice shunning, though it is still practiced by the Amish church in some communities. In fact, the issue was one of the main reasons the Amish began as a split-off sect of the Mennonites in the late 17th century.
I still smell that rat.
Cheers
Chris
The Old Colony Mennonites do shun in the manner that the article describes. Many other affiliations of Mennonites do not, and it also often varies from congregation to congregation within a given affiliation, because Mennonites have congregational church government, rather than an hierarchy over an entire affiliation. So there is nothing inherently suspicious (in and of itself) in the article. (Hats are probably especially tasty with mustard.)
However, it is exceedingly ironic that the article just as easily could have been written regarding JW's who consider leaving or do leave the Witness "fold". Maybe I was an Old Colony Mennonite all those fun-filled years...
So, the mennonites gave up all the keep JW *literature* after one encounter with JWs? They weren't asked to do anything but give up WT LITERATURE or be shunned. Isn't it amazing how the WT is trying to instill in JWs an overabundance of reverence for LITERATURE???? To give up all for LITERATURE? THATS NUTS. Sorry for yelling, the article pisses me off, and I think that it is incredibly ironic. Shelly
