Gumby said: I brought up this point because I read a link Mary provided on Shunning and how the Jehovahs Witnesses abuse the scriptures on the subject. One of the things that caught my eye was how the article pointed out that WILLFULL sinners should rightly be shunned. This made me think of the fact that ALL sin is willful unless it's an honest mistake.....
I think the real problem is that what the WTS considers "willful sinning" is not something that the average person/church considers sinning. While everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health, I don't know of any other religion that forces people to shun family members because someone has this weakness. Heavy drinking and obesity are major problems in the Organization and are just as bad, if not worse for your health than smoking is, yet NO ONE is DF'd for being overweight and very, very few Dubs are DF'd for being drunk. If they were, half the membership would be DF'd.
What about openly questioning the Governing Body and their interpretation of the scriptures and coming to a different conclusion than them? According to the WTS, this is not only "willful sinning", this is the "unforgiveable sin" and we all know that nothing you do will get you DF'd faster than to openly question doctrines in this religion. However, I don't believe that this is "willfull" or "unforgiveable" and I don't believe God views it like that either. Much of someone's "sins" is all based on a particularly narrow point of view.