I have just received the transcript of the disfellowship appeal meeting from a person I know from a recording he took. It is quite typical in the condescension of the elders. Unfortunately he did not record the initial meeting.
A quick summary:
This brother faded successfully for a year or so whilst his wife continued meetings full steam ahead. Then she stumbled across some information whilst doing research for a bible student, told her friends, who then took her to the elders. The elders chose to form a judicial committee for both the wife and the husband for apostasy.
In the initial meeting the brother got very upset and a bit verbally aggressive, so during the meeting they added the charge of 'loose conduct' as this included disrespect for elders.
When the brother appealed the elders could not prove the apostasy charges. So in the appeal meeting they told him they were dropping the apostasy charge. The amazing thing was that they then said they would disfellowship him anyway for ‘loose conduct’, based on showing disrespect to the elders, plus him having been spoken to about pornography a couple of years earlier.
The end is classic so worth reading at least the last few lines. The ... are parts that could not be heard.
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Opening Prayer
K: If we could just have a look at one text in the Bible first? James chapter 3, and we’ll have a look at verse… yes, James chapter 3, verse 17. And just previously we were talking about the matter of “where jealousy and contentiousness [are], there disorder and every vile thing are. But the wisdom from above is first of all chaste, then peaceable, reasonable, ready to obey, full of mercy and good fruits, not making partial distinctions… Moreover, the fruit of righteousness has its seed sown under peaceful conditions for those who are making peace.”
And then it [was] mentioned in D’s prayer that having… being peaceable, having peace… when people get uptight and all excited, you can’t really … logic and reason a very hindered and those emotions run high… So what it [was] talked about with the wisdom from above, which we’ve asked Jehovah for his spirit, and being reasonable and being peaceable—which is a vital part of conducting a meeting of any kind where we represent Jehovah—and so we’re trying to do that.
And we’re sorry we couldn’t have concluded it all the other night, but I think I mentioned that it’s a pretty serious matter that we’re involved with, and while you recognize, and the brothers are quite… recognize that spiritually you’re going through a pretty low time, and there’s no question about that.
We have had a look at the charges that you have been… the two charges that you have appealed against, that of apostasy and loose conduct, and while there’s no question in the brothers’ minds that a lot of your activity and your own thinking and so forth reflects the hallmarks of one who is an… is apostate, really, because some of… your expressions to them, and they appreciate the fact that a person, a brother in the congregation, can go and talk to them, if they have doubts, they can go and talk to them and that doesn’t make them an apostate.
And we have no question in our minds that your serious doubts about the truth and the expression of them to R (my wife) has in a large measure triggered her situation.
C: Even though she said different?
K: Yeah, because I’ll tell you why C, that even prior to the doubts that R (my wife) had, there’s information from ones that she was researching your doubts.
C: Yeah, she told me about that and said that was out of context and…
K: Yeah, so you must have prior to that time had the view that you had doubts, and…
C: Well, obviously I told her…
K: Yeah, so we feel that within the marriage arrangement, because you’re one flesh, we accept the fact that a husband and wife talk about things—her concerns about you, your concerns about her, and so forth—the fact that you’re going to talk about things, C.
R (my wife), on a number of occasions, visited the brothers and wanted help with “how can I answer this” and so forth, so that we have no question that there was discussion there. However, we feel that—and the brothers too have seen this—that we’re going to… we’re not going to pursue the matter of apostasy.
While that we have no question that you’re in a very, very precarious situation and how it works out with R (my wife) —and of course you both have been two separate things, that’s why we’ve dealt with R (my wife) separately—and how it works out in the end, Jehovah will determine how culpable you are in regards to that.
However many of the attitudes and expressions that you have made over that and the other matter of loose conduct—and I think the brothers have explained that loose conduct it is not just a sexual nature, it covers a wide breadth of attitudes and resistance and so forth, and we have no doubt that in a large degree that applies, the charge of loose conduct applies.
And I’ll just tell you C, I’ve looked through a lot of the information and picked out what I feel… tried to quickly summarise so I don’t have to read you the whole report… spend time reading the whole report.
At this point K picked up a notepad and began to flick through it.
What the brothers are now basing… what they base their charge of loose conduct on. And this is going to go back and set a pattern for loose conduct. It’s not just a one-off; it’s something that has to be… it’s a pattern of a person’s life. Does that sound…?
C: Yeah.
K: And it goes back a quite a long… quite a while and even prior to when you were appointed as a ministerial servant I understand you had the problem of pornography… viewing pornography… pornographic sites… Is that…?
C: But is that relevant to this, though?
K: Yes, because it’s a pattern, you see. Even while you were serving as a pioneer, and a ministerial servant, you were accessing pornographic sites, showing a disregard—even though Jehovah, through the organization, has given specific instructions about the danger of that—you showed… to follow an independent course in that. That when you were… even when you were married it went on.
C: I can’t believe that… Obviously the apostasy charges from the beginning had no base, as you’ve dropped them. I can’t believe that you would go back to that to try and find something to…
K: If… it’s not a matter of going back to that…
C: But it wasn’t a problem before. No one came to me before and said “Look, you know, your conduct is a pattern and it looks like you’re leading into loose conduct. You need to careful.” I wasn’t even told I was in danger of or had committed loose conduct until after I’d been disfellowshipped for that.
K: Alright. Before, you had been spoken to on… could I just go through the points and then we’ll…
C: No, I’d rather not. Because I really feel that is just looking for reasons to…
K: No, it’s not, C. As I pointed to you, it’s a matter of… a pattern of life…
C: Yeah, I understand that’s your point…
K: Do you see that it’s part of a pattern?
C: But if it is a pattern, the brothers would have to have recognised that a long time ago. You can’t go back and go “Oh well, you did do those things back then, so we can count that towards something now.”
K: Could I just state another situation that will input on this conversation?
C: Yeah.
K: Say a person is… we’ll use the… we’ll use the situation of over drinking, drunkenness, and I’m not in any way…
C: Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.
K: … using the situation…
A person gets drunk on a few occasions and gets spoken to, gets drunk… and they’re both… it’s all a disfellowshipping… drunkenness… he’s disfellowshipped… or he’s reproved rather… he’s reproved for it. He gets drunk, he’s reproved. And it goes on. And at a point, we don’t just look at this individual instance, but what is the pattern.
So before they judge, well, the brothers… but over a period of time—now they might not have spoken to him about loose conduct, they were talking to him about the matter of drunkenness—but over a pattern of time it forms a pattern loose conduct as well, what is being done.
And there may have been other things not just drunkenness; besides drunkenness he smoked on a couple of occasions, or he did something else scripturally… There may be a number of things. Now they form a pattern of a person’s attitude toward divine law, towards the scriptures. And so it would be reasonable then, wouldn’t it, that when the committee looks at the situation now, that they look at the pattern.
Here he is reproved for drunkenness, here he is spoken to about smoking, here he is, he has lied over here; there’s a pattern of his attitude toward divine law. Do you see that?
C: But I still think that it is a stretch to go that “Okay, we can disfellowship you—not for the individual offences—but because you’ve done other things that aren’t disfellowshipping offences, we can then disfellowship you. It seems to look like a reason that “Okay we don’t think you’re good enough, so we can kick you out because we can get all the different little things and put them together.”
K: And it may seem like that to you, but that’s the way the brothers… and the very fact that some of the things that you have done show that your thinking isn’t real sound and straight, so I wouldn’t put a lot of confidence in what you think.
C: Okay.
At this point, I stand up to leave.
C: Well, thankyou very much, but I can’t participate in this. I feel like this is a mock trial; making up things purely to try to get me out. You’ve dropped apostasy, and you’re using loose conduct and things from way before that have no relevance to the situation now. So I’m afraid I can’t…
K: The point there…
C: No, I’m sorry. I really don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I really honestly feel that this is designed to purely get me out and not designed to try to help me.
K: Well as far as…
C: No, I’m sorry. Thankyou but I can’t participate.
K: Okay.
I walk out.
