JW Children Lie in Custody Cases

by compound complex 290 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  compound complex

  Lie; falsehood; fib; untruth; mendacity.

  Lie---harsh and direct, everyday word for a statement which distorts or suppresses truth.

  Falsehood---more dignified and less offensive term.

  Fib---not slang but standard English [from FABLE]; a trivial falsehood, uttered with good intentions.

  Untruth---less reprehensible than a falsehood; a statement either intentionally misleading, or so, due to misunderstanding or ignorance.

  Mendacity---disposition to lie, perhaps habitually.

  A DICTIONARY OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN USAGE, 1957, by Bergen Evans and Cornelia Evans, p. 274.
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  compound complex

  The Major Period of "Theocratic" Legislation

  It was in the 1950s that the real development of what amounts to a complete system of law for Jehovah's Witnesses began, a code of rules and regulations that covers virtually every aspect of life. This came largely as a result of the growing emphasis on the process of "disfellowshiping" which surfaced during the preceding decade, particularly from 1944 onward. [The WATCHTOWER, May 15, 1944, pages 151-155. These articles discussed such texts as Matthew 18:15-17; 1 Corinthians 6:1-8; and 2 Thessalonians 3:14. They mainly emphasized that the handling of matters of wrong conduct was not to be done by the congregation as a body (as was the case previously) but by "authorized Theocratic representatives." (See also page 246 and the statement there quoted from this 1944 magazine.) Later articles built upon this basis and led to ever greater involvement by appointed congregational "servants" in judicial matters.] For the first few ensuing years there was simply discussion of the Scriptural counsel itself, as for example the apostolic counsel at 1 Corinthians chapter five, with its exhortation not to fellowship with "anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater, or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler." [1 Corinthians 5:11, NIV.] There is no question as to the validity of that counsel and the wisdom of adhering to it. But the organization now began to branch out from such Scriptural exhortation into the field of legislation, so that in course of time an actual code of rules came into existence.
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  compound complex

  In what way did all this come about? How did a few early rules formulated and enforced during Rutherford's presidency later experience a virtual explosion into the present "great body of law"?
  The headquarters administration at Brooklyn maintains what is called a "Service Department." This department supervises the activity in the United States of all traveling representatives (elders and ministerial servants). Questions on policy and procedure received from any of these sources are regularly handled by the Service Department, whose staff members have divided among them various "sections" of the country. With the increased emphasis on disfellowshiping, particularly from the 1950s on, questions began to arrive from congregational overseers and traveling overseers requesting more explicit definitions of certain conduct deemed sinful, particularly in the field of sexual immorality, but also embracing other fields. The congregational overseers wanted to know, what was the Society's "policy" in such cases? What action should the congregation take? [ibid., p. 248.]
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  Oroborus21

  just post the citations to Ray's books and leave it at that.

  i think when you are the only person to post to a thread five times in a row, its time to let it go.

  ...don't worry the topic will come around again...they always do
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  OUTLAW

  Oroborus21..You don`t like this thread..Does it bother you?..Would you prefer it did`nt exsist?...OUTLAW
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  compound complex

  bttt
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  compound complex

  Inquiries from these men therefore came in to the Brooklyn headquarters of the Watch Tower. In many cases the "section man" of the Service Department did not feel qualified to supply the definition requested or to lay out in specific terms precisely what did or did not constitute "grounds for disfellowshiping" in the circumstance involved. The standard procedure in all such cases is summed up in an expression that was used again and again with growing frequency. The expression was: "Send it to Freddy."
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  compound complex

  By "Freddy" was meant Fred Franz, who was then the Watch Tower Society's vice president and the acknowledged principal writer and Bible scholar for the organization. The question was forwarded to him and he supplied the requested definition or application of Scripture to the matter, usually in the form of a memorandum. Since in most cases, the Scriptures themselves contained no specific discussion of the matter in question, much of the answers' content consisted of interpretative reasoning, the reasoning of the vice president. His responses were, of course, subject to approval by the president, Nathan Knorr, even to his veto, though that seems to have been infrequent. There is also no doubt that the MANNER in which the Service Department presented the issues, and THEIR OBSERVATIONS made when submitting the questions, influenced the replies they received and thus played a measurable part in the policies that actually developed. The vice president had no first-hand knowledge whatsoever of the circumstances involved in the cases. Furthermore he had no personal communication with the persons whose lives would be affected by the decisions he rendered. [emphasis: RF.]
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  Quandry

  I for one appreciate the references to Ray Franz' book. I have never read it myself. I found it quite interesting that he showed how the
  "rules and regulations" were the result of contacting the service department of the WTS for instructions on how to handle different cases. They, in turn, asked "Freddy." How true that he began to make decisions that affected people's lives while neither knowing them nor the circumstances.

  How unfortunate that "rules and regulations" are all that interest the WTS now. Not how much love a person shows or has in his or her heart. Just adherence to the "rules."

  I have read on this board comments made by former elders of their dismay that now there is "uncleaness with greediness" as well as uncleaness with all its nit-picking differences. It has become disgusting.

  Thanks compound-complex for helping us to unravel the "legalistic" nature of this organization and how it began.
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  compound complex

  I do not question the sincerity of Fred Franz's efforts in this area. But the result, I believe, illustrates how wrong it is to allocate to any man, not the mere extending of COUNSEL or ADVICE, but the actual DECIDING [emphasis: RF] of matters that rightfully should rest with the individual consciences of those personally involved. However sincere the vice president was, it is an undeniable fact that his rather cloistered life at the headquarters from his early twenties onward had largely isolated him from life as lived by ordinary people 'on the outside' (a term used frequently by staff workers at the Watch Tower headquarters with reference to life outside their select community). The things being experienced by those who were engaged in secular employment, who had homes and families, knew what it was to be married or to be parents, had to face the problems and difficulties of day-to-day living as most people face them, formed little or no part of his experience. From my own personal association with him over many years, it was evident that he was quite detached---or perhaps the expression could be "insulated"---from the reality of life as lived by the average person. He was in no sense a "hermit" and accepted occasional invitations to people's homes for meals or weekends, but he was always a "special" guest, someone looked upon as different from ordinary people. Conversation rarely if ever dealt with the more mundane aspects of human occupations. I recall one summer in the late 1940s or early 1950s when he was at our family home in Kentucky on vacation (as I was also there on vacation from Puerto Rico), and he commented on himself and Nathan Knorr, saying: "Brother Knorr is a practical man. I am a scholar." I am sure he was not an unfeeling person, yet in his outlook toward the problems of human living he seemed somewhat otherworldly, at times almost fatalistic about difficulties and even tragedies. [ibid., p. 249.]