by orbison11 20 Replies latest jw friends
greets all been a while
was reading all posts and saw that 'crumpet' had mentioned in one that all families whould not have anything to do with inactive family members, that this will be coming in the next circuit assembly
any hear/know of this? how forceful is this 'new/old' command?
thanks
orbi
A significant doctrinal change such as this would most likely be printed in a Watchtower study article; not presented at the circuit assemblies.
I could only immagine the "can of worms" that a proclamation like this would open up. How exactly would the deffinition of "inactive" be applied? Would it apply to those who have stopped turning in field service time? Would it apply to those who haven't gone out in service in six months, but still attend meetings? What if a parent has both an inactive spouse and child? How do they shun their child, but not their spouse? And furthermore, how could a congregation shun someone who hadn't even been marked by the body of elders for wrongdoing?
I could only immagine the flood of mail that would pour into the branch offices asking for clarifications along these lines. This type of ruling would create so much ambiguity and uncertainty; people would never be sure what they were supposed to do.
orbison, I think if you had read further down on that thread you would have seen the quote from the 2/07 KM that shows that it is merely a rumor or some JW's wrong interpretation of that.
If the Watchtower have a new shunning policy for the inactive, I think it will be on CNN
I have to say I feel quite apologetic for having stated something as if it were fact without having thoroughly investigated. I merely repeated something I thought I had read here. Thanks for this thread orby.
We are inactive. We were invited to a family gathering. The JWs merely said 'hello' and stayed together in one room and we stayed in another room. If we wandered into their room they just carried on chatting and ignored us. If they came into our room (we sat with the food) we had fun trying to chat to them and they left quickly.
This is a recent thing with my family. My husband's family totally shunned us from when we became inactive. My family, had until now been friendly but this has definitely changed. Do you think they've noticed that after five years there is no way we are going back to the Kingdumb Hell? Or maybe there really is a new spoken directive from the Goobering Slobbers!
Many JW rumors turn into truths later when printed, so much for confidentiality.
abr
Me thinks inactive, and walkaway are two different things. The key to not being shunned seems to be the perception that you are still a believer. If you are seen as a believer, attend a meeting once a month and are silent while still obeying all the Witness laws, I doubt you will be shunned by too many Witnesses.
If you haven't been to a meeting or memorial in a few years, that's not inactive, that's looking like disassociated without a letter. If you don't go to meetings and do something to get in the rumor mill, like go to a birthday party, or give the appearance of celebrating Christmas, that'll often start the shunning.
Shunning will very often start on rumor alone. If you don't want to be shunned, you will have to be every bit as vigilant as an inactive Witness as you were as an active Witness. If you want active believing Witnesses to associate with you, you will have to meet their minimum requirements for standards for approved association.
There's an apostate phobia all through the Witnesses now. They've heard countless repeated warnings like the talk "Beware The Voice of Strangers". Apostate warnings are a standard for repetition now and there were two recent magazine articles about walkaways. Quitting meetings is a bigger deal than quitting service. Quitting service is seen as a weakness if you attend some meetings. Quitting meetings is seen as leaving Jehovah. Celebrating a birthday is seen as leaving the family.
Some people just have bad relatives. They'd be bad relatives whether or not they were Witnesses.
At the end of the day the JWs are mind conditioned to be a very suspicious and mistrustful lot, an inactive person will be seen as a potential enemy and in essence marked. Only the JWs would call people that don't preach spiritually inactive just think how fanatical that is. If you don't preach you are of very low esteem though otherwise a very moral, intelligent and cultured person. That's the kind of emotional pressure the WTS puts on its members to get them to go out and sell their products.
