The elders in a congregation, like high ranking enlisted men, only want you to perform
your duty properly. They don't have time for you to mess up. Clean the hall, comment
at the meetings, turn in field service reports, be present for all the meetings. When
you have problems, their solution is to get back into your routine.
As long as you are a useful soldier, you are praised. If you are barely useful, you are
barely noticed.
The lowest officers (C.O. and D.O.) might know who you are, but they are there to
inspect, and either praise your good job by eating meals with you (huge privilege to
share a meal with them) or listen to your problem, so they can assign the elders to
take care of it in their absence.
The upper officers are virtually unreachable. Good or bad soldiers don't want to spend
much time in their presence. Too lofty. The lower officers and high enlisted men spend
much time kissing their boots.
The organization thinks it should totally regiment your life. They will tell you to wear your
"uniform" and not to bother with outside sources of intelligence. They will schedule your
life and tell you who to associate with. If you were at their HQ, they would micro-manage
your schedule down to what minute you should be eating.
The biggest (IMO) clear comparison is the fact that they will throw you to the wolves if you
get in trouble. Something happens to you in field service- that member wasn't following
our instructions. You get in trouble for conduct- he is a "weak" member, who was disfellow-
shipped for that incident. We have no knowledge of his history.
Even in the lawsuits over child-molestation mishandling- if they could have left local elders
on their own to deal with this, they probably would have let them hang, denying all knowledge
of their mishandling. The elders would be expected to keep their mouths shut for the good
of the corporation.
