by TheListener 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I would like a simple step by step explanation that refutes the Disfellowshipping policy as practiced by Jehovah's Witnesses.
Obviously, I don't agree with the policy but I have had trouble making my explanations clear and straightforward.
Any help would be appreciated.
1. If someone is WEAK they need to be helped not ignored.
2. How does it show LOVE to inflict emotional pain and isolation on someone?
The question could be posed: What did Jesus say about disfellowshipping? Did he speak to tax collectors? to sinners? Yes, he did.
From a social perspective
In my area there are just so many disfellowshpped ones and almost every JW family seems to have at least one disfellowshpped member.
Time is making disfellowshpping obsolete - its working against them - soon there will be just as many out than in
So from that point of view its a very shortsighted arrangement.
There was likely some form of "church discipline" in most segments of early Christianity, but no single consistent disciplinary system can be gathered from the New Testament.
The WT (like most historical churches) has simply developed its own "canon law" and artificially integrated the few NT disciplinary passages (whether normative, such as Matthew 18 or 2 John 9-11, or descriptive, like 1 Corinthians 5 or 2 Corinthians 2) into it. The structure itself is not anymore "Bible-based" than the design of a building is determined by some of the materials.
What I feel is most "unscriptural" in the WT disciplinary system is the practice of judgement behind closed doors by a committee, whose sentence must then be blindly applied by the whole congregation in complete ignorance of the facts and grounds. Although it might be pleaded that it is a kind of halfway compromise between two opposite NT patterns, namely, judgement by the whole congregation (Matthew 18; 1 Corinthians 5) or the majority (2 Corinthians 2), and authoritative decision of one man (the Pastorals).
Also, the very centralism of the WT pyramidal structure (where both the disciplinary standards and agents are set from top to bottom) oppose both the parts and sum of the NT disciplinary texts. Even the "monarchic" system emerging in the Pastorals is that of local, not central, authority.
As a matter of pattern and principle ALL Kangaroo courts are BAD!
The Kangaroo court system that the WT society is no different to the unprofessional and uneducated manner in which the Hospital Liason committees perform, the Elders 'counselling service' and the Elders 'Marriage Guidance Counselling' Service works.
In all parts of the world, if a person wishes to be a Judge, a Doctor or Medical Practioner, a counsellor or even a Marriage Guidance counsellor, they require years of education and to pass exams and certification. But not so in the membership of the Jehovah's Witnesses Organization.
In the JWs, ruled by the GB of the WTBTS, you can be a humble cleaner, bank clerk, insurance salesman, used car sales man or even a window cleaner and you ARE qualified to wreck the lives of anyone at all who is a baptised member of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization.
No one, no matter who they are should be able to do that.
A Jehovah's Witness can have their entire social support and family network taken away from them simply for disagreeing with a Watchtower article. They could lose their family for smoking, for having got drunk, for accepting a blood transfusion if they were bleeding to death, even for having been raped if the esteemed window cleaner considers they didn't fight their attacker off hard enough!
Where else does such nonsense exist except for extremist, intolerant countries and organizations.
Disfellowshipping is an abuse of power by 'little men' who know no better than to worship a book publishing company.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 'R THE FAMILY WRECKERS OF THE WORLD
"if my family has any contact with me they will be justifying my ungodly lifestyle"
Ring a bell? It's not from the Jehovah's Witnesses it's an excerpt form the discovery channel documentary on 'doomsday cults' describing the practice of the *Roberts group* a disturbing cult. See all cults like JW's have a shunning shame device to control members.. To be treated like a man of the nations (gentile) or as a tax collector does not mean that i am viewed as 'dead' by my mother. Everything about the Watchtower's shunning protocol is twisted and demonic.
The shunning by other religions for comparison is irrelevant as the Watchtower claims that it's disfellowshipping is at the direction of the holy spirit so it must be infallible.This is outright blaspheme.
In just one year 1987 i calculated by the Watchtower's own stats that 4.4 men woman and children were disfellowshipped per hour as the world turned on it's axis.
Get this,the Watchtower asserts that every single one was @ "the direction of the holy spirit"
This is utter blaspheme by the watchtower/elder leadership.
How many blasphemes do you charlatans need to be eternally damned?One,or how about 37,000 for that year of 1987?These are wrecked and ruined lives people.
Matthew 18:10 Jesus dire warning to his high ranking apostles;" see to it that you do not despise one of these little ones,for i tell you their angels in heaven always behold the face of my father who is in heaven." The written and oral directives of the flunky elders is one priority,that is to intimidate and save face with the followers and to stonewall a potential civil lawsuit.
Look either it's the Holy Spirit or it ain't da Holy spirit.They told me even when they are wrong in Judgment i must consider it a test of my faith and bite the bullet.What kind of mealy mouthing gobbledygook is that?
No it's blaspheme.
Tell the truth and don't be afraid-Danny Haszard 'expert witness on the Jehovah Witness' http://www.dannyhaszard.com/shunning.htm BeliefWatch: Witness
Newsweek - 12 minutes ago
What interests Engardio—who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness by his mother and has since left the church—is that despite their fierce separatism and ... BeliefWatch: Witness By Lisa Miller Newsweek May 28, 2007 issue - With "Knocking," a documentary airing this week on PBS, director Joel Engardio draws back the curtain on America's million Jehovah's Witnesses. Engardio's own story is compelling. Witnesses, like the Amish, are baptized as teenagers or young adults; at that moment, they accept the mantle of their faith. Engardio declined to be baptized, he says, because he thought he could do more good in the world than out of it. He is also gay.
There have been at times some underhanded buisness dealings within the congregations and also some being taken advantage of for money, thefts and other rotten dealings.
These should be reported to the police, but the WTS doesn't like anyone calling the police or taking a brother to court, I think it only fair that if proven beyond a doubt by others as to being riped of, after it has been delt and reported to police, they should be booted out, they would probably want to be.
A very close relative of mine and his wife were disfellowshiped on very dodgy material, he has always denied he had nothing to do with the crime, the elders barged into his home and harrassed accused belittled, scared the hell out of his kids, he threw the elders out and he was disfellowshiped they say for his attitude and standing by his wife which they believed was behind the crime. In the meantime he had a break down ended up in hospital for nearly six months, nearly lost his life, his kids never went back to a meeting, he wrote a letter to put his truth across that was ignored.
As it turned out the person that did what his wife and him was accused of was caught and taken to court the truth came out and both he and his wife were found to be innocent of any crime. Not one word of sorry by the elders nothing read at the meetings to vincicate his innocence, they never went to a meeting for nearly a year, took another year before they were reienstated, they are very shaky in the troof now, but his son wants nothing to do with the witnessess he says they are hypocrites and cowards. The wife fronted the elder that she says was on a witch hunt against her and hubby, he said he regretted all that happened, she said, I feel sorry for you, because you haven't begun to pay for what you did especially to my husband, he could have died.
Emptywords! _ And after all that they went back to 'looney land'?!!! Pray, why?
I approach it from an emotional level. Why the same punishment for all sins, and so destructive and cruel? We are social beings, and need social contact. Can't a brother be won back with kindness?
Observe the mothers forced to shun their own children. Is this natural?
Is it entirely the child's fault if he turns away from the religion of his parents? Don't those parents, grieving every week over their "lost" child, partly to blame for cutting him off from all association? How many grandchildren are being raised without any knowledge of their grandparents?
I also agree that the judgement behind closed doors is open to abuse. In the early church, everyone was involved in the decision, and the reason was public.
There's no justification for a prolonged repentance, either. Those who return are to be embraced with open arms.
From a practical point of view, shunning cuts off all possible supports for an addict, when it is the very people closest to him who can urge him to get the help he needs, and warn him if he's slipping back in to his old ways. I would never report an addict to the elders.
