Voluntarily Confessing & Then Getting Reproved or Disfellowshipped

by minimus 34 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Mum

  Thank you, under_believer, for the reminder of parents' duty to protect their children. Those sicko men must get some real vicarious thrills by treating young girls this way. I consider it psychological rape.

  Back in the late '70's there was a young woman in our congregation who was DF'd because of one sexual encounter to which she confessed. My elder husband told me how easy she was. She was a very kind, sweet girl, and it broke my heart. She lived with her JW brother, his wife and son. She didn't have much of a life, but was expected to just be an "old maid" at 20 or so years old. I left that place not long after that, but have always wondered what became of her.

  Regards,

  SandraC
• 

  Quandry

  UB,

  I was not at the JC. My husband was there with my daughter. But believe me, I have gone through it so many times with my husband it is almost as if I was there. My husband was an elder at the time. He was so shocked, I think, at the way things were proceeding. He said he'd never seen anything like it in his twenty years of being an elder. These men used lies, innuendoes, and bullying tactics. Kinda like the interrogation room at the Police headquarters.

  My husband did try to stop them, but they totally ignored him. They even asked my daughter if she wanted him to leave. She obviously said no, and I think this was to intimidate him and her both. How dare they suggest that she should be alone with FIVE men in a room. By the time they had finished with her, it was well after midnight.

  They never even explained to her why she was disfellowshipped. After many talks with the CO, it was told to us that "she refused counsel." And what was the counsel? The counsel was the questions she was asked and it did not seem as though she wanted to answer them. I guess not-they kept at her and at her trying to force her to say she'd had fornication, and she refused to admit to something she hadn't done. This made them very angry. She was not cooperating with the scenario they had already decided had occurred.

  Believe me, we wrote letter after letter to the WTS. They know the truth of what happened in that room, as well as the CO and DO. But they wish to sweep everything under a rug, just writing us back to say that surely "these men had learned a lesson." They do not want their precious image tarnished by the suggestion that elders are anything but concerned, loving shepherds.

  Yes, my husband has been so depressed over the past couple of years since this happened. He blames himself for not taking her out of there or jumping over the table to give them what they deserved. But you know we had the ultimate dub mentality. We never imagined anything like this could happen.

  Now all we can do is try to warn others. We have done this, also. I know that some day these men will come after us. I don't know why they haven't already.

  Let them.
• 

  loosie

  Whether you confess to them or not. They don't consider it an act repentence. I think a lot has to do on weather you pissed them off or not. What they told me was repentence is if you've been to meetings or not. I ended up getting publicly reproved. Now they shouldn't have publicly reproved me because no one knew about what I did. It should have been private reproof if at all.

  But I'd like to thank them, if they are reading. It was the first step on my way out never to return again. So in a way they are really showing love by helping me out fo their corrupt org.
• 

  Open mind

  Quandry:

  That's quite a tragic experience that your daughter went through. I hope you didn't get the impression that I'm sticking up for the elders organization-wide. All I know about is the tiny little sample (15 JCs) that I personally was involved with. Your story demonstrates how power-thirsty elders could easily become manipulative and abusive. They also could have been trapped by a very sick system.

  In re-reading your account I was trying to figure out why would those elders not believe your daughter. Here's a possibility:

  The "two-witness rule" bit your daughter hard.

  Could a couple of the other girls have testified (lied) against her without your/her knowledge? If they were deemed "credible", then the JC may have decided their hands were tied and that if your daughter wouldn't "confess" (to something she didn't do) then she obviously wasn't repentant. What a sad, cruel "arrangement" we have for meting out "Divine Justice".

  Even if my hypothetical didn't happen in your daughter's case, it certainly could happen tomorrow in any congregation. Just another reason I won't be sitting in on any JCs in the future.

  Open Mind
• 

  Quandry

  In re-reading your account I was trying to figure out why would those elders not believe your daughter. Here's a possibility:

  The "two-witness rule" bit your daughter hard.

  Could a couple of the other girls have testified (lied) against her without your/her knowledge? If they were deemed "credible", then the JC may have decided their hands were tied and that if your daughter wouldn't "confess" (to something she didn't do) then she obviously wasn't repentant. What a sad, cruel "arrangement" we have for meting out "Divine Justice".

  This did not happen. The JC chairman had already told my husband that there was "no accusation of, witnesses to , or confession of fornication."

  After the meeting in which my daughter was df'd, the father of one of the other girls called us and we talked to him and his wife. They told us of the cruel treatment met out to their daughter also. There was never any accusation of fornication made by his daughter about mine.

  We talked to another father who told us that when they questioned his daughter about my daughter, she told them that she was with my daughter on the night in question, and knew that no fornication had taken place. That she was never alone with a boy.

  Yes, you would think that someone could try to come up with some reasoning on these men's parts. Suffice it to say that when they began accusing them of being in a gang, they used the gang mentality. That if one might be guilty of an action, they all were. That is the only thing I can think of. So much for treating people as an individual.

  Thank you for asking further questions.