I think the idea of "stumbling" was an excuse for anyone who felt they had some authority in the congregation to stick their nose into your business. They just had to "counsel" you that you might stumble someone because your hair hit your collar, you rented a movie they deemed questionable, you played Hey, Joe at a get-to-gether or you had a Joe Satriana CD in your room at Bethel.
What utter nonsense and stupidity.
Have you ever heard anyone outside of the Witnesses use this idea? Ever hear of someone being "stumbled" out of a karate class, the Rotary, or a local sewing club? It seems a unique Witness idea, a way for them to exercise more control over members.
I agree with the above point - people who are adults shouldn't have to worry about being stumbled. It's an indication of the immature level that most JWs are kept on.
There is an overriding culture in the Witness organization that members are incapable of making good individual choices. It shows in stupid policies like not letting two members of the opposite sex alone in a car together, not letting two adults decide when its time for their marriage to end in divorce, telling people what to wear and what not to wear when they attend a convention - AND what to wear when they go out to dinner afterward!!
S4
What's your take on "stumbling"...
by Frequent_Fader_Miles 24 Replies latest jw experiences
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Seeker4
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38 Years
I would hate it when someone would say something like, "I don't want to stumble you". I would immediately tell them they couldn't. I also hated it when the rude brothers and sisters in the congo did and said whatever they wanted, but you couldn't tell them off because it might "stumble" them. If they were hurting others, "they were accountable for it". So you'd just have to watch humbler brothers and sisters get trampled by them. "Keep peace in the congregation", they'd always say.
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Warlock
As long as the room doesn't start spinning afterward, I'm okay with it.
Warlock
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jgnat
Great commentary, Narkissos.
The Witness method of applying biblical counsel reminds me of a toddler that stubs his toe on the coffee table. He cries and hits the table, "Bad table!"
We are not to externalize these admonitions, but apply them! If I have a secret sin, expose it and deal with it. If my brother has a secret sin, he can take care of his own log.
Perhaps the proper response to "You stumbled me!" is Gesundheit. And to an elder, "You stumbled another," is, "Where is he? Is he all right? Has an ambulance been called?"
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Smiles_Smiles
'stumbling' ~ a great concept to keep people inslaved in fear. A powerful way to keep people from being authentic.
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delilah
An elder friend of mine once told me, that one can only be stumbled, if one allows oneself to be.
I thought he was probably right. I believe it was a way for the society to burden us further. I had more important things to worry about, than whether some silly-nilly sister was going to be stumbled because of something I might do or say.
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Hortensia
smile - I like how you put it - that it prevents us from being authentic. The whole org. is structured to keep anyone from being authentic - out of fear of all those folks who are watching and waiting for a chance to criticize.
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Numinous
Talk about being authentic, the night my husband became an elder he told me on the ride home that he was approached by another elder in the congregation who said that as the wife of an elder I now needed to do something with my hair, tuck my shirt into my skirt, not wear colored nylons...and if I needed any advice about how to look like an elder's wife, that his wife would make herself available for me. I must have been stumbling people left and right before that night! Some scripture in the Psalms says that for the righteous one there is no stumbling block.
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R.F.
Talk about being authentic, the night my husband became an elder he told me on the ride home that he was approached by another elder in the congregation who said that as the wife of an elder I now needed to do something with my hair, tuck my shirt into my skirt, not wear colored nylons...and if I needed any advice about how to look like an elder's wife, that his wife would make herself available for me. I must have been stumbling people left and right before that night! Some scripture in the Psalms says that for the righteous one there is no stumbling block.
That's crazy! Enough said. R.F.