by inkling 7 Replies latest watchtower bible
I have been pondering wether or not there is any value in gathering some of
my more pointed thoughts into a letter to the Governing Body. Mostly I would
imagine these to be "Questions from Readers" style criticism, edited and
tamed so as not to scream: Bitter Apostate Hate Mail.
How many here have written a letter to the Branch, and what if any reply
did you get? Anything interesting enough to post? Anything already posted
in a old forum topic?
[ink]
I do not want to discourage you.
But it may end up like talking to a 'brick wall'.
Ronin1
I have written to the Watchtower Society many times. Except for my most recent letter, they have always replied (they still may reply to my most recent letter...not sure).
Yes, if you phrase things tactfully, like you're just trying to find answers, then it is my experience that they reply. A couple of times they answered my questions satisfactorily. A couple of times, they directed me to Watchtower publications where they felt my questions could be anwered (which, of course, was not the cae, as I had already looked up all that info prior to penning the letters). In one letter, I concluded by making a list of my specific questions and they completely ignored 80% of the questions, and provided very poor answers to the remianing 20%. Even so, their letter was amicable; they did not seem to wish me any ill-will, although they did suggest I stop asking questions on the particular topic I was addressing. And, as I said, my most recent letter (sent ~2 months ago) has not been replied to at all.
It is my plan to post all the letters for public viewing at some point in the near future.
The problem with writing to the JW parent organization is that it is rare for anyone in a position to effect change to actually read the letter. Letters that fall outside of the scope of official congregational correspondence are handled by a group of Bethel elders who would no more disagree with JW doctrines and procedures than they would vote for their own lynching.
If the letter requires a response, the party line will be recited directly from JW publications. This is true even when the writer of the letter anticipates this response and specifically explains why JW published material is inadequete or wrong.
I think you should use this thread to get numerous letters to show how the Society has answered queries. I used to have tons of these letters but I threw them out.
Still, posting the responses could be eye opening for some.
Well don't I feel so special! Like Sheperd my list of questions were itemized, and included all WT materials supporting my concern. I had about a 10% answer rate and those were poor, the rest of my questions were ignored. UNLIKE you guys, the only letter I got said that they would sent the answers through my local elder body!!!
They read me portions of the letter on two seperate occasions, but never the entire letter. I asked to read the letter myself (it was in their hand), and they said they I could not, I asked to make a copy of it and of course was told no. I asked why and was told it could be used for Apostate purposes!!! Obviously this was disturbing to me, but not as disturbing as them telling me not tell ANYONE about the content of the letter! Why not? It could be disturbing others faith!!! I told them is sure as hell has disturbed my faith! WTF! How can "truthful" responses from Brooklyn not be a great thing for me and others to know? I told them at the second "reading" of the letter, that if they had let me have a copy the first time, we would not be here, I would have had something to actually refer to. The second "reading" did offer more info, so why the hell didn't the first two elders read it all? Bad judgement call. I guess they did not want to "disturb" me more. But still I dont know the entire contents of the letter. After a second letter, the answer was that everything had already been provided, so suck on that.
Has anyone ever had this happen? By the way another interesting point about the letter is that it contained only one minor Scripture, and NO and I mean NONE of any WTBTS literature! Nothing I could refer to, ponder, exlplore....just the mystery of the whole "you can't have it and please tell no one" is enough to make any reasonable person bail....oompa
Not only were most of my questions ignored, but the Society spent the majority of their reply letter defending a position I never questioned. Weird. Judging from what Oompa and others have said, I think it is safe to assume your letter and the Society's reply to it will end up in the hands of the local elders. If the Society ever forwarded details of our correspondence to my local body of elders, they never said anything. In one congregation that I attended for years, some of my relatives were elders, and I'm sure one of them would have approached me and said something if they felt there was a concern. Oompa - I'd be interested in learning the nature/topic of your letter(s) to the Society. If you're willing to share, go ahead and PM me if you don't want to post it on the WWW.
I wrote 3 letters and every one was ignored. No response. Nothing. These were not threatening or hateful letters either - they were questioning letters. When I told my family members are all zealots about the lack of response - they figured I was just a lying apostate cos their God sitting in Brooklyn always answers letters. Why else do they preach the good word going door to door? Yeah...right............sammieswife.
