Are active JW's seeing the light?

by boyzone 18 Replies latest jw experiences

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  boyzone

  I ask this because I had a strange experience this week. For a brief bit of background knowledge I'm being shunned like most on here, but I see witnesses every day in my place of work and at the school gate, there's no avoiding them, and like many of you, I've found it really hard to get over the hurt and heartache this has caused.

  Yesterday my mum (an active witness) went into hospital to have a tumor removed (successfully) As I'm the only daughter nearby to help, the other witnesses were asking the elders what they were supposed to do if they wanted to visit my mum and I was at her bedside, should they talk to me or turn round and go out again.

  One elder said to do that would be utterly ridiculous, of course I should be spoken to. He was very annoyed even at the suggestion. He made it quite clear that he thought the Society had this shunning business all wrong and they'd have to change it before long.

  Not only was it refreshing to hear someone I regarded as a good friend say this, but it struck me that there must be a lot of dissent simmering under the surface. This elder is well liked and respected and he'll be listened to, at least by a few.

  Anyone else had recent experience of elders bucking the system?
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  sacolton

  That elder who has a different opinion of the "shunning" is showing signs of being apostate. (Good!) He's not waiting on Jehovah to make the announcement that shunning is stupid.
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  Nathan Natas

  Dissent is not well-tolerated among JWs.

  Your friend is likely to find himself hanging by his spiritual neck until his attitude improves.
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  Mariusuk.

  Good to see an elder showing some common sense, don't assume he is "seeing the light though" I think people forget sometimes that JW's are human beings and individuals. Even JW elders have the ability to show empathy occasionally
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  Galileo

  I knew two different elders that proffessed similar opinions on disfellowshipping. Both are now disfellowshipped for apostasy (not for this issue specifically).
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  Honesty

  Anyone else had recent experience of elders bucking the system?

  Yes.

  They were disfellowshiped for apostasy and have left the Lie.
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  Bring_the_Light

  people who see the light are pretty much by definition NOT Jehovah's Witnesses.
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  garybuss

  I've seen Witnesses behave cordially when trapped. Trapped is the context of the hospital visit. Then, when they are not trapped, they go back to being regular Witness sphincters. I'm not around Witnesses much. I'd rather grieve a loss than be around mean people.
  
  
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  White Dove

  Maybe he'll be on here sometime soon.
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  jamiebowers

  One of my cousins is married to an elder, and he has consistently disagreed with elders from another congregation about the treatment of df'd people,. For years he has counseled his m-i-l (my aunt) to not be so rigid about her df'd kids when it came to family reunions, illness of either her kids or her and funerals. Unfortunately, the elders in my aunt's and mother's congregation disagree. My aunt got in big trouble a few years ago when she allowed her df'd kids to attend a wake at her house for a relative that never was a jw. The kicker was that it was my mom who turned my aunt into the elders for it. My aunt's husband, who wasn't a jw had died a few years before that, and there was no problem with her df'd kids attending their father's wake. The difference was that wake was held at a public place. Apparently, the stricter elders ruled that a jw could attend a family function with df'd people if it was held at a public place but that df'd people shouldn't be welcomed into a jw's home for such, even if they are family. Last fall we had a family reunion at a public place, but none of the jw's showed up, because I and some of my df'd cousins were there. I heard that my aunt wanted to come, but she was afraid of getting into trouble again.

  I've had telephone conversations and email correspondence with a ms named Phil, who I met on Rick Fearon's conference calls. He assures me that he, and many like him who are elders and ms's don't believe in the more controversial aspects of the jw's and are only staying in to provide leadership to the rank and file when the gb finally turns tail and runs (with all of the money, of course). I really believe that he is sincere. I hope he is accurate. Rick Fearon refers to people like Phil as the "new breed of jw".