where shall I start? go to book study wearing trousers (I'm female) not wear a badge at circuit assembly not hand in monthly report(s) give presents 'around' Xmas / birthday time(s) allow my children to attend / hold birthday parties allow my children to participate in all school activities, including Xmas church service not lie about or cover up any of my opinions or activities etc. ...
What Little Rebellious Things Did You Do When Still A JW?
by Seeker4 55 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
ID Crisis
the above was intended to be formatted as a list - I still can't format properly ...
-
SixofNine
This does raise a thought in my head that I hadn't crystallized, but as I look back, I picked and chose what I believed and practiced out of the WT. I was in the habit of disregarding what I considered to be sometimes petty rules that were ridiculous.
I've thought about this too. It really isn't rebellion if you don't really believe you are doing the right thing, is it? I guess it depends on what part of the meaning of "rebellion" you emphasize:
:refusal to accept some authority or code or convention
The dichotomy is that you could "refuse to accept some (Jehovah's Witness).... code or convention", while still believing that the code or convention is what God wants from you. I.o.w., you aren't refusing the authority, just the convention.
I guess I've always been frustrated about "rebellion" talk, either by Witnesses or Apostates, because if there was even just a little actual rebellion on some key issues, the Witnesses would transform into a much kinder religion almost instantly.
For instance, I wore a beard for the last 5 years I was a witness. But for all the :wink: I-think-that's-cool, our-pseudo-doctrine-is-dumb :wink: messages many people, even some elders, would give me, none of them stood up and said to the rest of the elders "hey, treat this guy exactly like any other brother".
I actually had a CO use me as an example from the stage of someone who followed their own concience correctly... but what he wouldn't do was tell the elders that if they wouldn't treat me like a brother, heads were going to roll. IOW, he thought I was cool for growing a beard, but didn't plan to take any heat about it himself.
In retrospect, I can see that someone like myself confused the hell out of most JW men.. "doesn't this guy get it, he'll never make ministerial servant bucking the system like that'. The funny thing is, at least wrt the beard, when I first grew it, I really thought that the rule was so antiquated, so silly, so dumb, so disliked by men (and, it turned out, women) in general, that the congregation might just follow my lead, lol.
R-rated movie were my other rebellion. I didn't advertise that I saw them, but I saw whatever I wanted. And when Schindler's List came out, I would openly challenge other Witnesses to see it, letting them know what spiritual midgets I thought they were if they wouldn't see it simply because it was R-rated.
The witness pseudo-doctrine on R ratings never made any sense; it just doesn't: you can't use your conscience and a worldly rating system at the same time.
As for music, I pretty much followed my conscience there; I don't think I had a huge music collection, and I wasn't that attracted to the music they usually attacked from the stage in the first place. However, in a fit of supreme self-righteous douche-baggery I once destroyed my nephew's AC/DC cassette.
It was fun to watch how linear my friends thinking (or their "conscience") would be about music- they might throw out the music mentioned from the stage, but it was unlikely that Sting/the Police was going to ever be mentioned, or Steely Dan. So I would take delight in mentioning (not self-righteously in this case, since I listened to them too) that the lyrics to many of their songs where extremely sexual and/or immoral. My friends would act clueless as if lyrics could not be interpreted, lol. They were too busy shining up the battle apple to pay much attention to lyrics, I suppose ;).
-
AllTimeJeff
The dichotomy is that you could "refuse to accept some (Jehovah's Witness).... code or convention", while still believing that the code or convention is what God wants from you. I.o.w., you aren't refusing the authority, just the convention.
I guess I've always been frustrated about "rebellion" talk, either by Witnesses or Apostates, because if there was even just a little actual rebellion on some key issues, the Witnesses would transform into a much kinder religion almost instantly.
Great point SixofNine, and I think this gets into the heart of why the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses equates disagreement with a teaching as apostasy. The GB is all about the convention being as important as the code. Without the convention, there is no GB authority structure in place. To protect itself from its own hypocritical history though, the GB is obligated to put convention above all else.
I enjoy all these little things people got away with. I knew it was going on during my time in. I actually thought these people were a lot more healthier for being "rebellious".
-
BluesBrother
Sixofnine said
what spiritual midgets I thought they were
Love the phrase! "Watchtower clone" was another one going around..
Music was my thing. I would never let anybody tell me what was "right or wrong" to listen to. I had always loved heavy rock and strongly objected to getting rid of my albums. I remember once when there was a Watchtower study that was particularly strong against it. Wouldn't you just know that I would be asked to conduct the study that week? I had to say that we had arranged a family visit away that Sunday...so we had to make the visit then..
We always watched the films that we chose to watch, not what others had interpreted the WT guidance to be..My wife is more into films, is a die-hard dub but still watches what she pleases
-
minimus
I almost never wore a convention badge. I hated putting wholes through my nice clothes.
I NEVER wore a badge after hours in the convention city. I dressed in the summertime with a tee shirt and walking shorts when I'd do some exercising after the convention was over. We had fellow friends that we'd party with in the hotel lounge. They liked us as we were good tippers.
-
shamus100
Hmm... like the others...
Never ever wore a badge.
Listened to whatever I wanted to.
Went out to clubs.
Drank. Woops! Lots of witnesses were drunks, so that's nothing...
Got so sick of meetings I would duck out halfway through. I didn't care.
Had a hairstyle that was 'worldly'. Big deal...
Wore clothes that I liked; not what 60 year old men liked.
-
tenyearsafter
R rated movies, fabricated 2 hours field service time each month, enjoyed "worldly" association, missed meetings due to "illness"...and on and on!
-
eyeslice
I once conducted the Ministry School and had a Service Meeting Part in a full beard that I had grown when I was on holiday.
In out totally clean shaven congregation that really put the 'cat amongst the pigeons'. Some loved it but unfortunately the PO hated it and took on his self to personally counsel me. I simply replied that as far as I was concerned the beard ban reflected more the right wing politics of the Society than anything in the Bible. That was about as rebellious as I ever was.
Like Min I too was often the sole elder not to vote for various things, including against disfellowshipping people in JC meetings. But I would regard that those sort of things as a matter of principle not rebelliousness - there is a huge difference -
QuestioningEverything
I never agreed with the rules that they imposed on married people involving their intimacy/private life. So, I did what I /we wanted. Guess that's why we're still happily married.