In your experience, are Witnesses all about love?
Is the brotherhood really what it is said to be?
Did you feel the love from "the Friends"?
Describe The Jehovah's Witness Community
by minimus 40 Replies latest jw friends
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carla
Describe the jw community? Manipulative.
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asilentone
no! all fake!
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Scarred for life
In your experience, are Witnesses all about love?
Is the brotherhood really what it is said to be?
Did you feel the love from "the Friends"?
Well, I think this is a very interesting question. Everyone can only give answers based on their own experiences. In my experience overall, Witnesses are not about love, not true love, not that true agape love that they used to talk so much about. With them it is all talk and no real feeling and not much action. They are all about rigid routines, meetings, field service, repitition, following all the rules. They may go through the actions of showing love as long as you're doing everything that is expected of you. If you start pulling away, then the "love" is taken away too. That's not love. No the brotherhood is not what it is said to be or what they tell themselves that they are. It's a cult. It's not a lot different than Jim Jones and his group. In fact, right now, today, I believe if the GB proclaimed that everyone should drink cyannide-laced Kool-Aid then then majority of JWs would do so including a whole slew of my extended family. Did I feel the love from "the Friends" ? I was raised in 3 different congregations and I would have to say that it depended on the congregation. There seemed to be vast differences. In the first one, I still have a large number of extended family still in this congregation. I know there is a solid core group that have been around for many, many years. They do provide support for one another and are very tight. In the 2nd congregation that I was in from the ages of 3 - 10 I do remember happy times. The congregation got together fairly frequently for family activities and we had congregation wide parties and celebrations especially for weddings and births. We frequently had JW friends over for dinner and backyard cookouts.We always hosted the circuit overseer in our home and they were"fun". There was a going-away party given for us when we moved away to another city. In the 3rd congregation, I can honestly say I never felt anything close to the emotion of love. Not towards us and not towards anyone. It was all about legalism, following the rules, dressing "appropriately", not being "worldly". The leaders in the congregation were drunk on their power and had no love for their fellow man. I don't know of anyone in that congregation that were friends with each other or socialized with each other or had each other over for dinner or anything. No parties, no showers, no celebrations. Even "weddings" were austere, solemn, serious ceremonies with no receptions. But.the most telling thing to me is that my father died very suddenly in 1978. He had not attended a meeting in about 2 years. We never heard from any JW from our 3rd congregation or our 2nd congregation or even the first one except for family. I know for my mother this was maybe as devastating as the actual loss of my father. She could not conceive that anyone could be so uncaring as to not even send a card when hearing of the death of a former friend even if they were not "active" in the cult anymore. These were people that she had thought were good, close friends in the past. We know that they heard about his death. But we never heard a word. So there was no true love. This was more of an eye-opener to my mother than it was to me. I wasn't that surprised. But I can say that she never, ever got over this callous treatment by people that she thougt were friends.
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chickpea
drones for a collectivethe happiest people on earth -
PrimateDave
Yes, it is a community of sorts, but it is not based upon any solid foundations, least of all in suburban America. Sure, if you are an African Witness in a refugee camp, then you most likely will have a close knit community of fellow believers to depend upon and lend support to. Of course, this is not a unique occurence, but I can see how in such dire circumstances high moral standards and political neutrality can actually be an asset.
I once experienced a fine sense of community among Witnesses in a congregation in Japan. It was a great experience, no doubt about it. To a lesser extent I have felt it among the Hispanic Witnesses. While I have had good friends among English speaking Witnesses, the sense of community as a whole is very weak. Therefore, I understand the attempt to create unity of belief among Jehovah's Witnesses. However, the unity of purpose, soley expressed via the meetings and preaching, is sadly insufficient, and based on the content, ultimately counterproductive to the formation of healthy communities.
Dave
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minimus
but they say you can go anywhere in the world, tell a brother that you too are a Witness, and they'll take care of you-----all because of the marvelous brotherhood!
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stillajwexelder
Holier than thou
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stillajwexelder
except they are not - it is just the attitude they display
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verystupid77
No
No
No
There is no love only for pedophiles. My husband an elder had an heart attack and only about 6 of the friends came to the hospital visit. One sister works at the hospital and she could not even come up from her office to say hi. One elders wife stayed the first day with me and took me to dinner the next night. Here I am an elders wife mind you. One young couple was very kind. But he was in ICU for three nights. I needed the friends so bad and never got them. I woman I work with her husband had a heart attack and she had memebers from her church there with her 24/7. He sadly died and over 1000 were at he memoral. If my husband had died I wonder if I could have even used the Kingdom Hall to hold his memoral. There just is no love. We have two pedophiles in our hall and oh man do they love them, I mean it. The elders are all over them encouraging them everything. I am like what in the world. I just do not get it.