The Casual Importance of JW elders (page 2)

Anator

This goes back to a time when an elder mentioned to me "When you go against an elder, it is the same as going against Jehovah". When you believe that you are on the same playing field as God himself, then anything casual that an elder may say will be looked upon as holier than thou. How in the world do you compete with that! You can't disagree no matter what they say, even if they are blatantly wrong! If you disagree then they can claim "you're going against the elder body!". That term "The elder body!" makes me cringe like no other term. They have the power, they can twist what you say, take things out of context, and so on. After they were trying to prime me to reach out for the appoinment, I couldn't do it. I did not want to turn out like that. I was worried about keeping my ego in check, plus that quote the elder mentioned to me just spelled danger! It scared the hell out of me! I had no idea that they thought like that! Really! Just watch the movie "September Dawn" about the true story of the early Mormons in the mid 1800's who massacred a small group of travelers going through their territory. One of the Mormon elders quoted to their congregation that same quote before their congregation assisited in that killing spree.

jakmarx

yeh totally.

Epecially when they call on your home, invite themselves in with confidence.

The mount of times ive been taken to one side, or into the backroom for soemthing as petty as not holding my watchtower when doing the mics.

AAGRFFFFGGHG.

The Berean

The Elder group reminds me of a couple of old TV series: The Liars Club and The Little Rascals. As for the later, the library is their clubhouse, Spanky is played by the coordinator, the rules include "no girls allowed." And then if you look around the room you will notice characters resembling Butch, Stymie, Alfalfa and Buckwheat making "life and death" decisions.

snowbird

Yep, they feel they're sooooo important.

To illustrate: When I went inactive in 2005, one day I came home from running some errands to find one particularly obnoxious elder sitting in my driveway as if he owned it!

I had to restrain myself from ordering his black ass off my property!

When I read the op, this Scripture immediately came to mind:

Four Intolerables

Proverbs 30: 21 -23 Three things are too much for even the earth to bear,
yes, four things shake its foundations—
when the janitor becomes the boss,
when a fool gets rich,
when a whore is voted "woman of the year,"
when a "girlfriend" replaces a faithful wife. MSG

Tee hee hee.

Sylvia

BurnTheShips

My Dad was always very humble. The brothers loved him.

BTS

undercover

The "good guy" elders were few and far between. And they were usually run over by the pompous asshole elders.

I knew an elder that was on of the good ones. The poor guy spent most of his eldership fighting off the power hungry SOBs that wanted to lord it over everyone. The only reason he managed to last as long as he did was that he was one of the old timers who had actually spent time in prison and was well respected throughout the circuit and district.

But as he got older and his health declined, he lost the will to fight and eventually he was regulated to a "name only" position and was slowly removed from any real elder decision making.

sir82

The level of pomposity is inversely proportional to the level of respect and appreciation an elder receives outside the org.

Poorly educated janitors and window-washers are (perhaps unfairly) looked down upon by society at large, so lacking recognition from anywhere else, some elders milk it for all its worth when given a measure of authority in the congregation.

logic

Bonafide , it sounds like you have been in the congregation I was in. We had about 5 elders and 7 or 8

ministerial servants. They all ran around with suitcases full of books. All running around passing

out paper, all in a hurry, saying hi on the run , having to go talk to someone. Busy, busy like little

ants doing work that they all had created by themselves, more chiefs than indians. It actually

became my intertainment. When you watch it it is very funny. When you pay attention you

realize that they really don't accomplish a thing. The society knows how to keep the men in the

organization, just make them important, at least in their own eyes.

snowbird

My Dad was always very humble. The brothers loved him.

BTS

Burn, I should have qualified my statement, that SOME elders think they are important. I've known some like your father, but now those are few and far between. Sylvia

OnTheWayOut

Good thread post. Yes, elders feel more important. It's part of the training and the pressure of the job.
Why do this tough job unless you feel something important about it? I remember moving from one cong. to a foreign language cong. where I had to learn the language. I had hoped not to be asked to be an elder for awhile. But when asked right away, I felt that Jehovah knows best and can use me in this important assignment.

All that stuff is so true. They sit on the aisle seat so they can get up and do something important. They whisper to each other at a meeting, in full view of others, and go take care of something that could wait but makes them feel important.

I remember feeling slighted when I was a visiting speaker and raised my hand at the WT study, but wasn't called on. "But I am the guest speaker." I had to try to remember that Sister Jones would be there to complain about skipping her, but I would be outta there in an hour, possibly never to return or at least not for months.

They like to feel important in conversations with lowly publishers too, all true. That might come from the things stated above, but also comes in many cases from the fact that they are not important outside of Jehovah's Witnesses. They are often lowly employees that don't work weekends and don't do much overtime. They are not VP's at work, typically. Many are self-employed cleaners or work for another brother.

The Casual Importance of JW elders

Four Intolerables

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