I think that some people are focusing way too much on narrow points of view and failing to look at the big picture. And of course the usual talking past each other is happening, too.
Apparently some people want to establish a hierarchy of responsibility within the JW organization, of who is the most to blame for all that is wrong. That's easy, because it follows Watchtower-established lines of corporate responsibility: Governing Body, Assistants to Governing Body, various "Bethel heavies", various "Bethel" midweights, District Overseers, Circuit Overseers, Elders, Ministerial Servants, various Bethel rank & file, congregation rank & file. But so what? The fact is that everyone who willingly bought into the system has a measure of responsibility for upholding it. That responsibility does not lessen until an individual has left the JW organization and, better, made some amends.
Given the above list, I think it's rather pointless to argue about whether elders have more blame for maintaining the JW system: Of course elders have more responsibility -- it's their "spirit-appointed" job!
Does that lessen the responsibility that rank & file JWs have? Not a bit. The Society's practice in the past, and currently in places where there is a short supply of "qualified men" to serve as elders, proves that it is not just elders, but the entire JW community, from the top to the bottom, that supports the nastiness of the organization. Where mature men are not available, very young men are given the responsibilities, and sometimes even the title, of elders. Where not even young men are available, women are given those responsibilities. Such women give talks, lead in field service, give counsel, and so forth -- all with their heads covered -- exactly as elders do, but without the formal title.
So if all of the elders in the world today resigned, Watchtower leaders would quickly move to appoint any willing people, male or female, of the rank & file, to take over their responsibilities. It seems obvious that without the soldiers, the generals couldn't fight a war, and without generals, the soldiers would not be nearly as effective.
I've seen how this appointment works in practice. In the late 1950s my father was a Congregation Servant and was appointed to help straighten out a congregation that was led by a bunch of bumblers. The original CS was removed and my father was put in his place by direct order from Bethel. My mother was given the responsibility of Literature Servant for several years, although she never held the formal title, and she stopped that only when some man seemed responsible enough to take over. I recently received the story of a young man who became a JW in Russia some years ago. Seems his mother latched onto the JWs in a small, rural village and raised her kids as JWs. There were no men in the small congregation, so the women did everything necessary to keep the congregation running. They wore "babushkas" (scarves) on their heads whenever they did what males normally did. When this young man reached about 17 he was given a lot of responsibility, and within a couple of years he was virtually running the congregation by virtue of being the only "qualified" male. Women still did some of the congregational chores.
Was my mother -- officially only a member of the rank & file, not a "Servant", because she's female -- any more or less responsible for upholding the JW system when she was the unofficial Literature Servant than any Elder or Ministerial Servant today who does the same job? I don't think so. Are those Russian women with the babushkas any more or less responsible for upholding the JW system than males who are elders and do the same jobs? I don't think so.
Think back to when you "made your dedication" to God and got baptized. Assuming this was after you were old enough to think a bit for yourself, was not each and every one of us fully convinced that the JW organization was truly God's, and that we were obeying God when we obeyed organizational directives? If circumstances demanded it, wouldn't all of us -- male or female -- have stepped in and taken over whatever responsibilities that "Jehovah through his organization" might have handed to us? If we wouldn't, we certainly weren't JWs in the sense that the organization demanded of us.
I never served as an elder (never wanted the responsibility of telling anyone else what to do) but I certainly remember one struggle I had which resulted for awhile in my prostituting my mind to the JW dream. At about 21 years old I nearly quit, and told my parents that I was going to quit. They had a fit and told me that if I quit the JWs, I would have to leave home. Given my complete lack of job skills -- courtesy of the Society -- I was forced to choose between living on my own in New York with a minimum wage job and living in a nice, comfortable home with nice food etc. I chose comfort, and agreed to a Bible study with a guy a few years older than me. I remember going through all the simplistic stuff and not really believing some of it, but deciding to put my disbelief out of my mind and try to "get the big picture" as is usually told to people whose doubts cannot be assuaged. Gradually I got back into the usual JW community life, which of course included going out in field service and deceiving the public, participating in the shunning of the disfellowshipped, giving talks I didn't completely believe in before the congregation, and so forth.
Was I a willing participant in the system of JW deception? You better believe it! I made choices -- limited ones, certainly, and perhaps not very good ones -- but they were my own choices. I may have been deceived about some things, but not about everything.
That, I think, is something that almost everyone who becomes a JW goes through -- realizing that some things are wrong with the JW system but buying into it anyway. I don't think that a single participant on this board will claim that he or she was completely deceived, but will admit that they deliberately suppressed some misgivings. Why suppress misgivings? For any number of reasons. Some were practical, and like mine, in hindsight, made mainly for selfish reasons. Others were to be able to hang on to the wonderful fairy tale at the center of JW aspirations -- the resurrection, life forever in paradise, and so forth. And of course, we worked very hard to convince ourselves that whatever we did was not really just for our own reasons, but for love of Jehovah and Jesus and the JW organization. In the larger view, what most of us did was exactly what everyone else does who joins a cult. It's a combination of deceit on the part of the teachers and a clear willingness to be deceived on the part of the student. And because students become teachers in proselytizing cults, after awhile its hard to distinguish between students and teachers.
I would like to know of anyone on this board who does not recall some point in his or her acceptance of JW teaching where they deliberately prostituted their mind to the Society, just as I did. Maybe it's in the back of your mind, but I'm certain that if you dig enough, you can remember the exact moment when you decided to forget about certain problems and just accept everything you were taught thereafter.
As a JW publisher, when we conducted Bible studies we instructed our students to view and obey the Society just as we would view and obey God. We were horrified if anyone dared to suggest that elders or any other Watchtower appointees were screwing up. If they persisted, we ourselves determined that such people were "apostates", simply because that is what we were trained to do. Some of us reported our own relatives, some of us shunned others, and we did other things we're not proud of, just because that's what we were trained to believe was "Jehovah's will".
How were we trained? By Watchtower publications, meetings, private study and especially by acculturation into the JW social community. We learned to display certain attitudes towards non-JWs, and towards anything that contradicted Watchtower teaching, and eventually we made those attitudes "our own".
This is the power of a cult -- to be able to convince a group of people that a leader or group of leaders is to be given the ultimate in obedience and respect. Because it takes a full complement of cult members, from the leaders down to the lowest of the rank & file, to make a cult, all share in responsibility for the cult's excesses. The leaders have the biggest burden of blame, followed by their lieutenants, followed by the rank & file. None are without blame because, as I described above, nearly all have willingly bought into the cult somewhere along the line.
I myself am very sorry for any influence I had on others to join the JW cult. I wish I could go back and undo it. Had I been an elder, I'd be a lot sorrier still, since they're truly the "front men" for the Society.
Elders are really between a rock and a hard place. Those who truly believe that they're doing God's will must often suppress their consciences and do exactly what the Society says. If they don't, they're immediately removed. When elders -- and this especially includes elders who "serve" at Bethel in any capacity -- prostitute their consciences like this, they eventually have no consciences at all. People in responsible positions at Bethel have all had to do this, and so it seems to me that it's the rare career Bethelite who really has a conscience anymore. Elders "in the field" don't see as much dirt, so it takes longer for them to lose their consciences. To me, this willingness to sacrifice a good conscience in order to stay with a Christian cult is the biggest dereliction of duty of all. It's a betrayal not only of the religious principles they claim to love, but of basic principles of good human conduct. While this is demonstrably demanded of and practiced by nearly all elders, it's also demanded in principle of the rank & file, and is practiced by whomever of the rank & file it is demanded in practice.
AlanF
