The apologists with no brain or heart now have a spokesperson who can spin gold webs from bullshit, Sola Scriptura.
I have never heard, even once, that two complaints by separate victims are sufficient for a judicial committee.
Yep it's True
The arrogance of that statement is breathtaking; Sola Scriptura, bless him, has helped us all here on this board by reassuring us that HE knows that JC's take separate witnesses into account.
Really? Hmm. Why then do we hear continually that they do not? Why was the molester of my niece, who molested 10-12 girls in the same way, never disciplined for it? No 2 witnesses to the crime. Why did the elder in the major metropolitan area who peeped windows of close friends in the truth not get df'ed for it? Separate witnesses.
The mistake Sola Scriptura is making is thinking that they mean what they say. They have NEVER officially said that they will take separate witnesses as proof; they have never officially said that their primary policy regarding accusations of sexual abuse of minors is to tell the victims to call the police.
NEVER; if you doubt this produce proof. What you can find proof of is that they will tell the elders to CALL NEW YORK legal department first.
The policy that held for decades is to diminish the memory of the victim; 2 people close to me said that the elders asked them if maybe they misunderstood the action, and told them to forget it. One was a close friend who said he woke up in the middle of the night from camping to find a ministerial servants hands in his underwear; the elders asked him if he misunderstood and did nothing about it. A woman said the very same thing about repeated inside the underwear groping and penetration by a 21 year old, attacking girls 15 and under, SAME response; these congregations are nowhere near each other. This is such a common occurence that it is good evidence of a worldwide policy in place to handle the accusation of abuse.
Sola wants desperately to believe that the WT is changing, that it's heart is in the right place. The problem is that it is not now and never was.
Let's look at the settlement they paid out in California; what were the terms? Gag order of all parties. Now contrast that to the Catholic Church, who says that they want the victims to talk about it until they can put it in the past.
The WT cares about one thing only: covering their legal assets and their public image.
The GB can't make Elders & C.O.s follow all the directions outlined in their guide book. And I don't want the GB to obtain additional Gestapo like power to enforce their guidelines for the Elders to follow.
Really, were you ever or are you now a witness? The GB uses the CO's to bring the message to the elders; elders not found following the direction from the Slave are removed. So you may say that they cannot force them, but that is the de facto result: if you don't "follow the direction of the slave" you will be removed.
But that also misses the point: the elders really think that what the CO brings them from the Slave is actually Jehovah's direction. This means that they themselves have become prejudiced against the victim, since the leaning of the GB is against the victim. The GB getting Gestapo like power? Really? They currently tell 7 million people to refuse blood on pain of df'ing, and that is not Gestapo like power? If you don't think they have almost total control over the lives of the rank and file, you really are not an active witness or you are in delusion.
The direction from the slave for decades is to deny the reality of victims, no matter how you want to hide this fact, to discourage the victims from going to the police and to threaten them with disfellowshiping if they talk about it. No matter what they say their policy is now, that tells me all I need to know about the men who run the GB: they never understood sexual abuse of children and aggressively pursued a policy that denied victims a fair hearing. Of course, the witnesses believe that the GB speaks for God; they don't phrase it that way, but they would say that the FDS receives direction from Jehovah, a less shocking way to say that God tells us what to say.
This leaves us with trying to think that God himself for decades was behind a policy that told child rape victims and their parents that they needed to wait on Jehovah, that they should try to forget it. That is the most immoral position I have heard, and Sola is now here to tell us that it never really was so, and they have changed now, and we should be so grateful.
Nice try Sola; next time BRING FACTS, not assertions.
P
Let's talk again when some loving 'Christian' that you think is a good friend, molests your son or daughter, but goes free because your son or daughter can't produce an eye witness to the molestation. Let's talk when he gets made an MS or an elder (presuming he isn't one already) and starts molesting more children. And you have the balls to condemn the Catholic Church for their 'old' rules on dealing with pedophilia? At least the Catholic Church admitted that they had a problem, and publically apologized----something the assholes who sit on the Governing Body refuse to do.