The catch word is "condoning the wrongdoing". Talking to them can be taken as implicitly condoning the "wrongdoing". So, they could just go ahead and disfellowship you for speaking with disfellowshipped family members anyways.
Elder Book: Don't DF JWs who talk to DFed family. Usually. Your take?
by Open mind 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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WuzLovesDubs
I have never gotten the impression, expressed or implied, that shunning was an CONSCIENCE OPTIONAL thing. My relatives DO however, pick and choose the degree and the time and the occasion that they DO shun. They write their own rules. My mother in law and I are both DAd. My husband and his sister, and her husband and their five kids...are all JWs. My sister in law talks to me and treats me cordially when I am around her. She doesnt seek me out, but when I am there (she is moving into my house with my almost ex) she always talks "normally" to me. However, she has told her mother in writing that she wants nothing to do with her and doesnt want her around her children.
So...then came my daughters graduation party his last June. All the JWs came into town the night before, and they all explicitly NONINVITED my mother in law and I to dinner that night...and there was no mistake about us NOT being invited. The next DAY however, at the PARTY with all the nonJWs in the area watching them, they were cordial and friendly and mingling and talking to BOTH of us. My non JW sister, to whom I have over the years tried to explain this whole shunning thing, watched both the SHUNNING the night before and the obvious hypocrisy at the party with great disdain. So whatever they were trying to "show the world" about their nonshunning policy, failed.
Right after that party, they went right back to shunning my mother in law.
Optional? Hell no.
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wantstoleave
WLD...wow, yes, totally hypocritical behaviour on the shunning bit. Makes you wonder what point they were trying to prove. Just doesnt make sense does it.
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tigeress
i do know of a case where a mother was disaplined for speaking to her DF'd son and daughter in law. Her exhuse? they had just had her first grandchild and she wanted to support them. The reaction? she was marked, disaplined and then treated in the congo like a Df'd person herself.
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wantstoleave
Tigeress...how sad!! I know that no matter what I do with my life, Df or not, my parents would have everything to do with my kids. They love them like their own. And if I went on to have more children, I am sure my mother would support me as much as she could. I do however know of witness parents shunning their Df children AND their grandchildren. Very, very sad.
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dissed
The Elders are given much lattitude and flexibilty both ways in approaching the situation.
Some may just get a kind admonishing to be careful, while others, if caught looking at an Elder the wrong way when admonished, may get involved with a JC.
As Dissed says, "It all depends what time of the month it is for the Elder. Is he on his period or not?"
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inbetween
here, we had some instances of relatives associating with d´f ones, they got counseled and in one case even a marking talk was given, and one elder threatened of a JC, if the course of that sister wouldnt change,...
well , she knew from that time on, how to hide it, I think she didnt change much...
personally, while I was opposed having contact to a dfd, even if related, I would have never endorsed a JC on them...after all Jesus told us mercy , right ?
admittedly, now I see the whole matter quite different...