@ Ada
Yeah isn't that the truth! (truth....heh)
How do elders step down?
by BlackSwan of Memphis 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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RubaDub
I recall some years ago, an elder played it, in my mind, as well as you possibly can.
We were having a "gathering" (one of the occasional congregation picnics at the time).
In the middle of some other conversations, he came out and said he was stepping down to give more time to his family. There were some oooohs and ahhhhs ... even a couple elders were listening and asked why ... but he took the initiative and explained why, and noone could say much after that.
They read the letter about two months later but everyone knew what he did and why.
Rub a Dub
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eyeslice
Stepping down as an elder, now here is another source of the double standards of the whole JW set up.
When I was an elder, a situation arouse with one of my kids. This was nothing like a disfellowshipping offense but my son had been alone in my house with a ‘member of the opposite’ sex. Nothing happened and therefore no action was/could be taken.
I was under some pressure over this ‘incident’ so I offered my resignation. Now note, I offer my resignation, which could or could not have been accepted by the local body of elders. This was on the Sunday. On Monday night, I got a call saying that some other elder would be taking the group study that I normal took and that I was not take the part I was assigned on the Service Meeting.
What particularly got me about all this was that, according to JWs doctrine, elders are appointed by Holy Spirit via the branch office. As personally, I had done nothing wrong, nor indeed had my son, I felt that the matter should have gone back to the branch office and a decision made at that level as to my suitability or not to continue as an elder. However, what was very apparent was that when the knives are out for you then the local body of elders can be a law unto themselves. Of all the elders in the congregation, I had perhaps the greatest respect and was considered to be the most even-handed and consistent. I had served as an ‘appointed man’ for over 30 years. But that counts for nothing with this bunch of thankless and uncaring pseudo-Christians.
I choose not to attend the night that my removal as an elder was announced; “Brother Eyeslice is no longer an elder” (I was informed of this by wife who was there). Totally in line with the Society’s guidelines and not a word of thanks or appreciation for years of work for congregation.
I struggled on for about another year and then simply stopped attending altogether. Not a gradual fade but one Sunday I didn’t go to the meeting and have never gone back since. It has been over 6 years now and fortunately the pain, sense of betrayal and any bitterness have long gone. -
Old Goat
When I resigned, I told them I was too sick to continue. Everyone knew I was incapacitated most of the time. I'm older than dirt. What I didn't tell them was, "You all just put us through eighteen months of misery based on the mindless prattling of a mentally ill man (in and out of a mental institution) and the insistence on the part of one of you that we take all his accusations seriously. We spent the last year and a half in a witch hunt mode, from which I have not been able to awaken you. I give it up. All you accomplished was to prove the man nuts and to hurt some really faithful brothers and sisters."
Not having stated the obvious helped. The circuit overseer visited about three weeks later. They deleted me then. Unexpectedly, he wrote a letter to the Service Department or whomever, saying "Brother Old Goat is seldom seen in the ministry." (I averaged 20 hours a month, though most of it was informal witnessing because I was an am seriously ill. I was house-bound most days.) I got a six page single spaced letter from them telling me how vital service was and saying, "You can't resign. We delete you for not going out in service." I never replied.
I took decades of letters and files to my office. (I still worked part time when and as I could. We owned the business) I dumped them all in an industrial shredder designed to handle inch thick piles of paper. I mentally severed my connection with the Watchtower in my office basement. I had just started to physically deteriorate. The three years previously had been spent either in bed unable to even get to the bathroom without assistance or in a UniversityHospital. But in the opinion of the elder who had started the trouble noted above (now dieing of cancer, I might add. I have no sympathy for him.), I was "faking it." He had the ear of the Circuit Overseer.
I wasn't really surprised. I had been active since the late 1940's. I'd seen similar foolishness from the service department before. The 'brother' in charge way back when was an ex-marine who never got it out of his blood. He only heard what he wanted to hear. He and his buddy Nathan had called one of my friends out of his circuit and back to bethel to grill him over a so-called demonic experience that occurred in his circuit. It was insane. So, no, I wasn't surprised. But I was angry. I'm still angry.
If it had been secular employment, we'd have ended up in court. No employer could do what they did and come off unscathed. As it was, I shrugged my shoulders and saw it as par for the course.
The really insulting thing was subsequent elder anger that I'd resigned. And even greater anger that brothers and sisters called me with their problems in preference to going to the elders. I faithfully sent them to the elder body, and I never commented on their reluctance. But I understood it.
The Society and elder bodies seek to control your every breath. They act stupidly. I am still seen as a faithful witness. I'm not though - not in anyway that they would recognize. I spent a goodly time angry at God over the whole thing. It took me a while to recover a sense of proportion. I expected God to teach his children good sense, and was angry that he hadn't. The alternative is, they aren't his children, and he isn't responsible for that other fella's kids.
The ecclesiastical authorities among Jehovah's Witnesses make me physically ill. There is an occasional Christian among them, but not many. In my last active years I was gossiped about. I was accused of being an apostate. (Wasn't so at the time; I'm not sure it's so now. I believe the doctrines, mostly. A few I puzzle over. I don't teach contrary doctrine. I especially didn't then.) I was faking my illness. I lied on my service report. My wife and I were on the verge of divorce because she couldn't cope with my illness. You name it, someone said it. Much of this came from the mentally disturbed man I mentioned earlier and was passed around by his elder buddy. How does one defend against this? I ignored it until someone specifically asked about something. Then I dealt with it on a person by person basis.
Attending meetings was a chore. I need help dressing some days. I can't walk well, sometimes not at all. I would get sick in the middle of a meeting and have to leave. My entire family would have to drag me out to the car and get me home. It was a big chore. I stopped going. I eventually gave up trying to resolve my issues. They're not resolvable.
The elder who was the focus of everyone's problems has been deleted twice since. They keep reappointing him. He's dieing now. I'll dance on his grave. (Can you hear the enduring anger?) At the same time, I silently thank him for helping me to see what the Watchtower truly is, a power mad organization of Pharisee-like individuals who haven't a clue what real Christianity is. (Elder during meeting: "We tried love and it didn't work! Now it's time to get tough! --- Honest, that bit of conversation really happened!)
Eventually a rift developed between the "bad elder" and his primary supporter on the elder body. Mr. Bad Elder has a history of attacking other servants going back to the mid 1960's, when he was first appointed a Congregation Servant. He left a trail of "bodies" all over the region way back when. He'd contrive complaints and try to get those removed whom he felt were cutting into his power or whom he felt showed him in a bad light. He lied to do it. I remember sitting in our Kingdom Hall office/library and discussing his complaints against another elder. He insisted the man's business practices disqualified him as an elder because of something an Awake! said. I asked him to show me the article. He said he didn't remember what issue it was in, "but it's in there somewhere and we need to delete him!"
We're in the library, right? Okay. Index in hand, I go looking. I find an article. We look. He says, "Yes! That's it!" I say, "Show me where it says what you claimed." It didn't of course. Nothing of the sort was there. So he dropped it, right? No way Jose'. He was back within a week saying, "You know he lies during committee meetings?" On and on it went, until another elder and I cornered a Circuit Overseer and told him the whole story. He cooled down for a while. Later he went back to it, picking off two more elders. One simply moved to another congregation to get away, and one threw up his hands and resigned.
After I resigned, he would drive by my house once or twice a day. It was out of his way, and I do not know what he thought he would see. Another Witness family lived across the street. He enlisted the "brother" in his spy network. After a few months this brother walked across the street to tell me that he was supposed to keep track of my movements. Tell me? Does this sound like Christianity to you?
There wasn't much to see. I was mostly in bed.
My health improved for a while. I was able to resume attending, though I often had to go into the office and lay on a couch. I fixed up the Kingdom Hall library, sorting the books and filling in gaps. There was an old copy of Pastor Russell's sermons in there. The circuit overseer came and saw it. He was an obnoxious kid as far as I was concerned. He was, to say the least, uninformed. He told the elder body they needed to meet with me to discuss the apostate literature I'd put in the library. He gave them a list of books. Apparently he did not know that the Peoples Pulpit Association was the first name of the Watchtower Society of New York.
I made one of the elders go through every book in the library and verify that it was a Watchtower Publication. The only things that weren't were a couple of dictionaries and some Bible translations. Does this sound anything like Christianity to you?
Interestingly, I later found that one of the men I pioneered with back in the late 1960's and off and on into the 1970's had a similar experience, though the actual issue came from a sister looking through a box of books a non-witness had donated and that had come from his grandmother's estate. Because he was Ministry School Overseer, he was blamed for two non-Witness pamphlets found in the box. Of course, he hadn't even seen the box. It was left on the doorstep and the sisters carried it in and snooped. Are elders insane? or just stupid?
So here I am. Cut loose from a religion I spent most of my life actively supporting. I do not reject Jehovah's Witnesses. I think many of them are fine Christians. I think of every elder, every ministerial servant, all those in authority especially those in Brooklyn as suspect. I spent too many years dealing with them directly to see them any other way.
I'm trying to reassess my relationship to God and to the Witnesses. I've been re-reading back issues of The Watchtower with a more critical and thoughtful mind. Will I go back? I do not know. Does something need to change? Yes. This is not the clean organization I always hoped it was and wanted it to be. The spiritual soiling that concerns me isn't the common sins of common people. That happens, and it won't stop. Life is life. What concerns me is the self-view, the self-justification (as opposed to divine justification) of those in authority. And the crazy-butt side doctrines that have nothing to do with faith. Oh my Lord, make them go away!
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eyeslice
Old Goat - you and I share so much in common. I have had more than my fair share of run-ins with ignorant, unreasonable and power-crazed elders.
One of the biggest problems I saw as an elder was the almost uncontrollable urge by everyone in authority to make rules. Everything from what was and wasn't acceptable to wear through to where you could or could not park in the street. Surely non of this is in the Bible!
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Old Goat
Dear Eyeslice,
We had a brother who had to wear a beard. His doctor told him to because of some sort of skin disorder. If he shaved he got some of the worst skin and ingrown hair problems I've ever seen. His beard was clean, neatly trimmed, and very presentable. In the environment in which we both worked (government/academic types) neatly kept beards were common. The majority of the elder body (I think I was the only dissenter) wanted him removed as a Ministerial Servant. The two elders chosen to 'explain the issue' told him to live with the skin condition or be deleted. Understand that this was a painful condition. He kept his beard, and I never blamed him for that. One of the elders said, "People will think he's a hippie!" (That dates the episode) He wore expensive suits. He was very presentable. No one would ever have seen him as a hippie. (Or is that hippy?)
I understand the need to have those on the platform look nice. I don't understand some of the other rules. We had a sister who came straight from her job as a cook to meetings. She came in her work clothes. It was that or not make the meetings. One of the elders wanted to tell her to stop. She came in the last second. She sat in the back. No one minded. We all knew what the circumstance was. That is - no one minded but an idiot elder who wanted her to wear a dress.
Then there was the great plastic coat controversy and its predecessor, the Nehru Jacket conspiracy. One of the brothers bought a black leather sports-coat style jacket. It was expensive and very presentable. He wore it on the platform a few times. No one objected. Brother "I’m pretty much clueless" went out and bought a mustard yellow plastic jacket. You know the type? Fake leather in a color not found in nature? He wore his on the stage. It was second hand and cracking and had a hole in the sleeve. I'm not picking on someone too poor to afford nice clothes. He just liked the coat. We asked him to wear something better. He exploded. The "other brother" got to wear is leather coat, then he should be able to wear this plastic abomination! The resolution? Brother A retired his leather sports coat for casual use only. Brother B still wanted to wear his plastic "thing" but didn't. Petty and stupid.
I'll leave the great Nehru Jacket conspiracy for another day.
Parking? Yes! I was in the attendant department at a convention. Across the street from the convention was a MethodistChurch. Two of our attendants, based on what a department head told them, tried to regulate parking over at the church. Moronic? Heard of the Masonic Conspiracy (don't laugh. I don't believe in it either) This was the great Moronic Conspiracy! Anyway, I walk out to where they were and find them across the street at the Church. I tell them to leave those people alone. They insist it's their job to control parking. I say, not on a public street, it's not, and not in someone else's parking lot. Anyone remember the District Servant named Dugan? Tough man, but fair. He finally had to tell the idiot in charge of parking to stop.
These things are just silly. They do not mark witnesses as perverts, anti-christs, evil sectarians or any such thing. Just as inordinately silly. They put people in positions of responsibility who are not trained, have only marginal good sense, and almost no experience. If there is blame in this silliness, it rests on a governing body that is anti-intellectual and leaves the elders untrained in areas that matter.