by dgp 17 Replies latest jw friends
Ana_dote,
Very good point. Also, think about Apostle Peter. He denied Jesus, 3 times, was publicily criticised by Paul for withdrawing from socializing with non jewish people. Yet, his standing among fellow christians was not affected. These people (elders) are power hungry perverts who wants to control others. Where is the principle of forgive and forget?
Scott77
ana_dote, you wrote, "If you are not a former witness (which, from the way you wrote your response, it doesn't sound like you are...) then you have NO IDEA what it is like. "
And of course you are right, although in another way than you thought I guess, because yep, I am no former witness, I am a current one. And so - I have PLENTY OF IDEAS what it is like.
I have been on BOE as both PO and sec, where I in that capacity was the one that received and opened letters from other congregations, and where I at times talked with one of the others (PO or sec) before the BOE meeting and we agreed upon NOT reading or handing out the letter, because it had information which clearly was either of outdated or of personal nature. So we thought the information irrelevant. Apart from that, certain documents referring to acts that prompted BOE reactions, are to be kept for a specific period of time - I seem to recall 10 years - and then they were burned, unopened. Apart from technicalities, I can honestly say we always let the "newcomers" speak for themselves when it came to making a fresh start, we never allowed things of the past cling to them, we always gave each and every one the full chance of a fresh start, realizing that a few had met with problems in their previous congregation and needed to come up for air, to start anew. In one such instance, the newcomer was soon appointed elder - and I later regretted that we HAD reached the agreement of not reading what the previous congregation had written - because they were dead right, and now it was our turn to experience the same .............
In the UK under Data Protection legislation the brother or sister is allowed to see copies of any information that the congregation holds , including letters of introduction between congregations. So the elders have been told to pass any information verbally (usually by way of a phone call between the Presiding Overseers.)
Any letter (eg of recommendation or non-recommendation of an appointed JW) is to be very brief and bland as technically the brother has a right to see the letter (in practice this very rarely happens & the instruction is to destroy the letter after it is discussed at the new elders meeting.)
Under no circumstances do I recommend making the switch official. Not only will they pass whatever bad things they did to you into the new congregation, but you are throwing away an opportunity to start missing boasting sessions. If you only unofficially switch, you can go to two different congregations and start missing boasting sessions altogether. Each side will think you went to the other side, and no one will start hounding you until it's too late.
Send the letter to transfer, however, and the hounders in the new congregation will start expecting you at all their boasting sessions. If you start missing them, you will be quickly hounded about it. You will also be expected to go out in field circus within the new congregation, not alternating between the two congregations and gradually doing less of it. I would rather see people not have their papers transferred, alternate going to both congregations in an unpredictable pattern, and then start missing the boasting sessions altogether.
There were times when we struggled with meeting attendance (having small kids and postpartum depression will do that to a person) and that seemed to haunt us, even when we moved and meeting attendance improved. There was this snobbishness where people in the new congregation would keep us at arms length - as if we were on probation - and word eventually filtered back that some weren't expecting our efforts to be long-lived.
Sad to say, these people were actual ring-leaders in the congregation, and what they dictated in terms of how to treat newcomers, the others followed. If the new family was headed by an elder, the ass-kissing commenced even before they set foot in the Kingdom Hall. If the family was struggling, like we were - even though we were putting in a huge effort, the negative stuff was the subject of gossip and usually preceded your arrival.
That's why, in the end, we just didn't bother notifying anyone in the JWs when we moved. We didn't want that kind of gossip, nor did we want people showing up to Encourage™ us. We just wanted to be left alone.
I served as congregation secretary for a number of years.
There's truth in BOTH TheOldHippie's & Scully's experiences, IMO.
TheOldHippie describes how it "ought" to happen and Scully describes what I saw "actually" happen on several occasions.
At the end of the day, most of the year it's the Elder's playground and they make the judgement calls on how the rules are interpreted. If you're just a publisher, you can easily get walked on and unless the Elders are WAY out of line and you can prove it, telling the CO about it will just get you labeled as a whiner, independent, proud, etc.
om
Just a couple of things to add to the discussion (from former elder who saw dozens of these letters and wrote some of them):
1. It's amazing how many of these letters are so poorly written that it was almost impossible to figure out if the BOE was making a positive or negative recommendation. In those cases the letters were largely ignored. Otherwise, yes, your reputation preceded you.
2. Even though these letters are "supposed" to be written by the secretary and co-signed by at least one other member of the body (or two, I can't recall), a large number of letters came in with one signature. These usually carried less weight, especially if they were critical or contained TMI (too much information) because some elder would point out the procedural violation and the letter's message would be discounted.
3. Knowing that these letters are routine is knowledge you can use when doing your fade. For example, we told our secretary we were moving and asked him to send a letter to the new congo. And he did. WT procedure states that the new congo is supposed to request a letter from the old, after you show up at the new location, but many elders take a shortcut here. So a month later the new congo's secretary called up and asked if there was some mistake as they had not seen us at their KH, I asked if the letter didn't mention some serious health problems. He thought about it and said, "Yeah, I think it did mention that." So I gilded that lily and painted a picture of hard-to-diagnose chronic illness for which we were under a doctor's care and let him jump to the conclusion that it was the reason we hadn't gotten to a meeting. I assured him that when we improved, we fully intended to be there.
However, I was wrong; we did "improve" but we never went. And, as expected, neither congo wanted the responsibility to follow up so no one ever did.
OldHippie, I have a better idea about perverts. The body of elders could do the right thing and call the Police. They should make it clear that they are not going to tolerate any abuses against children, from anyone, anywhere. This should happen if the man in question were a member of the Governing Body itself. Also, the Governing Body could also be hit by "new light" and decide that Jehovah just told them to stop being accesories to the fact. Your post sounds like "well, if you want to know who are perverts, then we need to have this check on people". You know full well that this is a false alternative. Perverts DON'T get reported to the Police or anything. And, if what I read here is true, it's even perfectly possible that everybody knows someone else is a pervert but, if he has good standing, he is a good member of the congregation.
The Catholic Church has sent priests to different parishes to evade justice. Do you have the feeling that sending a pervert to another congregation, with an impeccable publisher card and a very nice worded letter, could be used in the same fashion? I am sure it could.
I have another idea. Since the Kingdom is not to take place in this world, why don't we stop giving any earthly authority to guys who are not better than the rest? Why don't we recognize that they are "imperfect men", so it's not wise to let them use their imperfect reasoning to do perfect harm to others?
The mere idea that your fate depends on what someone else says about you gives me the goosebumps. I can see a zillion opportunities for abuse.
In my humble opinion, the right thing to do should be simply do away with such a letter. And simply not tolerate any abuse against anyone.
