Why You Loyal Witnesses Should Oppose Disfellowshipping

by metatron 33 Replies latest jw friends

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  metatron

  One night you are driving down a dark road. Another car swerves into your lane and hits you head on. You wake up days later and discover you are paralyzed. Cold horror fills your soul. What will you do? Who will take care of you? How can you go on living?

  You miss a second mortgage payment - and you know what that means. Your family has no healthcare. You can't afford clothes for your kids. What will you do? Where will you go?

  You are old and alone in a nursing home. There is no one to visit you. You wonder why you should go on living. You could just take an overdose of your prescription meds and never wake up.

  Look, there are situations in life in which having blood relatives make all the difference in your life. They are the people who might visit you in that nursing home or take you in if you lose your house. I'm not naive - so maybe your relatives are weasels and bums and thereby worthless.

  However, for most people, you stand a much better chance of getting significant help from your relatives than from a group of people who can dismiss any of your cares or needs by simply saying "Sorry but I have to get out in service". As an elder, I saw it many times.

  I know that many Witnesses are kind hearted people who mean well - but in most cases, you will find that they lose interest and think that prayer covers all their charitable needs. They are the masters of 'go warm and well fed, brother'. They formally and explicitly reject any thought of being a "social club", as the Watchtower says.

  So, I implore you, for your own best interests - to ignore any and all of the Watchtower's heartless and unscriptural counsel. You never know what might happen or who you might need or find useful.

  The Bible clearly says of a disorderly or disobedient one 'do not be considering him as an enemy'. The Watchtower feels otherwise. Who will you obey?

  metatron
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  bluesky3074

  long story!!
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  skeeter1

  I heard through the grapevine from a MS that a Bethelite just came to visit a local elder/MS group . . and stated that a JW can now allow a disfellowshipped person to stay in the JW household in the case of extreme emergency.
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  Mrs. Peck

  While I am an inactive Witness for quite some time now, I think there are pros and cons to DFing, like anything else. For one thing, the Witnesses do want to keep the congregation clean, meaning keeping out immoral and otherwise "sinful" behavior. Most churches do not even look at what their members are doing, nor do they seem to care. If you are a person that follows the bible,then such behaviors should not be accepted within a church setting as it is a direct contradiction of what religion is supposed to be about. Most organized religions are more concerned with keeping their members and having a rather large number of them maybe in order to collect more money?? Who knows, but I will say that the JWs do attempt to have standards and some sense of moral value. Disfellowshipping is generally a last resort after a person has demonstrated unrepentance and possibly repeated sinful behavior, as such. On the other hand, yes disfellowshipping does come with some very undesireable effects. It was always hard for me to ignore someone who was DF'd, I felt so bad. It was hard to treat a human being as if they did not exist, thus bearing the question whether or not we have the right to pass judgement on a person as an individual. However with that being said, we do live in a society today that refuses to take responsibility for their actions. It seems that very few people are ever held accountable. I think that maybe a little moral accountability is not such a bad thing.

  As far as a DF'd person in need, I think that any decent Witness would not deny that person help, it may even be arranged by the Elder body who may choose to extend assistance for that person's basic needs. That is just human decency. I would help that person regardless. And the guidelines regarding DFing state to not actively associate with that perso, say recreationally. Also, guidelines state not to discuss "spiritual matters" with that person (unless you are an Elder offering encouragement to that person to come back). There is nothing that I have ever heard of that incinuates not to help a person in need, even if DFd. I seriously doubt that Jehovah God would look down upon providing care to those who need it. If anything, I would think that is what being a true Christian is about.

  Just my opinion folks!!
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  VampireDCLXV

  The problem, Mrs. Peck, is in how DFing is used or often mis-used. Elders are just people and they tend to be corrupted by power like anyone else. Many of them totally get off on it. So disgusting! There is so much unfairness and so many outrageous miscarriages of justice that it's not worth it. The Rank & File tend not to be much better either. They tend to treat DF'd ones rather unfairly as well. Too many DFs getting treated like garbage. There are lots of horror stories. It's a tragedy!

  Wake up and smell the toast. It's burning!

  V665
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  Mrs. Peck

  Hey Vampire.....LOL I like the toast thing...pretty good. I totally agree with you...I too have seen this first hand. My point is that I have never seen anything in writing or the spoken word that states we are not to help DF'd people who are in need, although I am sure there are the A-holes out there that would refuse. But I see where you are coming from....we could share stories all day long!!
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  leavingwt

  metatron: Great advice! Thank you.
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  Nobleheart

  Disfellowshipping has to exist as long as there are pedophiles, murderers, etc. But shunning is a totally different story. Can't they just accept someone not being a member (like no privileges and stuff), and treating them like someone from world (say a coworker)? I personally have a hard time meeting a family of 4, greeting the wife and kids and totally ignoring the df husband.
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  streets76

  Disfellowshipping will exist for as long as JW 1.0 follows the High Control Group model.
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  Scully

  Dear Mrs. Peck

  The problem with Disfellowshipping™ is that the average JW does not know the reason why someone is DFd. There is no transparency to the proceedings that allow for the actual process to be critiqued and ensure that appropriate measures have been taken. The punishment is the same whether the "crime" was something like smoking in private - which harms nobody but the person doing it - or actual crimes like child molestation or murder which put people in the congregation and general public at risk.

  Far too often people who have committed crimes get away with their criminal activity under the WTS's insane Two Eyewitness™ rule - thus being sheltered from having justice served, while at the same time keeping perpetrators in proximity to their victims and in a position where they can victimize other people.

  Why should someone like me, whose only "crime" is a fundamental, conscientious disagreement with WTS policy be punished more severely than someone who molests a child and claims to be Repentant™?