shunning is love - Feb 15 2011 Watchtower (page 5)

Alwayshere

July 2009 Awake, Of course this was for "worldly people. " "No one should be forced to worship in a way that he finds unacceptable or be made to choose between his beliefs and his family."

"Actually the congregations mirror the outside world, its just that the organization legislates how we are to act toward one another. So we appear kind and loving and helpful on the outside. Inside, we are teaming with disappointment and mental anguish. Of course, this is not true in all instances. There are truly warm and loving people in the organization."

The JW org has a one sided approach that deals mainly with the rational side of things but leaves the emotional side neglected people do not want just dry knowledge but to feel loved and supported both by the org and the individual JW something that doesn't exist leading to a sense of disappointment. There is no love simply because the organisation, the WTS, does not love its members but rather seeks to deceive and exploit them something typical of religious organisations.

Shunning as practised by the JWs is too draconian and counterproductive it is applied over trivial issues such as celebrating birthdays or Christmas and is also used as a means to protect the authority of the leadership by isolating and removing all dissent ie it is a means to punish so as to sustain authority rather than an expression of....love.

miseryloveselders

In my experience, the people in the congregation that are disfellowshipped are actually some of the nicest people there. They feel guilt about their wrongdoing and either confess outright or do not deny it when the wrongdoing is presented to them.

In other words, they're normal LOL. It's so true. Those that have trouble with meeting attendance, or low field service time, or anything for that matter that The Society looks down upon, those people tend to be the people in the congregation who are the least backstabbing, least gossiping, and most genuine in your average congregation.

jam

Gary 1914; I hope you will stay in. You and others like you can make changes

and stop the shunning policy. What,s the first word that come out of people mouth

when you mention JW,s, they break up families. A large number of my family

would have become JW if they had not witness the shunning first hand.

It stop them dead in their tracks, My family and my ex-wife family. Not

A single one and we are talking about A lot of people. Now the

the JW will say it,s my fault, I will be held as bloodguilt. This is one thing that is so

destructive for the JW,s. I hope you stay, but since your presence here I doubt it.

Gary1914

Hi Jam. I only stay because i do not want to disrupt my family. It's the only reason. I have not stepped down from being an elder because my voice is heard in judicial meetings. I always vote for leniency unless there is some sort of sexual perversion going on. When the society instructed us to report pedophiles in the congregation to the police anonymously using a pay telephone I would not. I called from the Kingdom Hall phone and reported it. I never let the other elders know though. When I answer in the meetings I always say "the Watchtower says" or "the organization says". Once a Circuit Overseer called me over after a meeting and said that I should not do that. That the organization wants us to personalize our comments and that I should say "I believe" or "I think that". I listened to him but I sill answer my way and I will continue to do so until someone makes a real issue of it.

I do not contribute to the organization and all my field service reports are fake. I don't feel guilt because my loyalty is not to a man made organization. It is to God and he has nothing to do with the Watchtower.

I am an adult and I can frquent any website I wish to. I will not let some organization tell me what to do or what to think. I'm going rogue. lol

jam

Gary ; They need you there to help the lost sheep.

sd-7

What may seem harsh to outsiders is both necessary and really a loving thing to do.

That sounds to me like what a person with Stockholm syndrome might say about their captor(s). Or what an abused child might say (or at least think) about their abusive parents.

If you face a similar situation, please remember that Jehovah sympathizes with you.

How, specifically? What words of sympathy have his "channel of communication" EVER offered to grieving ones who can no longer talk to someone they deeply cared for? None. Just blame that person, and get busy in field service, or we'll throw you out, too.

Our supporting the Scriptural arrangement of disfellowshipping gives evidence that we love righteousness and recognize Jehovah’s right to set standards of conduct.

Loaded language here--no matter what the circumstances, this is from God, regardless of how the situation was handled, regardless of how many rules have been added to the Bible that aren't made by God, but by men. So even if it was handled wrongly, God takes the blame, not the organization, not the human side. It doesn't take much, once this has happened to someone you love, to start turning against God, because you think it's his fault for making such a f***ed up system. Oh, right--it could be worse. We could've been in Israel and [so-and-so] could have been stoned to death for this. Just think of it that way! Ah, much f***ing better.

--sd-7

Awen

Interestingly enough the Apostle Paul states at 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 that when a person repents, the Brothers and Sisters should reaffirm their love by accepting the sinner back into the congregation. Obviously this isn't done by JW's who make the repentent one wait for a prolonged period of time, going directly against Paul's admonition at 2 Cor 2:7 "Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement." Also what is left out is many Bible Scholars state (as do the JW's in Scripture Inspired book) that the period of time that elapsed between Paul receiving the first letter about the man who took his father's wife into his bed, his response, the Corinthian congregation's response and Paul's second letter was no more than 6 months of elapsed time. In other words his reinstatement was immediate, not prolonged in many months or even years as is commonly practised by JW's. The procedure has nothing to do with love, but rather the GB and Elders exercising their "authority" and making their point to the sinner and congregation that following theocratic guidlines is more important than the rule of love. Something that is never mentioned is this: How did the ones in Corinth know the man had repented IF they had no contact with him? Since meetings were held in private homes (that he could no longer attend) and if they practiced shunning to the degree that JW's do today, how is it, that by not greeting or speaking to him in any way that they became aware of his repentence? Obviously they did speak to him in some fashion and thus were able to relate to Paul the person's repentence. The WTS oversteps the scriptures and sets their own guidelines, thus fulfilling the words of Jesus at Matthew 15:7-9 "You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesized about you people. 'These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far removed from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God'.

How long a person stays disfellowshipped also seems to directly correspond to how popular the offender was in the congregation. In my home congregation a long time friend, a professed anointed one and elder committed adultery. He was disfellowshipped allof 3 months. Many were shocked by how short his disfellowshipped lasted, compared to others who committted similar offenses, but who had never been elders, not "anointed" and who had been witness for a much shorted duration than this man.

MrMonroe

I always say "the Watchtower says" or "the organization says". Once a Circuit Overseer called me over after a meeting and said that I should not do that. That the organization wants us to personalize our comments and that I should say "I believe" or "I think that". I listened to him but I sill answer my way and I will continue to do so until someone makes a real issue of it.

Gary, I did the same thing for many, many months. It reached the point in the Revelation Book study where I couldn't answer some paragraphs because I had zero conviction that what they supplied as an answer was true, it was obvious propaganda. Full marks to you for staying true to yourself.

The next step for me was to read Ray Franz's Crisis of Conscience and recognize that the WTS claim to represent God (and the corollary that loyalty to WTS = loyalty to God) was baseless, that 1914 was no more a marked year than any other year in history and that the GB is an entirely human group with very human failings. Later research showed me that the current JW concept of Armageddon was knitted together entirely by JF Rutherford, using a range of scriptures that had little application to one another. The bottom line was that I realised I had nothing to fear by leaving that organization, I wasn't abandoning God's protection because that whole notion was a fiction built up piece by piece over the years to keep Witnesses within the fold. I don't think that notion was done deliberately to deceive; it was the consequence of an overarching concept within the organization that feeds on itself.

So I left. And the relief it brought me was immense. I agree with another poster here that you are helping people's lives by remaining a rogue elder and promoting leniency and reason. You may want to consider your own life and future however. Best regards.

shunning is love - Feb 15 2011 Watchtower

laverite