A few questions for lurking active elders, former elders & MS

by onemore 11 Replies latest jw friends

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  Juan Viejo2

  I remember watching the late Dr. Gene Scott on TV back a few years ago. When I was bored, I'd grab a beer and some nuts and start flipping through the channels late at night to find him. He was always somewhere on the TV box. He always put on a good show.

  One night he started "teaching" his flock about the Great Pyramid of Giza. I could have sworn he had a copy of C.T. Russell's "Studies in the Scriptures" sitting on the table next to him. He rambled on about the length of each hallway and access point in the Pyramid - often reading right from the book next to him. I swear it was SitS! Then he'd get up and go to his invisible blackboard and start drawing unintelligible scribbles and talking gibberish the whole time. His followers, sitting in the audience were all taking notes and drinking the kool-aid. Occasional applause would arise as he'd make some ridiculous assertion.

  The whole thing reminded me of a small circuit assembly listening to the DO read off one of the latest talks from the GB. Only Scott was far more interesting and entertaining. When he was done, he'd put his sunglasses back on, sit down in his chair, light up his cigar and order his band to play the same song over and over again until a certain amount of donation money showed up on the tote board located in the corner of the screen. The 800 numbers were always on, throughout the whole performance.

  I think Scott was really channeling guys like Russell and Rutherford. The "great bearded teacher" who took shit from nobody. His flock kept growing (thanks to his daily shows constantly on both regular TV and satellite). He was in trouble with the FCC so many times I lost count. Did he try to hide anything? Nope. Paraded his show horses and his equestrian daughter on videos that ran whenever he took a break. Didn't care if you believed him or not as long as you called in more money with your credit card.

  I think that is the direction that the GB is heading. "Hey. This is what we teach. You will believe it or your out! In? You do what we say - to the letter and send us money. Out? Fine. You lose your family and we keep 'em. Years of tears for you, buddy!"

  I really see that as the direction the WT will go toward. Unfortunately, they still won't be as entertaining as Gene Scott. He was playing the fool. They take themselves too seriously.

  JV
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  gubberningbody

  1) Let say that you were a sincere believer of the Watchtower, and fallowed the GB’s direction because you truly believed that they were guided by the Holy Spirit. What information would have made you doubt the validity & authority of the Governing Body?

  * I never followed them because of anything they claimed about themselves, I merely looked at them as convenient tools for the Almighty. Now I realize they were just tools.(I mean "tools" in the common street vernacular.) I always looked askance at any idolatry of that sort and considered it just a sampling of human frailty to feel that any man or group of men were important. I only "followed" what I believed at the time to be things which were biblical.

  2) What type of information would have made you reconsider your position as an executioner of the GB rules & regulations?

  * It was two things and these began to grow into more than these two things.

  1. They ran out of things to say on the Bible and so I began to read what others had to say. During meeting parts I didn't conduct, I either analysed the talks in terms of my role as the TMS school overseer, or I listened to others to amuse myself, or I simply read the Bible using my notebook to pretend to pay attention, but instead I was taking notes on odd things I'd read in the Bible that I wanted to find out more about.

  2. The organization began to become even more idolatrous with regard to the GB than they ever had and almost every meeting was filled with shrill protestations of the sort which screamed "we're important! we're in charge!". The yes-men elders around me who usually had nothing had no interest in anything the Bible had to say seemed to be more and more interested in micromanaging the conscience of the congregation members, and this to the point of harassment.

  3) As an active elder, was there anything that would have made you believed that the GB has been corrupted and perhaps infiltrated by Satan?

  * Not that, but it had become clear to me that they were more concerned about "their place, and their nation" than with the good news of the kingdom and that instead of admitting fallibility they blamed everyone but themselves.

  4) Let say you had some serious doubts and experiencing a “crisis of conscience”, if you knew that there would be no retaliation such as getting dissfellowshipped; would you have mastered the courage to speak up and search for the truth?

  *There is always retaliation and this isn't restricted to the JW's, but is an element present in every collective human activity. I have always spoken up and I finally said my last words by resigning as an elder and then simply stopped going without word or notice or conversation of any kind.

  I wanted them to think and I knew the best way would be for me to allow their minds to simply wonder what it was that made a pioneer elder who'd pioneered for 15 years and served as an elder/servant for 25 years to simply leave.

  5) If you knew the implications of being an “independent agent”, would you have resigned or stopped fallowing all of the GB’s orders?

  * The folly is thinking you are ever NOT an "independent agent".

  One thing I do believe they have right and I thank them for that is this:

  They always said...

  "You have to make the truth your own."

  I have and it is. The people who stay will stay as long as they don't heed their own advice.

  I