by donuthole 9 Replies latest jw friends
I saw this on reddit this morning. Not sure who the religious group is but if you change just a couple of words (church to congregation) it reads like a JW letter - the kind you get when they are wanting to get you into a JC or disfellowship you absentia. It's weird how similar these high-control/judgment groups really are. They must get their advice from the same source ...
All I can say in response is itsacult and cults shoot their wounded.
The Borg judicial system is by no means unique. They like to think so but they're not. They're just like any other dangerous mind control cult.
JWs have no trademark on craziness.
I wonder if this group does this down to the point of family, relatives and close friends being required to completely shun a member, to cut off all social contact?
One of my good friends who was never a witness went to a church that disfellowshipped their members. Not sure if it was this one or not. They were members for about 10 years before they escaped.
I googled "Chairman of the Elders" and got the Trinity Church and the Cactus Christian Fellowship in the first 10 hits. Could be one of those, or any one of the other 40,000 Christian sects.
Whoever they are, itsacult!
JW's or not, reading something like this makes me sick....... absolutely sick.
For men to think that they have this much power over people continually confirms to me that religion is a farce and that fear is a great tactic for control.
Thanks for the pic of the letter.
CoC
The letter references an elder named, Donn. The letter closes with The Elders of the Village Church. I located their home page, and this Donn fellow. Here's the link. The pictures of the other elders are listed as well, there's several of them.
http://www.vcbweb.org/345243.ihtml
Donn Ziebell
On that link, there's several PDF files listing the qualifications and responsibilities of the Elders. Also policies on marriage, divorce, remarriage, purity, a governance model(whatever that is), women's roles, church debt, and borrowing. I didn't read any of them yet, but they look interesting.
Sadly JW have no monopoly on the outrageous expulsion/shunning issue. Even some small groups in Europe other then the Witnesses commit the same crime (christadelphians for example) . To be honest, expulsion of unrepentant wrongdoers in itself is not bad or wrong. Every religion/organization has to have a such a kind of policy to protect themselves. It all depends on what the goals are and to what extent current members and family are encouraged to break with former or unrepentant members. Other churches limit their expulsion to a removal from the membership list and forbidding the individual to identify themselves as members, and remove all the benefits that might be attached to it. Private association should remain an individual decision. As the goal of JW is to silence former members and to cut them off completely from their family, it is way off the hook and a discrimination to the largest extent possible.
The letter stated that it was two independent members who initially brought up the issue and that they informed the elders only when the individual took no action. This actually seems to be more in line with Matthew 18:15-17 than the JWs.
15 “If your brother or sister sins,go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.--Matthew 18:15-17 New International Version
In the JWs a member's responsibility is simply to snitch to the elders, not to bring up the sin between him and the errant member alone.
In the scripture, it is only after the errant member shows no change that they go to the "congregation". Seems like this church is following the scripture in the way it was meant to be followed unlike the JWs.
Villabolo
