Did the organization become more mean spirited after the Elders were appointed?

by Giordano 21 Replies latest jw friends

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  Giordano

  I think it all started with Bethel, the big brother mentality, the slave like treament of their free labor pool, the watching, questioning and demeaning of the 'new boys' then the Ray Franz situation and it cascaded into the congregations only now with 8, 10 elders all looking around at each other and especially at the congreation there was a group ready and willing to go after anyone that caught their eye. With families held hostage there is greater fear now, or so it seems to me.

  Back when we were three all eyes in the congo were watching us, were we doing a good enough job? When there's a bunch of elders their eyes are watching the congo and they are asking are you doing a good enough job?.
• 

  designs

  Being an Elder in the 80s was an unimaginable torture, it reminded me of stories I would hear about dictatorships and communist countries censoring everyone, who was Theocratic, who said all of the right catch phrases. I threw in the towel in 1989 as an Elder, another ten years with constant harrasment and committee meetings, friends being turned into spies until I totally faded.

  Ten years after things are really looking pretty swell with life and all.

  For all of you in transition- keep up the good fight, your new life is worth it.
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  steve2

  Anyone who asks, "Did the organization become more mean spirited after the elders were appointed" is shockingly unaware of "Judge" Rutherford's bullying ironhold over the rank and file. This maniac seized the reigns of the nearly dormant Watchtower Society in 1917 after poor old disillusioned Charles "Father Christmas "Russell died on a slow moving train the year before. Rutherford's intimidations and threats were legendary - they reached their absolute pits in the 1930s. This man personified hatred and hostility toward anyone who dared question his authority.

  Just a quick read of his vicious, cold and sarcastic prose about apostates and his ability to chill the room with his booming voice makes the 1980s Watchtower warnings about apostates seem like a polite and proper argument over high tea.

  So, in answer to your question: No. The organization has long had the capacity to be mean spirited - but it was truly at its worst level of mean-spiritedness in the 1930s.
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  Giordano

  I agree and disagree. I am very aware of Rutherford, I am also very aware of the meanness of Bethel and the organization at that level. But growing up in Queens NY those issues were not know or at least discussed by the rank and file. As the Society's grip on individual congregations tighten my theory or point is Ten elders can humble/terroize a KH made up of a hundred plus 'friends'. While three servants were not feared to the same degree that elders are today.

  Even Elders fear elders.

  My agreement with you is about Rutherford a total piece of garbage whoses dozens of books are as of now out of print.

  Steve2 turn down the noise level on your boom box and listen to what is being articulated.

  Gio out......... got to go to karate practice.
• 

  steve2

  Steve2 turn down the noise level on your boom box and listen to what is being articulated.

  I have dutifully obeyed your instruction and still find that the sound coming from Brooklyn these days is a much more subtle hiss ompared to the unrelenting boom, boom. boom of previous decades.

  My now-deceased grandparents could still recite the way the Judge told the packed assembly hall in Britain in the early 1930s that those who needed to buy houses were too simply too weak in faith and too proud to rent - and he referred by name to the evil ones who had left the organization and had the temerity to buy houses. He savaged their faith in public. My sadly loyal grandparents died without owning property. They never forgot the dire wartnings...
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  Mad Sweeney

  The entire body being harsh is pretty rare in my experience. The typical body of elders in the USA looks something like this:

  One guy in his 80s or older who remembers the good old days when Armageddon was just months away but can't remember where he put his slippers.

  Two guys in their 60s or 70s, one of whom is probably the CoBE, who also has a son on the body, and the other a single eccentric who is probably either ambiguously gay or a hidden child molester.

  A guy in his 50s or early 60s who became an elder because he was a MS for 30 years and people were talking, feeling he was due, OR he was an elder when he was younger, stepped down when his kids all fornicated their way out of "the truth" but is now ok to be an elder again since he has been so good at shunning them for the last decade or so.

  A couple guys in their 40s. One of them is a poor janitor and the congregation secretary, the other has the most successful business in the congregation and is a big donor whenever the AC breaks down or they need a new lawn mower or some other fiscal emergency arises.

  And one guy younger than 40 who either went to Bethel or served as a pioneer right after he "graduated" from home school at age 15. He is the congregation's service overseer because he's the only one on the body who goes out in service during the week.

  Only a couple of them are harsh, and there is no way of knowing which ones they are until you've been in the congregation or heard them speak. The harsh ones shout down the humble ones and so the group decisions come across as harsh even though there are only two or three movers and shakers in the bunch.
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  Glander

  One aspect of the "elder arrangement" ('73 as I recall) was that the judicial committee of 3 would rotate in a different elder each year. The previous set up kept the same three men, sometimes for years.

  Many new elders simply didn't have the experience to handle the type of stuff coming at them. On top of this, in the mid to late seventies the FDS foolishly began to dabble in developing a sexual Talmud for the flock to follow. What a B..F...... mess!
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  james_woods

  But, aside from points about Rutherford (correct points) - can we sum this up as follows:

  "The Elders arrangement looked at first to be less mean-spirited than the former 3 servant committees, but in actual experience became much MORE mean spirited because of incompetence and paranoia over the post 1975 apostacy fears."

  Reasonable to others who were committee servants before and elders after at the time?
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  designs

  The basic core problem with the Elder arrangement was the lack of training. Field service hours and training as a public speaker do not a Pastor or Counselor make. Opening the ranks to more Servants only made the problem worse with more untrained and unqualified men offering harmful advise.

  And boy do I have a list of bad advise and advisors from those years..
• 

  Giordano

  Great comments from everyone. We've probably barely statched the surface about Elders VS. the old ways.

  LOL Mad, excellent summation.

  James, with Elder school the society is able to meet and teach face to face the crap they keep coming up with. Based on posts from Elders on this site some real hair balls have addressed those Elders at the schools and definitely generated/mandated a more mean spirited approach to congreation issues. So too with the CO's. With more Elders it's easier for a CO to find a lackey. Nothing can be private in a KH. It's CYA now.

  Designs, they gained terrible access to the inner workings of the congregation.

  Steve2 I agree. It is a hiss these days as the GB snakes around. Great image.

  So many well meaning witnesses bought into the entire load of Ruthorford BS as well as future generations expecting Armageddon up to the day they died.

  My mother had to stay in a Catholic assisted living facility because no one in the looney witness world would think about their ageing population. That experience made her bitter in her last years. I guess looking at that hated cross everytime one entered an elevator or went to the dinning room would do that to a committed JW.

  My wifes mother stayed married to a child molester (her family knew nothing about it untill years later). Non of her children recieved any higher education even trade school. Of the five children 4 stoped associating.