Good for you wha happened - I'm glad your wife responded in some way to your concern over the article. If nothing else, it should speak volumes that you are reading articles "hot off the press" with more fervour than normal Witnesses, and therefore taking matters seriously. Hopefully your conversation will have highlighted how easy it would be to get "blind sided" by this sort of rhetoric, i.e. if this would slip past most people's radar at the meeting, what other repulsive rhetoric are people missing in the publications?
As I mentioned before, I emailed the PDF to two womens charities in the UK. Here is what I said:
To whom it may concern,
I am emailing you as a concerned Jehovah's Witness who is aware of, and sensitive to, the widespread abuse of women domestically.
I thought you should be aware of a magazine article that has just been published by my religion's leadership. I have attached a PDF of the article with this email.
You may notice that on page 29, paragraph 12, and experience is given of a woman who is beaten by her non-believing husband while she is studying with Jehovah's Witnesses. The experience relates how the woman is taught by her Witness mentor that she is at least partly responsible for her husband's attack on her because she was not adequately displaying the Christian values described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.
I represent a number of Jehovah's Witnesses who are growing increasingly dismayed at the out-dated and insensitive advice that is published by our religion's heirachy regarding these matters. Many of us are trapped within the religion because we are basically threatened with being banished from our families if we don't recognise the authority of our organisation's leadership.
I hope you don't mind my bringing your attention to this awful, insensitive and inflammatory article, which betrays a huge lack of sympathy for women who have to endure domestic violence on a regular basis. I felt it was important to send this to you as a charity that is actively working to promote safety for women.
If you need any further information regarding this article, or the track record of Jehovah's Witnesses in relation to issues of abuse against women or children, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely
I'm publishing the above in case it might serve as some kind of template for others to notify similar charities or organisations in their respective countries.
This should be publicized. We let the "mentally diseased" artcile slip past us until the very last minute. I think we should be quicker in responding to this latest outrage.
Cedars
