CEDARS BLOG said: "Could the Watch Tower Society's out-dated approach to domestic violence be putting thousands of women in harm's way?" -- This is misleading. The WTS doesn't tell anyone that they should stay with a violent partner, the victim can seperate from them, taking themselves out of harms way.. and the command to not divorce for domestic violence (or any grounds other than adultery) comes from the Bible, even if you decide to rewrite Jesus's words... Therefore the 'approach', as in not divorcing for domestic violence (but seperation is allowed), is actually the Bible's approach, not the WT's. This opening statement is sensationalism to me, and immediately reveals your bias to a discerning reader, as you make it seem like it is the Societys approach for women to stay living with the offender, which combined with a picture of a distressed woman, is obviously going to engage emotions first, rather than clear and logical thinking right from the start.. Baptised jw's know the answer to your question, and you know full well that this is the STUDY edition, not written for the general public.
THE WATCHTOWER SAY'S THEY ARE / ARE NOT INSPIRED
by wasblind 59 Replies latest watchtower bible
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The Quiet One
CEDARS BLOG said: "This does not mean, however, that quoting such an experience in the absence of any condemnation of domestic violence was wise or appropriate" -- This was quoted in the Study edition, so such a condemnation was unnecessary, as baptised jw's know that we do NOT condone domestic violence. Only the PUBLIC edition would need such a disclaimer, as jw's know this.. According to your logic, a hypothetical experience printed in the WT Study edition where: A jw woman was denied necessary money for food and clothing by her unbelieving husband on the day before she had her Bible study. Having been told about this, the sister studying with the woman encouraged her to pray to Jehovah about the matter and read her 'the long-suffering scripture' (or any other to do with enduring), and pointed out that her husband was not a Christian and so she could not expect him to apply him to 'provide for those who are his own'. She decided to stay with her husband and eventually he came into the Truth... would need a footnote stating that Jw's do not condone wilful nonsupport, or that she could have left him for wilful nonsupport (and that would involve assuming that he continued to deny her money, just as you assumed with the article that the physical abuse continued throughout all those years) ? No it wouldn't.. Because all Jw's would know this about wilful nonsupport, it's in the Bible Teach book (which every Jw has studied at least once)!... As is seperation for abuse.
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The Quiet One
CEDARS BLOG said: "In no way does it command any wife who faces abuse from her non-believing husband to remain with him regardless, and endure a violent relationship in the blind hope that he will eventually embrace her faith and stop abusing her." -- Seeing as how you are claiming that this is how the WT applies this scripture, the ambiguity of your wording, 'remain with him', is misleading because it makes it sound as though it is the WT's stance that the wife must physically stay with him. It would be more honest and open of you to use the words 'remain scripturally married to him', (as even a legal divorce is allowed, as you admit), and also to not use the term 'command' as you know perfectly well that the WTS does not COMMAND anyone to remain living with an abusive partner. The context makes it clear that you are contrasting the scripture with WTS policy, and yet your wording would mislead people as to what the WT policy on domestic abuse is. A jw woman/man CAN leave a partner who is beating them, endangering them or wilfully not providing for them, as any jw knows from the Bible Teach book. They would not even have a Judicial, let alone be disfellowshiped. The decision to stay/not stay with the abuser is theirs alone, it's not anyones right to tell them what they have to do in their situation. The scripture you refer to is applied in WT's to show that some have treated their wives badly, but have changed when they became a Jw. It's offering a hope that change can happen, the only other alternative scripturally is to live life as a seperated married person, or commit the sin of adultery. You can view that offer of hope as the WT wanting women to stay with men who beat them if you want to..
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The Quiet One
CEDARS BLOG said :"In fact, the Governing Body has used the pages of its literature to try and dissuade victims of domestic violence from availing themselves of, for example, the emergency services" -- Here you claim as a fact (that the GB has deliberately dissuaded victims from contacting the emergency services) something that you admitted earlier in your article was only (what you perceived as) an IMPLICATION in the 1979 Awake article. Is that honest?
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cedars
Talk about hijacking a thread! Sorry about this wasblind.
Ironically I have a thread specifically devoted to this very article that The Quiet One has such a beef about, but he/she neglected to raise any of these points on there.
Anyway (sigh) here goes...
But even with all of your caveats, you failed to explain a vital detail, which is.. the difference between the public and study editions of the WT, and who they are written for.
Precisely what difference does it make whether the article was published in the public or study magazine? My blog article was written with JWs in mind, not the public - so mentioning the difference between the public and study editions would have been completely irrelevant to the discussion. Oh hang on, here's the explanation as to why it's relevant...
If you are truly not trying to be misleading then you would explain, for the benefit of readers that aren't active jw's, that the Study edition is for baptised Jw's (or students who will be taught the Bible-based policies in the Bible Teach book) who know and choose to obey the Biblical command of Jesus to not divorce for anything except adultery and that THEY would ALREADY know the WT stance on marital seperation.. They would know that it is the persons choice, with no punishment, to leave or not to leave their partner; where abuse, endangerment or wilful nonsupport are involved.
The Quiet One - please remove your Watchtower blinkers and think about this logically just for a second. Who was I writing my article to? Jehovah's Witnesses. What were the websites called that carried this article? JWStruggle.com and JWSurvey.com - do you notice a common theme? Both of those sites are for JWs!! Why do I then need to give a "simpleton" explanation as to what JWs do know and don't know, when I'm writing to JWs who know all of this already?
Also, I go into a lengthy explanation of the rules on marriage and divorce, and how the seperation rules mean that a battered wife having undergone a seperation must live out her days as a spinster without being free to marry anyone else unless she chooses to leave the faith. Please can you actually read the article and take it all on board before issuing the critique?
You instead let some people believe that this experience was meant for people who didn't already know that domestic violence is not condoned by the WT. The ones who already know that it isn't condoned, the people who the article was intended for, do not need to be reminded with a footnote.
A footnote disclaiming domestic abuse as being unlawful under any circumstances was entirely warranted whether it was in the public edition or the study edition. Just because JWs are aware of the doctrine surrounding marriage and seperation, doesn't mean that they shouldn't be reminded that domestic abuse under any circumstances is wrong, and abused women should seek professional help.
as baptised jw's know that we do NOT condone domestic violence.
Again, you assume a lot about what baptised JWs do and don't know. As I write about at length in my article, the fact that JWs overtly denounce domestic abuse is drowned out by the repeated use of 'happily ever after' experiences in which a man beats his wife and makes a miraculous transformation into a loving husband with the onus being on the wife setting a good example. The experience highlighted in the February edition was the 19th such experience to be printed since 1958. Can you see a pattern emerging? Please read the article in its entirety.
and the command to not divorce for domestic violence (or any grounds other than adultery) comes from the Bible, even if you decide to rewrite Jesus's words... Therefore the 'approach', as in not divorcing for domestic violence (but seperation is allowed), is actually the Bible's approach, not the WT's.
As I said in my article, if you or your Watchtower leaders choose to believe that Jesus had a woman getting the shit kicked out of her on a daily basis in mind when he spoke those words, you and they are entirely entitled to your opinion. You can even accept that as being the intended meaning and live your own life accordingly. What ISN'T acceptable is to print an experience every 2 years or so depicting a woman getting the shit kicked out of her, and it being HER FAULT for not being a sufficiently christian and dutiful wife.
This opening statement is sensationalism to me, and immediately reveals your bias to a discerning reader, as you make it seem like it is the Societys approach for women to stay living with the offender, which combined with a picture of a distressed woman, is obviously going to engage emotions first, rather than clear and logical thinking right from the start..
That is precisely the Society's approach, and if you had ever served as an elder or suffered as a beaten wife you would be aware of this in no uncertain terms. Your naivety is staggering.
According to your logic, a hypothetical experience printed in the WT Study edition where: A jw woman was denied necessary money for food and clothing by her unbelieving husband on the day before she had her Bible study. Having been told about this, the sister studying with the woman encouraged her to pray to Jehovah about the matter and read her 'the long-suffering scripture' (or any other to do with enduring), and pointed out that her husband was not a Christian and so she could not expect him to apply him to 'provide for those who are his own'. She decided to stay with her husband and eventually he came into the Truth... would need a footnote stating that Jw's do not condone wilful nonsupport, or that she could have left him for wilful nonsupport (and that would involve assuming that he continued to deny her money, just as you assumed with the article that the physical abuse continued throughout all those years) ? No it wouldn't.. Because all Jw's would know this about wilful nonsupport, it's in the Bible Teach book (which every Jw has studied at least once)!... As is seperation for abuse.
The Quiet One - are you seriously suggesting, even for a moment, that a husband who beats his wife is no worse than one who doesn't provide her with food and clothing for the day??
Seeing as how you are claiming that this is how the WT applies this scripture, the ambiguity of your wording, 'remain with him', is misleading because it makes it sound as though it is the WT's stance that the wife must physically stay with him.
You keep focussing on the scriptural grounds for seperation, and yet you completely ignore the purpose of my article which is to highlight the Society's damaging trend of using quoted experiences to imply that abused women should remain with their husbands even in the face of abuse. This is what I was clearly referring to, and I make no apologies for that.
A jw woman/man CAN leave a partner who is beating them, endangering them or wilfully not providing for them, as any jw knows from the Bible Teach book. They would not even have a Judicial, let alone be disfellowshiped. The decision to stay/not stay with the abuser is theirs alone, it's not anyones right to tell them what they have to do in their situation.
Again, the naivety is staggering. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to take all this seriously. I'm afraid you just don't get it, do you? At no point in my article do I argue that a woman is banned from physically seperating from her husband. It is misleading for YOU to say that the decision as to whether women should remain in the relationship is "theirs alone". It's far more complicated than that. If a battered and abused wife takes her faith seriously and wants to maintain contact with any children from her relationship, she must live out her days as a spinster without experiencing an intimate or loving relationship with any other man FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE - for no other reason that that she commited the mortal sin of NOT knowing that her husband was a wife-basher BEFORE she married him. Now do you understand? Have you ever been in that scenario, giving you an insight to validate your arguments?
In fact, the Governing Body has used the pages of its literature to try and dissuade victims of domestic violence from availing themselves of, for example, the emergency services" -- Here you claim as a fact (that the GB has deliberately dissuaded victims from contacting the emergency services) something that you admitted earlier in your article was only (what you perceived as) an IMPLICATION in the 1979 Awake article. Is that honest?
If you dissuade someone from doing something through implication, you're still dissuading them.
OK The Quiet One, or should I say "Not so quiet one" (judging from how much you have written above) - hopefully that answers your questions for now. I apologise again to the Original Poster for the way in which this fine thread was hijacked.
I will now transfer all of the above to a new thread so that The Quiet One can continue his or her public vendetta against me without trampling on anyone else's blog.
Cedars
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The Quiet One
No need, I'm done. Thanks to wasblind for listening, and to Cedars for replying. As a final point, I was not saying that wilful nonsupport is equal to violence.
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cedars
Thanks The Quiet One - I should certainly hope not.
Cedars
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iCeltic
Watchtower July 1st 1943 page 204-206 says of Jehovah, 'He says...special pioneers will do 175 hours a month in the field' it repeats the 'He says' a few times.
He either says the things in the watchtower or he doesn't, which is it? It's either God speaking or it isn't, which is it? It's either Gods words or it isn't, which? If it isn't, saying God speaks to them and tells them monthly hourly requirements for special/regular/companies of Jehovah's witnesses is disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful.
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The Quiet One
Regarding what some have said here about the WT being a false prophet.. I would like to make my point regarding the WT not being a false prophet one last time.. So please, if you can be patient enough to read this, at least try to understand what I am getting at.. A false prophet is one who, according to Deuteronomy, makes a false prediction of the future and claims that the prediction came from God, or in other words claiming that 'God has said he will do a certain thing at a certain time' etc.. For example, hypothetically speaking, if someone had claimed: "God will bring about the end of the world in 2010", they would have been proven to be a false prophet, obviously. But, as an example, imagine a man who claimed the position of a prophet of God, (as Moses did, because although he was not the type of prophet that predicted the future.. He was still a prophet or spokesman for God) and that he had publicised worldwide, according to his interpretation of a (for example) prophecy found in the book of Isaiah, that the world would end in 2010.. and he had also stated that he was not saying that God WILL end the world in that year.. but only that there was Biblical evidence that God might do so. That would clearly have been a mistake. He shouldn't have promoted a theory so strongly about a specific year, because the Bible doesn't tell you exactly when it (the end of the world) will happen.. But who doesn't make mistakes (even ones that are costly or embarassing) ? Moses certainly did. The person in my example did not give a prophecy of the future, did he? He promoted an interpretation of a Bible prophecy (to relate this to 1975, the Bible prophesies that their will be a 'great day of God the Almighty' at the end of the last days, although we don't know when, so it was a mistake to even guess when the prophecy will be fulfilled) that turned out to be wrong, but he didn't prophesy that 'God WILL end the world in 2010', did he? He promoted an incorrect interpretation of a prophecy, and even if people had decided to sell their homes because they respected him and chose to listen to his Biblical views in the past, despite his statements being a (perhaps over-hyped) theory which was accompanied by NO claims that God had SAID it or God WOULD do it.. Be honest, would any of this PROVE that the man was a false prophet according to the Bibles definition? (which should be the only definition considering that the Bible is the source from which you take the label of 'false prophet' and apply it to the WT) Again, the Bibles definition is that a 'false prophet' is one who makes a false prophecy/prediction of the future in Gods name, in other words telling people 'God will do this at this time' ? Couldn't the man in my example have been, in theory, a prophet of God who didn't make a future prophecy.. but gave a mistaken interpretation OF a future prophecy that someone else wrote? Remember, Moses acted as Gods leader and spokesman, didn't he? Did he claim that everything that he did and said was directly from God, or infallible? He didn't, and he could not have claimed this.. And neither does the WT. Did Moses make mistakes? So have the WT. Can you prove that the WT made a false prophecy in Gods name, rather than mistakenly promoting a theory regarding the Biblical prophecy of the end of the world, with a disclaimer that God has not told them this (Watchtower 1966 October 15 pp.629,631) , a theory that they perhaps should not have promoted as strongly? Or maybe God was wrong to appoint prophets such as Moses, who don't prophesy about the future in His name but make mistakes.. I await the attacks on my character and intelligience for daring to present an opposing viewpoint with bated breath, and I will not respond to anything, as this is all I can say.. Finally, many thanks to IRONDORK for pointing out that there is, Biblically, more than one kind of prophet. You do NOT have to make a prophecy that God will do something in the future to be a prophet. Moses didn't prophesy, but he was a prophet. This IS relevant, because to simply say: WT says they are a prophet + they gave a mistaken interpretation of a Bible prophecy = they're a false prophet... is a logical fallacy. A person can be a prophet (or messenger of God) and have a mistaken view of a prophecy, without having prophesied about the future or claimed that the prediction came from God. If you do NOT make a prophecy of the future and claim that God said it, you CANNOT be a 'false prophet' according to the Bible. The Biblical criteria of a 'false prophet' thus cannot be applied to the WT. PROVE ME WRONG, if you can... Goodbye and thanks for listening :)
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trillaz
Convienient that the witnesses, after years of being wrong, change their prophesies into invisible actions, such as invisible Armageddon. Before then, the prophesy was that in 1914, it would be the end.
They learned to be more careful and old publications have been eradicated and if you were to ever bring up an article more than a few months old, recent KMs warn against their use.