I agree, yourmomma, exactly. some have felt jws were not dangerous as- say the extremist Muslims, but I think your point is very valid. If it is in print in the wt, many jws see it as Jah's words and act accordingly.
They just said at the WT study that the wife needs to suck it up in a abusive home.
by life is to short 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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NewChapter
vomit now.
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Chariklo
Band
Come get married --to disrespect each other and so only the H can beat the brains out of the W.
You are absolutely right. You left out, though, the bit where the WT would go on to say " and as the H beats the brains out of the W she will learn to see that she must be much more loving towards the H."
They might then continue: "Jesus makes this clear when he tells us to love each other, and told Peter to turn the other cheek (Matt 5:39.)"
That is how the WT sounds as if it is preaching love, while all the while they twist even the words of Jesus Christ. In just those ways they entrap people who start out by thinking that here is a religion that is really following Jesus, and then end up by being so cowed that they don't even realise that they are actually working against all Jesus stood for.
It's the Big Lie.
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jgnat
If it weren't for the battered wives, where would the JW's get their persecution on? They'd have to settle for stories from faraway places. Really messes wth the persecution complex.
Heck, barely out of my hearing, my hubby is consoled for his sad situation....married to me!
He nods knowingly, with his fingers crossed. He know how good he's got it.
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Celestial
My father was raised by a cruel man. He beat up on his sons when they were adolescents. His older son is damaged goods. The abuse basically ruined his life. His younger son (my father) was genuinely a good man, but he had some problems do to his upbringing. Not to make excuses, but there are cause and effect relationships for everything in the universe. My father's been married to my step-mother for about 35 years. In the first five years of their marriage, he hit her probably 4 times. To date, they have a strong marriage and my step-mother has no regrets about the decisions she made throughout her marriage. According to what is stated here, the matter worked itself out for the better.
02/15/2012 Watchtower, page 29
Many modern-day examples illustrate the value of applying Peter’s counsel. Consider the case of Selma. When she began to study the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses, her husband, Steve, was not pleased. He admits, “I became became angry, jealous, possessive, and insecure.” Selma observes: “Even before I got the truth, living with Steve was like walking on eggshells. He was hot-tempered. When I started studying the Bible, this characteristic intensified.” What helped?
Selma recalls a lesson she learned from the Witness who studied with her. “On one particular day,” says Selma, “I didn’t want to have a Bible study. The night before, Steve had hit me as I had tried to prove a point, and I was feeling sad and sorry for myself. After I told the sister what had happened and how I felt, she asked me to read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. As I did, I began to reason, ‘Steve never does any of these loving things for me.’ But the sister made me think differently by asking, ‘How many of those acts of love do you show toward your husband?’ My answer was, ‘None, for he is so difficult to live with.’ The sister softly said, ‘Selma, who is trying to be a Christian here? You or Steve?’ Realizing that I needed to adjust my thinking, I prayed to Jehovah to help me be more loving toward Steve. Slowly, things started to change.” After 17 years, Steve accepted the truth.It seems some readers are going to extremes as to what is being implied here. It's not implied that a woman should take a beating or "suck up abuse." It's obvious this information is being exploited. In the instance that a man hits a women, there's always the option to automatically leave or dissolve your marriage. That in some cases can be an extreme and may be unnecessary. I know couples that are Jehovah's Witnesses and those that are not that worked things out and have remained married after the husband or wife had an affair. That can be much more tramatic than "he hit me."
None of this really has application to me because I've never been married. I'm just an observer. -
NewChapter
Celestial----some people do try to work it out when there is violence. I wouldn't, but it happens. And sometimes it works out well.
BUT WOULD YOU HAVE TOLD YOUR STEP MOTHER THAT IF SHE WERE JUST A BETTER CHRISTIAN, HER HUSBAND WOULDN'T BEAT HER SO?
Isn't that the issue here? Telling a battered wife that it's on HER shoulders to change HIM? Is that how it happened with your father? Or was your father motivated to take full responsiblity and change this part of himself? We don't know Steve. We don't know what his history is. We only know that he beat his wife, and his wife was told to be a better wife. Poor Steve. I bet he hurt his hand while trying to keep his weak Christian wife in line.
The ONLY thing extreme about this article is the article itself. Not the interpretation.
Selma---sad cuz husband beats her.
Told she must be a better Christian.
After only 11 years more of beatings, Steve is now a Chrisitan.
It's pretty hard to make THAT extreme.
NC
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ZeusRocks
Celestial--obviously your stepmother was one of the lucky ones who took a gamble on a violent situation and things finally worked out. Most are not so lucky.
Personally I think if anyone stays with some who is violent is crazy to take the risk. My first stepfather was a violent drunk and the last straw for my mother was when he chased her with a machete threatening to kill her.
This article is extreme in it's stupid example. How many domestic violence incidents end up in murder. Staying with a violent partner you are risking your life as well as that of your children, if you have any. Here in Australia we have had so many wives end up dead at the hands of their husbands or partners, sometimes the childrens lives are spared, other times they are not.
Anyone who sugar coats domestic violence or even suggests it is sometimes better to stay with an abusive partner in order to see if things change is no better than the person doing the beating.
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EmptyInside
My mother once again said I took the paragraph out of context. So,I had to break it down for her point by point.
I asked her if a woman called her on the phone and sadly mentioned her husband hit her,would she start reading Corinthians and tell her she needs to show more love to him. She agreed she wouldn't react in that way.
Well,I don't see the indoctrinated Witnesses seeing anything remiss about this paragraph,sadly. But,hopefully,it will be a wake-up call for a newly interested one.
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NewChapter
I have witnessed many abusive relationships in my time. Never, NOT ONCE, has it gotten better. I know it happens, but the odds are highly against it.
A couple of weeks ago, in my town, a woman called the police from a local restaurant. She was there to celebrate her daughter's birthday and had her 2 children with her. She told police she was leaving her boyfriend, and he wasn't taking it well. Please come. By the time they got there, the woman, and one child was shot dead, the other child was critically wounded, the boyfriend refused to surrender the gun, and the police killed him. Last I checked, the child is still hanging on.
Perhaps she should have been more patient and not pushed him so. It was her leaving that brought on the gunfire. Had she just stayed . . .
This is a dangerous freaking cult, and it is not possible to overreact to the evilness of this article. WE KNOW how JW's respond to this kind of thing in the WT. They hear the message loud and clear and don't have the skill to disregard it.
NC
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wha happened?
NC a sister I knew (who endured abuse for decades before she ran off), told me that the success rate for wife beaters who stop beating their wives without medical and psychological intervention, is under 3%
NO Fucking WT is going to change that for the better