Hall - Elders leave disfellowshiped woman with baby carriage at bottom of stairs...is this insane?
by Witness 007 18 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Witness 007
Ray franz book says elders asked a visiting bethel rep if they were right to leave her to pull the pram up on her own....he said I dont care what the rules are when I think what might happen!!!! The had to ask? The organisation is God!
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Room 215
Interesting, I don't recall this incident in either of Ray's books....
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transhuman68
The binding, restricting effect that this concern for organizational
submission can have on persons’ minds was illustrated to
me by an experience related by Robert Lang, then the assistant
Bethel Home Overseer at the international headquarters. He had
been transferred to a different congregation in the New York city
area and he said that at one of the first meetings he attended there
the elders approached him for advice. It seems that a young
woman, the sister of one of the ministerial servants, was
disfellowshiped and was still attending meetings. She had a small
baby and brought it with her to the Kingdom Hall in a baby carriage.
The Hall itself was on the second story of a building and the
stairs were long and steep. The young woman would back up the
stairs, pulling the baby carriage—with the baby in it—up the stairs
as she went. The question the elders asked was whether it would
be proper for the disfellowshiped woman’s brother to assist her in
getting up the stairs! Some thought so, others said, no, being
disfellowshiped she should be considered as if she were not even there.
To his credit, Lang said, “I don’t know what the rule is on this, I only
know one thing: if I’m around when she starts pulling that carriage
up the stairs, I’m going to help her! When I think of what could happen
if she were to stumble and lose control of the carriage . . . .”
ISoCF page 404
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WTWizard
The correct answer, according to the laws of nature, is that it is proper to assist a disfellowshipped mother (or anyone else, disfellowshipped or not) who is struggling to carry a child up stairs. In fact, it is grossly immoral on the part of the congregation to even question this--it's the child, not the mother, that is going to suffer if the mother trips or the baby falls down the stairs. Is the baby also disfellowshipped? If so, something needs to be done about the congregation and soon, to bring it down.
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slimboyfat
Ethical pygmies.
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blondie
Here was the thinking back in the 70's but was changed later. Today nothing like Jesus who healed the leper, or the woman with the blood flow, or chastised the religious leaders that would "work" on the sabbath to save a sheep in the ditch, but not want him to heal a man on the sabbath.
*** w74 8/1 p. 466 par. 2 Maintaining a Balanced Viewpoint Toward Disfellowshiped Ones ***2 There is real danger in being lax in this matter, as the congregation in Corinth was lax toward a wrongdoer in their midst, failing to take action to clear out such ‘leavening’ influence. But there is a parallel danger. What? That of going too far in the other direction, going from laxity to rigidity and hardness.
...5 Congregational elders, as well as individual members of a congregation, therefore, ought to guard against developing an attitude approaching that which some Jewish rabbinical writers fomented toward Gentiles in viewing them as virtual enemies. It is right to hate the wrong committed by the disfellowshiped one, but it is not right to hate the person nor is it right to treat such ones in an inhumane way...What if a woman who had been disfellowshiped were to attend a congregational meeting and upon leaving the hall found that her car, parked nearby, had developed a flat tire? Should the male members of the congregation, seeing her plight, refuse to aid her, perhaps leaving it up to some worldly person to come along and do so? This too would be needlessly unkind and inhumane. Yet situations just like this have developed, perhaps in all good conscience, yet due to a lack of balance in viewpoint. -
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fakesmile
yeah, thats like the jesus guy in the book. remember when he told the blind guy to screw himself on the sabbath. then he retierd with the pharasees for passover.
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BluesBrother
For a start, what is the K.Hall doing up the stairs with no provision of a lift for the infirm or those with prams?
Second, when I was in as an elder, the rules were not there to be consulted if a lady needed help with a pram. You just did it as a human being, no matter who she was. I believe that to be true of my fellow elders at that time too.
Funnily enough, if it were an infirm Catholic nun, or a Muslim visitor in a veil they would have helped - and said that they gave a good witness!