Why is this so offensive and in need of defenders?
Yes, NC... why? Why did YOU need to defend (sorry, that's not what you were doing... even though it was. Some TRUTH here, people!)? Michelle can't a double to the pitch SHE threw out there? Then what in the WORLD is she doing on the field?? And why are YOU pinch-hitting for her? Oh, that's right: you also hate the other "team". Well, they say the quickest way to bring two enemies together... is to give them a common enemy...
I didn't read all of your insulting response Shelby
Of course you didn't. You virtually always respond to things without having read or have any real/accurate knowledge of them. That was part of your WT elder training (sit in judgment of people who say the WT is in conflict with the Bible, then DF'ing them for it... when you have absolutely NO idea of your own as to what the Bible says at all... because YOU didn't bother to read it but took your "knowledge" from what a "group of bigoted men who systematically endeavor to throttle all Bible knowledge unless it comes from them" said it did... and things like that...)
but it looks like the word elder came up quite a lot.
It did. And may some more...
That is very lame.
Lame, perhaps... but true. So perhaps not so lame.
I was as compassionate an elder as you could hope to find.
Really? Where's your evidence? Point me, please, to someone I can talk to to verify that...
I often fell out with other elders for the way they spoke to or about bros and sisters.
Someone should commend then. But, wait, we don't know if that's true, either. Evidence, please.
I thought elders should see themselves as being like older brothers who were there to look out for the rest of the family and look after them.
Obviously, you don't anymore... well, not as to those you don't "like." Now I am SURE there's someone out there who will testify that it was the same when you were a WT elder. The mentality kinda runs with the "breed." Praise JAH, some manage to dilute it when they leave... even to point of non-existence. Some, though... like you, perhaps... just seem incapable of shaking it.
I despised elders who viewed themselves as authority figures.
Yet, you don't despise yourself... yet, bombard ME with all KINDS of "authoritative" statements. You apparently can't/don't/won't see that, of course...
I don't answer to you, C. Never have... never will. So who you think I should apologize to... and when... means... what? To whom?
Anyway, if you can't see that telling somebody who disagrees with you that they have a tiny mind is reprehensible then that is a pity.
Much less reprehensible, though, than what I've been accused of. No?
A slave of Christ,
SA