Surveillance and Watchtower

by Marvin Shilmer 10 Replies latest jw friends

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  Marvin Shilmer

  Surveillance and Watchtower

  Today I added a new article to my blog documenting the Watchtower organization’s longstanding and prevalent use of surveillance to police and enforce its policies among Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  Current Watchtower strategy is to direct this surveillance be performed by its local appointed representatives but without sharing the same policy information with Jehovah’s Witnesses. This article shows it’s a longtime habit of Watchtower.

  My article is titled Surveillance and Watchtower and is available at: http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com/2013/01/surveillance-and-watchtower.html

  Marvin Shilmer

  http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com
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  jookbeard

  thanks for that never seen that booklet before , just shows how much of a deceitful treacherous , rotten to the core organization they are.
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  88JM

  Thanks Marvin, and also Atlantis: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/244870/1/1961-Kingdom-Service-Questions-Not-to-be-studied-at-any-meeting-nor-placed-in-general-circulation-among-the-publishers
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  Londo111

  One of my family members who was an elder sometimes was directed to investigate people suspected of “wrongdoing”. He followed the Theocratic Ministry School conductor into a gay bar and caught him holding hands with another man. He followed one person suspected of having an affair with his secretary, but they never found proof. Later on the elders were instructed to stop “policing” the flock.

  Of course, maybe a decade or so ago, a man who studied for years but never got baptized, suspected his JW wife of cheating, and so enlisted my family member help follow her. Of course, that wasn’t sanctioned action on the part of the congregation.
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  Amelia Ashton

  Later on the elders were instructed to stop “policing” the flock.

  A rose by any other name...............it's not called policing any more it is called shepherding!
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  Balaamsass

  Great find!! Thanks Marvin.

  Much of this is still done. The Menlo Park kingdom hall fiasco is an example.
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  Marvin Shilmer

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  “…it's not called policing any more it is called shepherding!”

  That’s about the size of it. Organized snooping behind folks backs is still practiced.

  Marvin Shilmer
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  blondie

  There is a quote in the publications about elders not being spiritual policeman...no CD at work though.
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  blondie

  I do remember a brother whose inactive JW wife had divorced him but not on scriptural grounds. He and an elder staked out her house and took a videocam and filmed her with her boyfriend at the house after 2 a.m. Based on that, she was DF'd and he was able to remarry the sister he already had in the wings.

  I know of other elder duos who have staked out people's homes to catch them in wrongdoing as above, such as smoking.

  There are some nasty ones out their guys. It is hard to imagine it if you would never do it. They would never tell the "good" elders and would make sure these "good" elders aren't on the judicial committee.

  Some elders do think they are "spiritual policemen."

  w758/1p.474

  All the elders should appreciate their position in relation to the other brothers and sisters in the congregation. They are not spiritual bosses or spiritual policemen. They do not have to pry into the lives of other members of the congregation or concern themselves with the personal problems of every brother and sister.

  w769/15p.563

  Yet Jesus said that no one was good except God. (Mark 10:18) So he was not "righteous overmuch" so that he found fault or looked for faults in his disciples, as a ‘spiritual policeman.’ (Eccl. 7:16) Neither did he burden or discourage them, in a Pharisaical manner, making their consciences feel bad by demanding perfection of them.
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  insearchoftruth4

  Hold your ground! Shepherding is a setup for a JC meeting. DO NOT FEAR THEM........