I'm going to take my rant to a new thread
14 months after printing the "Steve and Selma" article, guess what the Society's latest Awake is about...
by cedars 94 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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DATA-DOG
You are all being overly critical. It's obvious that Thelma and Valerie misunderstood their husbands intentions, and had the perception that an injustice was taking place. They needed to humble themselves as a lesser one, and be patient until their thinking became re-adjusted and their perspective changed.
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cedars
I'm so frustrated about this article for one reason in particular. 14 months ago I wrote to Refuge, the UK's leading domestic abuse charity, and drew their attention to the Steve and Selma article. I asked them to issue a response to the article that I could publish on my website. Though they issued a response, there was nothing in the careful/diplomatic wording that directly condemned the Society, or even the magazine article itself. The very fact that, 14 months later, the Society has now issued yet more damaging advice on this matter highlights how cults like the Watchtower can flourish in an atmosphere where the relevant charities are too afraid to take action and "name names."
This has prompted me to write the following rather forthright email to my contacts at Refuge...
Hello [names removed]
Fourteen months ago I contacted you to draw your attention to an article in the "members only" edition of the Watchtower magazine, published by Jehovah's Witnesses. The article featured the experience of a couple named Selma and Steve. It implied that Steve's beating of Selma was due, in part, to Selma not sufficiently showing Christian love towards her husband. In response to this clearly wrong and damaging article (which was never retracted), Refuge kindly issued a statement which was published in my article on the link below... http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/won-without-a-word-at-what-cost Your carefully worded response to the magazine condemned "some people" who perpetuate the myth that an abused woman is somehow to blame for the violence of her partner. Whilst I certainly appreciated the fact that you responded to the matter at all, I was frankly a little disappointed the Refuge couldn't go futher and "name names." Sadly, cults like Jehovah's Witnesses flourish in an atmosphere where charities such as yours are afraid to confront them directly about their damaging policies. This has been underscored by the fact that, 14 months later, our church has now released another article touching on domestic abuse that once again gives damaging advice to abused spouses. The magazine is available for download on this link: http://www.jw.org/download/?fileformat=PDF&issue=201304&output=html&pub=g&langwritten=E&option=TRGCHlZRQVNYVrXF&txtCMSLang=E As you will see from this magazine, the overwhelming advice of the church is that the Bible may be considered a "one size fits all" solution to rehabilitating violent spouses. Not once in the article is it suggested that the authorities should be contacted immediately at the first signs of any abuse, but rather that bible principles should be applied in order to "end" domestic violence. Furthermore, the magazine expresses the Witness position that physical violence should not be considered grounds for a divorce, thus encouraging abused women to continue married to their violent partner and never consider relationships with anyone else. The magazine's position may be summed up with the concluding words of the lead article on page 11, which say:ENDING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
The Bible states: “All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight.” (2 Timothy 3:16) Like Troy, whose story is related above, many abusive spouses have applied the Bible’s counsel and have been able to change their thinking and conduct.
Would you like to learn more about how the Bible can benefit your marriage? For further information contact Jehovah’s Witnesses locally, or log on to www.jw.org.
The Awake! magazine has a circulation of 43,524,000 copies, of which approximately 750,000 copies are expected to be circulated throughout the UK over the next few weeks by approximately 135,000 British Witnesses. This means that, potentially, 750,000 UK citizens will soon be informed that a violently abusive spouse can be rehabilitated using the Bible, and that completely ending a relationship with such a person is not an option.
I feel it is your duty as the foremost domestic abuse charity in the UK to directly confront cults like Jehovah's Witnesses who exploit the leniency of public institutions to continue to actively perpetuate out-dated and damaging ideas about domestic violence that can seriously endanger the lives of men and women in abusive relationships. I apologise for my forthright tone in this email, but given the fact that your previous statement did nothing to stop my church from sending out harmful information on this subject, I hope you can appreciate my sense of frustration. I look forward to hearing from you.Warm regards,
John CedarsI'll let you all know if I hear anything back.
Cedars
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jhine
cedars , given the tone of your last post why is it still your church ?
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Amelia Ashton
It doesn't matter how many times your husband beats you, gives you black eyes or fractures your bones the Bible says you do not have grounds to divorce him so have to put up with it.
He porks his best mate's wife or some stranger down a back alley and suddenly you're free?
Words fail!
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cedars
jhine -
cedars , given the tone of your last post why is it still your church ?
It's still my church because they've barred from leaving without repercussions. If they want to keep people like me inside, they'd better get comfortable with the fact that they are "my" church. You could say I'm trapped in an abusive relationship, which appears to be Watchtower's specialty.
Cedars
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jhine
Cedars, so the shunning works , you lose too much by leaving , but you don't fade either .Do you hope to transform from the inside or simply warn others of the danger of joining ?
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haboob48
Hi all.......sorry I cannot post videos yet, but Danmera on youtube did a video on the "Selma and Steve" article. (Can someone post it here?) She had planned to send the article to every domestic abuse center she could find and encouraged everyone else to do the same. Maybe that had some pull as to "this article" as the wts had probably gotten alot of unwanted attention? But to me wts has not changed thier agenda as they are still pushing that the bible education can change that violent situation. As far as Isabel..........her entire neighborhood shunned her? What?
HB48
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label licker
Yes, this would truly break my heart if my mother was alive. Six kids (two severly handicapped which one died at eleven), a discusting father who at one time was an elder suppposedly directed by holy spirit would come home every night and get drunk, beat the wife and kids and pretend to be a good man and have the nerve to preach. Now they are both dead thirty years later, you would still hear " can't believe your dad was like that". I wonder what my brother thinks after leaveing his wife and kids and then coming back after twenty years into the marriage just to leave the kids with the wifes parents to raise and the wife and him get a house and comes back into the religion and start a new life, just the TWO of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See what one abusive man can do to all his kids and they carry it on to the next generation. So glad I ran away at fifteen. Back then you didn't leave your abusive mate. It was unheard of.
Isn't this religion the same? They abuse their followers letting them think they are not good enough, they have to do more and they are nothing without them while they take take take from the lowly ones?????????????????? Who made them that way? The ones who keep feeding into their crap. Why? Because they have a low selfworthless opionion of themselves to begin with. Such a wicked cycle. It has to be broken.