Warning-- Lurker Alert! I just feel like I have to weigh in on this topic. I was an all-in JW for 42 years, and walked away after the last day of my District Convention in July of 2011.
I experienced a lot of cognitive dissonance over shunning. One of my son's pioneer room mates stole $500 from my son and never made restitution. A few years later as a MS and son of an elder from "The Family" in the congregation, this MS was DF'd for embezzling money from his JW Elder employer. This "brother" called me before the annoucement to let me know that he was going to visit some relatives out of state and that there would be an announcement on the following Thursday, but I shouldn't worry, because he would be back. This "brother" did his time so to speak, sitting in the back at every meeting for a year. I really think he was playing the game. He is and was a highly intelligent, yet arrogant young man. I shunned him, because that is what he expected. He was re-instated and moved to another state. Personally, I feel that for the amount of money he embezzled, he should have been prosecuted, received a felony conviction and served time in jail. I think he got off easy, and don't believe he learned any lesson. If he had gone to jail, he would have been shunned, by default, if you will.
Further, I feel very strongly that pedophiles should be reported to the authorities, treated as the criminals they are and locked up for life. Shunning as a punishment is disproportionate to the crime. No need to state the obvious that protecting pediphiles is also criminal and immoral.
Where the cognitive dissonance came in was that my daughter DA'd herself "by her actions" when she went away to college. I was not required to shun her and was told that, should she choose to "return to Jehovah", she would have to deal with her actions at that time. My son, on the other hand was DF'd, because he acted out very badly when his JW wife left him for an ex-"worldly boyfriend" and had a child with this man while still married to my son. I would not shun him. I made it very clear to him which of his actions I disaproved of as his mother, even calling the police when I knew he was driving drunk. He was out of his mind and tried to commit suicide at age 22. He needed serious help, love and guidence; but I was supposed to shun him for the very same "sins" my daughter was committing? That didn't make any sense to me.
In May of 2011, I was sitting at a Service Meeting where they were pounding the message that we need to preach more, because "so many lives were at stake and the end is so near."(I was there for the pre-1975 buildup.) Somehow in my brain, at that moment, that translated into-- "Your Kids Are Going To Die!" I thought, "If one more person tells me my kids are going to die. . ."
I went to the DC in observer mode (only because I had promised my son's then ex-MIL a ride) and truly woke up to the fact that I was in a cult. The year before, my response to the "Over-lapping Generation" doctrine was, "That is Crap!" In 2011, I laughed when they taught the "New Light" that the toes of the image in Daniel's Dream meant NOTHING! Funny as it seems now, I did serve the substitute C.O. lunch as promised in August, but I was still not going to meetings. After that lunch I typed "ex-JWs" into Google and found JWFacts, read Crisis of Conscience, The God Delusion and the Shepherd the Flock of God book all in about two weeks time. The rest is history.
To sum it up, I don't think shunning is enough for criminals on one hand; and on the other, I know it destroys families and individual's lives and is cruel and unusual punishment.
