It isn't about faking repentance, it's about accepting whatever you did as wrong and following the standards set by God.
That's so precious - bless your heart.
You've never been an elder, have you?
Genuine repentance - if you can fake that you'll avoid getting disfellowshipped
by slimboyfat 48 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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sir82
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slimboyfat
Sir82 are you an elder? Have you been on many JC committees?
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jookbeard
definitely happened to me, the original 5 had me condemned in little over an afternoon of the first hearing for apostasy and seemed pretty damn pleased with themselves as well, I was very close to accepting their crappy decision and walking away but we had some complicated family business at the time and my DF'ing would have made life very difficult, the chairman on the original committee who was a family friend and decent man followed me to the car park and urged me to appeal, so I did, the following Saturday I blatantly lied about that I had quit reading any more apostate material and was truly sorry if I had stumbled anyone during this time ( all the while I was subscribing to Free Minds/Comments from the Friends had iSofCF in my car and was updating my apostate mate of the full proceedings) it can be done.
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sir82
Sir82 are you an elder? Have you been on many JC committees?
Too many.
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sd-7
If there has been a "practice" of sin, or if it is an offense for which you have been DF'ed before, then even if you blather on about a "damaged relationship with Jehovah" they'll DF you.
<<<---Not necessarily. My wife had been DF'd before, but she got off with private reproof on our JC (which for her was fornication). I'm guessing it was her reward for turning in a bona fide apostate (me). She was commenting at meetings a month later. It could be argued that since she came forward to confess, whereas I did not, she was 'repentant'. Of course, how would we be found 'unrepentant' since it was fornication? We'd been married for months, after all.
Although...she did play up the whole "if I'd listened to Jehovah, none of this would have happened", so... For whatever reason they seemed to still think the world of her (in stark contrast to the elders in the congregation she got DF'd from before). It's possible they let her off because they wanted primarily to save most of their time and energy for making an example of me. I did get the vibe from the chairman that he had a nearly personal problem with me (why, I don't know--we never even got to know each other at all). As I've often recounted on JWN, he was literally yelling at the other elders on the JC behind closed doors (yeah, I eavesdropped, it was just too tempting) about not wanting apostates in the congregation.
It's clear that this setup is the farthest thing from impartial. More like 'Game of Thrones'-style "king's justice", if anything. The Mad King, perhaps...
--sd-7
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villagegirl
My observation in all congregations I attended, if your father was a popular elder,
you did not get disfellowshipped no matter what you did. I knew an elder who
was a Dentist and had a huge house and tons of money and threw parties.
His daughters were "hell-on-wheels" spent all their time in nightclubs, "dated" any
guy in the nightclub, got pregnant out of wedlock, lied, abused drugs, fornicated
their brains out, and never got disfellowshipped. Compared to single girls with
no family or influence and no money who were treated severely and punished,
shunned, disfelloshipped and abandoned for lesser "crimes" like having a worldy
boyfriend and getting pregnant by him. These islolated lonely girls had no
elder father to protect them and were treated completely differently than " Royalty"
Its a mean-spirited - self righteous community in the so-called "truth"
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Londo111
In my case, they disfellowshipped a genuinely repentant JW, which helped wake me up, and they reinstated an ‘apostate’.
I don’t think anything in the elder manual could help a person fake ‘repentance’. As pointed out, repentance has little to do with whether or not a person is DFed.
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slimboyfat
Huh? I think it's everything to do with it. Can you elaborate? Why did they DF you if you were repentant? Did they not believe you or did they say it didn't matter even if you were repentant?
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Kojack57
If holy spirt was operating upon the Elders it could not be fooled when an individual backtracked by lies that were told. They would be found out.
However, you know this is not God's organization when an elder is recommended for appointment and he has been going to the local RUB & TUG For years
Getting serviced and he accepts and serves as and elder for years. What a joke this WTB&TS is.
And they have a nerve to disfellowship people!!!!
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sosoconfused
Not sure what you mean Londo but repentence is exactly what was looked for...
As a matter of fact nothing else weighs more heavily then if the person is repentant.
Atleast according to the Shepherd book and the way we went about handling those cases. When you had the guy who was disfellowship happy the others would often try to correct his thinking. However some congregations may have been unique. I noticed that congregations with mostly older elders who had been serving since the early 80's and back were real a**holes and wanted to see everyone rot.