Bethelite's are a religious order who have taken a vow of poverty. Those are the legal terms they agree to. They are not allowed to work outside of Bethel so I consider their situation similar to monks in a monestary or nuns at a convent. Can you imagine lots of those being "let go"? What skills would they have also? In my opinion, the lucky ones got to go home, the unlucky ones got assigned as special pioneers and sent to a remote area with a very tiny stipend. If they complain, they get nothing and without a good recommendation from Headquarters they will have no respect wherever they go to. It is a cold organization and I feel some sadness for them just as I would feel for anyone who took a vow of poverty and went through the same situation. Unfortunately, they probably have no legal recourse.
JWStruggle post: Bethel Layoffs Reveal a Kingdom without Clothes
by Londo111 79 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Ding
Didn't the GB assure them that they would never grow old in this system of things?
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DesirousOfChange
He got there when he was 19 and was 56 when he was told to leave with his wife.
A 56 year old man without any real marketable skills is SOL in this marketplace. He lacks the youth and vigor to do hard manual labor, and he has nothing in the way of special knowledge or skills of value to an employer when you can hire the 26- or 36-year old guy to do the same work and he has many years of productivity.
His wife has a better opportunity to find meaningful employment. But she's only accustomed to doing light housekeeping. She should seek out cleaning jobs like other JW women and he can assist her and then attempt to sell her customers on doing additional "outdoor" work (if he's physically capable).
Doc
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Truth seeker 674
You know wisdom from below I'll bet the GB will be wiping their asses with 100 dollor bills. I still don't know how you can be laid off from a vow of poverty or a religous order.
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Truth seeker 674
With all the wealth of watctower surely there must be something can be done for these people? There are very smart money chasing lawyers out there ????
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Londo111
Yes, active or even laid off Bethelites would cross the street to avoid us (if they knew who we were and how we felt about the Org). However, Bethelites are victims of BITE mind control. They ended up in Bethel because they were misled via the implementation of the BITE model. Their good intentions were turned against them.
Longtimers especially have to deal with allot of cognitive dissonance, and because they’ve invested so much of their lives, it drives them further into the mind control. Especially for born ins, who never had the ability to had the benefit of seeing life on the outside or any other knowledge than what was presented to them, the path led them deep within the heart of the cult.
Bethel is a cult within a cult. It is what most people think of when they hear the word cult: a small group of people living in an isolated, communal environment and experiencing weird rules and behavior. Born ins enter that trap unsuspectingly.
Their ignorance due to the BITE model should heighten our empathy toward them.
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yesidid
T heir ignorance due to the BITE model should heighten our empathy toward them.
Well said Londo111
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CaptainSchmideo
I have been watching many of the older ones, Pioneers and those that never really saved anything or prepared for old age, get hit with a hard crash of reality these past few years. They weren't supposed to get this old! They were never going to get so sick that they couldn't walk, or breathe properly, or lose their mental acuity, and I am sure it really frightens them. And they STILL keeps saying "oh, this System CAN'T go on much longer! We can see it all the time now! It just can't!" Meanwhile, no savings, no way of dealing with astronomical healthcosts, no preparation for anything. Staring at a long time period of sitting in a wheelchair, waiting for a day that will never, ever come, until death finally grants them a release from their futile hope.
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Julia Orwell
It's been said you can guage how humane a society is by how it treats its disadvantaged and vulnerable. Well, many employers provide superannuation or pension funds for their workers, yet the WT casts them off with nothing. Who is more humane?
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RayPublisher
I see both sides on this one. When I was at Bethel there were many that were kind and sincere. However I saw a lot of snide, entitled Bethel people with no training or education that were running their little fiefdom and giving their cronies pictures on the cover of the mags and cushy jobs in the office...
And some were very disdainful of the lowly publishers.