I am a former elder.
We could only suggest new candidates to the branch office at the visit of the circuit overseer. The opinions of the elders for and against the appointment were summarised by the CO in his report and he added his own comments. The responsibility to apppoint or not is 100% that of the branch office acting on behalf of the governing body.
I have also been involved in the deletion of an elder. As a body we could only state our reasons why we felt the brother no longer qualified. The branch appointed an external committee of elders to investigate. They listened to the views of the body of elders and those of the elder concerned. They wrote up a summary along with their own opinions and sent them to the branch office. It was only the branch office acting on behalf of the governing body who could make the decision.
You are a willful liar and an apologist for an organisation who protects pedophiles before it protects children.
Shame on you.
If you used to be an elder, that says a lot about you. I'm sorry for whatever decisions you made. You and others are losing sight of my initial point, that the appointment of an elder is on the basis of scriptural guidelines and not a "Divinity degree." The local body of elders discusses the reputation of a man reaching out for an office of overseer with first and foremost, a circuit overseer, like you stated. When a circuit overseer visits a congregation, he spends time with various ones, so not only does he make a recommendation based on the recommendations of others, he makes a recommendation based on personal experience. A circuit overseer's exposure to men reaching out for an office of overseer is very limited, as he annually spends very little time with any congregation. I'm 40 and was raised in the organization. I do know that the congregation is the major factor in the appointment or removal of an elder. There's nothing you can say to me that will change that.
You should be commending me for not believing everything the media tells you without doing your own homework. The media did a hatchet job on James Mccabe's interview, cheery picked certain statements and correlated his statements with their own dialogue. The media often crafts and distorts stories to sensationalize certain things to satisfy the appetite of voyeurs. Their objective is for the segment to go “viral.” Ratings is how they stay in business.
The bottom line, is the Watchtower Society knew nothing about Gonzalo Campos until one of the victim's family wrote the Watchtower Society. This fact is a matter of public records. Conveniently, the media doesn't tell you that. I looked into this case a year ago and found it to be very disturbing and discouraging. I blamed the persons who were culpable, those who had knowledge of this man. It's rare that something like this slips through the cracks and goes undetected by others the way it did in this case, so hopefully, I don't have to see this again.
"We do not condone or protect child molesters. Our elders expel unrepentant sinners who commit this crime. (1 Corinthians 5:13) In the United States, over 80,000 elders currently serve in over 12,300 congregations. (Acts 20:28) During the last 100 years, only eleven elders have been sued for child abuse in thirteen lawsuits filed in the United States. In seven of these lawsuits against the elders, accusations against the Watchtower Society itself were dismissed by the courts."
As of 2012, this makes seven. I did some IT work for an insurance company sometime back and had access to many documents. Many times, the misdeeds of a very few can cost an organization dearly when it comes to litigation. That's just the way the system works. If you're going to blame innocent persons the crimes of another when they're really not responsible, that's a crime in itself. Shame on you. It's obvious you and others are very capable of such a thing. It doesn't bother me because you're just an impersonal cyberghost. If you do have family that are JWs, you can't blame them if they choose not to associate with you. I'm no longer enjoying these conversations, so I'm not wasting anymore time here. This is certainly not constructive or beneficial.
