Let's use our commons sense and our rational thinking for minute, shall we?
Many many years ago I and another JW bro performed music publicly and were paid for our efforts. I played piano and the other brother sang and played
12 string guitar.
We both lived in Ft.Worth.
We got a gig at the Hilton hotel in Austin.
I knew a sister who had 3 roomates who lived in Austin and she agreed to let me crash on the couch in the living room of their shared house.
That saved me from having to pay for a motel or drive 188 miles back to Ft.Worth overnight.
About 2:30 in the morning I am suddenly awakened by a loud BAM! BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!
To say I was startled isn't the half of it!
BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM! "I know you're in there Terry Walstrom! Open this door!BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!
It was my wife's voice.
WTF?
I stumbled over to the door and there is my JW wife standing there all red in the face screaming at the top of her lungs!
She barged in right away and started opening doors to bedroom as the various roomates came running out and a grand melee' ensued.
It was madness! Apocalyptic!
Imagine this: somehow the gossip grapevine was so intense, a phone call had been placed to my wife from some JW in Austin informing her
of the diabolical betrayal taking place between her husband and 4 women!!
The is was the pre-cellphone era, need I say.
My wife had jumped into the car and drove like a bat out of hell to the address (conveniently provided) and arrived way late at night.
After the uproar settled down, my wife could clearly see I had a blanket and pillow on the couch and all the roomates were quite eager to
give her a good talking to about her suspicions!
The upshot was this. I had to leave WITH my wife and drive back to Ft.Worth OR ELSE she would report me to the judicial committee!
I was pretty pissed off.
I told her to go ahead report me for sleeping on a couch if she really thought couch-sleeping was an abomination to Jehovah!
Need I tell you, before the week was over I was sitting in the Kingdom Hall library telling my story?
Yep.
The congregation Overseer (pre-Elder era) listened and nodded his head as I spoke.
"Brother Walstrom, technically speaking--it IS adultry if you spend the night under the roof of a woman who is not your spouse."
I swear I threw my head back and laughed at the nonsense! I had my NWT with me, of course--and I tossed it on the table in front of
the Overseer and his assistant and said, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to SEE that scripture with my own eyes."
. . . .
Now why did I tell you this story? Because, it was just about the next to the last straw in my total awakening to narrow-minded baloney-thinking
coming out of Jehovah's appointed servants!
If you can't exercise common sense and you can't give a brother who had been totally without reproach the benefit of the doubt--well, the word
"trust" just doesn't exist and honor is merely a word in the dictionary.
My servant's privileges were removed from me and it was announced after the Watchtower study.
My mother, who had just been newly baptised, had a come-apart right there in the middle of the Kingdom Hall.
She started asking out loud about what had happened.
She said it loud enough, too.
The Overseer simply said to her, "Sister--your son has done something he isn't very proud of and this is just a discipline to remind him not to
do it again."
She turned to me and immediately demanded to know what it was I had done to lose my servant's privileges.
I shrugged and said, "I had the unmitigated audacity to sleep on a couch." Then, I turned around and walked out of the Kingdom Hall before
she could further pursue the matter.
Sigh.
I get upset just repeating this story.
I thought it was very similar to the "apostacy" definition above.