THESIS: the kingdom halls as a real estate entity could be couped; coup d'état. a group of 3 elders as trustees could sell the kingdom hall out from under mother watchtower corporation. spread the money to the community or non profits, or just give it as a distribution to the congregation who paid for the kingdom hall. We are talking one corporation, say a california corporation (kingdom hall), being sold out from under mother watchtower with no force or effect. It's no different than the uninformed consent that a jehover gives when the corporation baptizes them in the name of greed and self serving real estate. Just a little taste of their own medicine. What are they going to do? Sue the elders individually and pierce the corporate veil. Providing precedence that the corporate veil, can, in fact, be pierced.
Taking Back The Kingdom Halls.
by RunAsFastAsYouCan 19 Replies latest jw friends
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Londo111
It is unlikely that you could get indoctrinated JWs in a congergation to go against "Mother".
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RunAsFastAsYouCan
It might only take one elder to do this.
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Londo111
The CO would simply have him removed, just like Menlo park. It takes a while to sell a property and I'm sure they'd be able to derail it before the property sold.
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RunAsFastAsYouCan
Yes but if the CO is not part of the KH micro corporation or if the rogue elder refused to recognize any authority.
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Twitch
The hall I went to growing up was sold due to restructuring of district boundaries or something. The Red Cross moved in and I smile every time I pass it by. At least they do something to actually help people out
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Band on the Run
You need to have specific grounds to pierce the corporate veil. This sounds like a fantasy. You can't just sell property.
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NewYork44M
Hasn't this happened in the past a few times? It seems like something that is very unlikely, but you never know.
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Chaserious
It's not that easy, RunAsFastAsYouCan. It is unlikely that this would work anywhere in the U.S. The rule used to be that in a hierarchical church, a local congregation couldn't break off and keep the land, regardless of how it was titled or who pays the expenses. Then came a Supreme Court decision in 1979, the result of which was that states could either continue to follow the hierarchical model or deviate from it (the alternative approach is usually called "neutral principles"). Where states follow the neutral principles approach, the response from national church organizations has been to get the local congregations to change the way the land is owned. The result is that the land ends up basically being owned like a trust, where it's nominally titled to the local congregation, but can't be removed from under the umbrella of the national church, who are treated like the beneficial owners. I don't know for sure that all JW congregations have adopted a change in response, but it's likely that they have. I have seen some material that indicates the WTS took steps to protect themselves in the wake of the 1979 change in law.
The case of The Falls Chuch in Virginia is an interesting case: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/episcopal-church-wins-virginia-supreme-court-ruling/2013/04/18/51b9cc04-a82e-11e2-a8e2-5b98cb59187f_story.html. The land at issue was worth millions, and the congregation had a lot of wealthy and influential members and good attorneys, yet they lost in their bid to break away from the Episcopal Church and keep the land.
Menlo Park is another example of how this didn't work. This aside from the challenge of finding groups of elders who are willing to volunteer to be DF'd and take on the WTS and their war chest in a legal battle.
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Violia
Here is one of numerous threads about Bonham Texas KH take over in the late 80's ( I believe).