by BeautifulGarbage 6 Replies latest jw friends
The title is: "Jehovah's Witnesses facing expulsion for abuse stance"
The same story that appeared on CNN's website has been run in my local paper, The Desert Sun(Palm Springs, CA), along with his picture. It's on page A11, the first page, on the top, of the second section. Hard to miss.
I have checked their website, and as of yet, it does not appear there.
Just wanted to let everyone know.
Andee
Bill's story appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star of Lincoln, NE this morning. It was hard to miss in our paper too. The Society really seems to have put water on a grease fire this time.
Jeff S.
Don't love it when large corporations get personal and then step in "it".
Trying to "df" Bill and Barb has to be the most stupidest "optics" thing I have seen in sometime. Bill doesn't even get a hearing to next week - so this story has to go through more news cycles.
People, what is going on right now has taken the wind out of dateline.
The Watchtower has gotten Bill to the NY Times without the help of Dateline.
Now all hell is really breaking loose. Dateline will be a footnote now and so be it. Now you really have a Neilson rating that beats Dateline's audience by 10 fold!!!
Go Bill Go!!!!! You too Barb. Keep on message - hit them with what dung and I are telling you - that door-to-door stuff separates you from the rest and scares the hell out of the soccer moms!!! They are the key if want the changes to come.
hawk
In response to The Desert Sun printing Bill's story I am going to write a letter to the editor. I am still cogitating on the angle I am going to take, but the think I am going to emphasize the door to door thing too. The message that needs to be conveyed is that this affects "worldy" people too. They need to able to relate to it.
I have written many letters to the editor before and all have been printed. The last one being the "focus" letter. The focus letter gets highlighted on the editorial page and appears on their website.
Perhaps it will be another chip in the fortress.
Andee
Here is the link to the story on CNN.com. It was a little hard to find without it. Go, Bill, Go!!!!!!
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/09/jehovah.witnesses.ap/index.html
If one of Jehovah's Witnesses can get disfellowshipped for speaking against a crime that amounts to the sexual torture of young defenseless children by other Jehovah's Witnesses, then the question begs: If Bill Bowen had seen an elder murder a child and he reported this crime to the police, and spoke out against this crime publicly, would Bill Bowen be facing expulsion before a judicial committee for having revealed the crime to police and public?
Unfortunately I'm afraid, IMO, the answer is "yes" to that question, because child molestation is a form of torture, and a crime on par in seriousness with murder because it destroys the life of the living victim.
My interpretation of the Watchtower Society's trial of Bill Bowen is to conclude that if I were ever to witness a Jehovah's Witness commit murder, I would have to chose between revealing this crime to the police or face expulsion (disfellowshipping). Obviously I would rather be disfellowshipped then to withhold evidence of a crime from the police and public.
Consider that the Watchtower Society strongly implies, at least based on my reading of their publications on the matter of disfellowshipping, that one in a disfellowshipped case will be destroyed at Armageddon.
Let's translate that into what most people who are NOT Jehovah's Witnesses can understand: Based on the belief that a disfellowshipped Jehovah's Witness is out of favor with God -- and will thus likely be destroyed at Armageddon -- imagine this scenario. Armageddon arrives and one of the angels who is executing the "wicked" comes across Bill Bowen. This righteous angel asks God, "are you sure I'm supposed to slaughter Bill for having exposed pedophile Jehovah's Witnesses who sexually assault and rape innocent children??"
Based on the IMPLICATIONS that a disfellowshipped person is wicked, are we supposed to surmise that God will reply to the angel, "Absolutely! Bill's exposing of pedophilia and sexual crimes against children has prevented thousands, maybe TENS OF THOUSANDS of children, from having their lives ruined! My Son's faithful and discreet slave, the anointed ones in the Watchtower Society, punished bill by disfellowshipping him!! Therefore, I must conclude that protecting innocent children from pedophilia by exposing criminal activities is a WICKED ACT, punishable by ETERNAL DEATH! You are therefore ordered to slaughter Bill and hurl him into the Lake of Fire to join Satan and his dominions in everlasting cutting off! As for John Smith, another elder in Bill's congregation who faithfully covered up crimes against children over the last 30 years, you are not to touch him as he is to be rewarded! Notice that the Watchtower Society viewed him favorably for his loyalty to the organization, and even considered him as Circuit Overseer. . ."
The implication of disfellowshipping Bill Bowen for having exposed heinous crimes against children is quite bazaar. Even during the German occupation when Jews were being executed, no German citizen was executed for reporting such crimes. In fact, convicted pedophiles were thrown into the gas chambers. Even that "regime" recognized the crime of pedophilia, and did not punish those who reported it and exposed it publicly.
True, the Watchtower, unlike that regime, holds the lives of Jews and other minorities as precious. But unlike that regime, everything is juxtaposed in that for some reason they punish those like Bill Bowen who expose equally heinous crimes against children. The regime that occupied German murdered Jews while the Watchtower fought for their freedom by taking a stand, but now, decades later, that very organization is punishing the very noble people like Bill Bowen who are exposing equally heinous crimes.
I think sexually torturing the living, especially defenseless children, is equally heinous to the atrocities of the regime that occupied Germany. I assumed up until now that the Watchtower Society would actually fly Bill Bowen to their headquarters and the GB would personally each shake his hand for having the courage to report such heinous atrocities to the police and save countless future children from suffering such a terrible fate in the hands of pedophilic monsters.
I'm ashamed to report today that I was sadly mistaken in these assumptions. :(
Maybe the GB will personally get informed of this madness in the organization in punishing those with the most exemplary conduct and moral courage, and order these kangaroo courts in Kingdom Halls stopped. (Sadly, I fear this is more of a flight of fancy than a bonafide possibility.)
I'll still hope they stop this mockery of ecclesiastical judicial trials against those whose "crimes" are protecting others from crime by exposing their gross misconduct.
Derrick
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
-- William Blake (Auguries of Innocence)
The AP article also made the Toronto Star:
or jsut go to http://www.thestar.ca then click on "World News"
Scroll down, you will see the headline, "Sex scandal hits church"
Kismet - hoping one of the columnists will follow up on it.
