by berrygerry 7 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Repeatedly, people who have been in a JC are shocked by both the invasiveness and irrelevant questions asked by elders.
Yet, the Shepherd book doesn't seem to indicate requiring this?
If it is something passed on from one generation of elders to the next, then why does it appear globally?
Where and how does the questioning arise?
berrygerry, it is not an oral tradition. Rather, it is specific instructions from the Borg that require this kind of intimate questioning.
The reason? Typically, so that elders can know exactly what has happened, in order to be able to give specific help and counsel/discipline.
My opinion is that it has a psychological factor, too: That intimate questioning is a way of exercising power over the 'sheep'. And that is very important. The 'sheep' must know who has power over them, he/she must feel it in their skin, so to speak.
Plus, it feeds the ego of the elders, that kind of exercising power. It sounds twisted, I know, but it's under the greater picture that all of the JC thing is twisted and un-humane in its nature.
This kind of questioning is identical to the Medieval (and later) Inquisition. The only difference is that JCs are not allowed to inflict physical pain and/or death, so they are left with the option of 'spiritual' death (DFing). Thanks to the secular authorities, the Inquisition was banned from carrying death sentences. I think something similar should happen with the JCs. While it would be wrong to expect an authority to completely ban a religion, however banning the carrying out of spiritual death sentences should be something that authorities should look into. I believe that is going to be the case in the next few years.
What Syme said.
Plus, it is also the nature of the beast (namely the spirit that operates in the sons of disobedience, Eph 2:2).
As likely observed by Ray Franz, legalism is apostasy (g79 6/8 p. 28).
Legalism also blinds, radicalises and spawns hypocrisy.
People like this actually believe that other people can be improved by bureaucracy - especially dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's (w80 5/1 pp. 5-8, again possibly by Ray Franz).
As Major General John Cantwell observed, bureaucracy is the "kiss of death".
I can attest to that!
Long ago in the past, when I thought this was 'the truth' I confessed in a judicial committee for something that is now such a small issue...
BUT, years later (15 to be precise), one git elder often likes to say things like: "oh we always like to help our flock, as we did with you when you had that issue of "........" "
I feel like saying, "would you just shut up and leave that in the past!
that is why Jesus is reported to have said in Math. 18:17 : "--speak to the CONGREGATION--"
the last judicial resort was to have been an open forum, like the BUSIEST place in town, at the GATE not a SECRET closeted JC.
Jesus's teaching required TRANSPARENCY. so:
No wonder these men feel so wrongly empowered, and
having knowledge would be coveted, highly priced as power currency for every concerned female in the group.
At least the RCs had only one confessor with no [open] busybody pestering for details.
This was my answer in an old thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/experiences/176590/1/why-do-elders-ask-such-personal-questions-when-deciding-whether-to-disfellowship#.U6WEarHb7q0
I cannot begin to excuse it, but will try to explain it. It's in the training and in the way the Elder's Manual leads the elders.
They want to know if a confession of something short of intercourse was actually pornea or loose conduct, so they ask if the penis or vagina was manipulated. They want to know if the person succumbed to a "moment" of weakness or was enjoying themself to determine a pattern of sin, wickedness, or just normal weakness, so they ask about enjoyment, removing or just loosening clothes, duration, penetration, YADDA YADDA.
It is all pretty stupid as they don't need all that. And let's face it- three men and a pretty woman, especially a young virginal woman who is considered adult; the hotter she is, the more questions of this type they will ask. They are already getting the room steamy with the questions they think they should ask, so they go overboard once they step into their own secret desire to visualize it all. It's pornography for men that deny themselves such things, and they think God likes them doing it.
When they ask a man such questions, they only cross the same lines if they know who the girl is, and she's hot. Seriously.
When fat, older people and especially men confess, the sessions are generally short and quick. It's a bizarre thing.
How do you spell voyeurism/voyeuristic?
When they got done disfellowshipping my daughter she called me to say she was d'f and that she not only was thoroughly convinced the WT is a huge bogus scam, she was sure God is too. Seven years later she's a die hard athiest.
I've heard it said before, that if anyone gets out of the WT with a shred of faith intact, they are lucky.
Marina
