What would you do if JW's lifted the shunning policy?

by bsand20 28 Replies latest jw friends

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  bsand20

  Have you guys asked yourself that question? What if the GB decided that "new light" revealed to them that disfellowshipping was wrong and they would do away with it for current dfd members as well.....

  .......16 years of my life. Would I welcome my family back? I think it would feel like the people who have spent 10,20,30 years of their lives in jail for a crime they didn't commit and just got released after new information stated they were wrongfully incarcerated...some are forgiving.

  I don't know. All those people that committed suicide because of this practice. All those people who didn't get a chance to say goodbye to their loves ones before they passed. All those relationships forbidden and all those families broken up. So much damage.
• 

  cofty

  I would not be welcoming of people who have shunned me until a bunch of old men told them to do otherwise.

  I have no interest in being friends again with any of them.
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Where I out and shunned as long as you've been, it wouldn't change a thing for me. I'm not sentimental, though, and I don't have too much trouble moving on from disloyal friends/family.

  In my situation, where they to fully remove shunning* I'd have a conversation with my wife about it but I'd almost certainly DA myself immediately.

  *By this I mean people who leave aren't shunned anyway, as is the case today with "spiritually weak" ones who aren't even DF'd. Realistically, even if they abollished DFing, the individual members would almost certainly continue to shun for a generation following.
• 

  Paris

  Its hard. When injustices are done to you and you suffer, people tell you to "move on". Some are able to compartmentalize their emotions and brains.

  Often those that did these things, do not apologize. Even if they later change their behavior. The WT is famous for never apologizing. 16 years is a whole childhood for children you may have been separated from. Its hard. Its cruel. No doubt. Many will advise forgiveness, to forgive and forget. Even parents of murdered children have "forgiven" the murderer and I think this kind of forgiveness is to stop the pain. We all want things labelled "closure" and reconciliation or even a chance to relive our own lives, its the ongoing theme of literature and movies and art. Something inside that wants completion, justice, resolution, and end to sadness and separation.

  Daydreaming can occupy useful time, may be you can write letters to your lost loved ones and at least tell them how you have been affected. It could be someone in your family might respond, you never know. Hardness sits like a dark lump and resentment often spills out on others in mean little ways, being clear and unburdened is freeing, letting go in a positive way, without grudges, if that is possible.
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  cofty

  may be you can write letters to your lost loved ones and at least tell them how you have been affected

  I sent this letter to my parents...

  It had a short-term effect only. A year on and they are back to zero contact. At least they now know how I feel and that was worth it.
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  Paris

  People in every family, every dysfunctional family that is, (and thats what the JW's are, a dysfunctional family), will shun certain members who are whistle blowers, or question the family mythology or expose family secrets, they close ranks and turn their backs and thats any dysfunctional group, religious and non -religious.

  It happens in political groups in organizations and in academia as well, in every, us-against-them mindset. Then add to that, the ability to absolve yourself of responsibilty, by claiming you are serving some "higher cause" and obeying a superior way of thinking and justifying your appalling actions as virtuous,and you have the worst that human kind produces and we see it everywhere.
• 

  Zoos

  I seriously doubt my mother and sisters would reach out to me. They would be too embarrassed after what they have done.

  I seriously doubt know for a fact I would not reach out to them. I'm too pissed after what they have done.
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  Band on the Run

  Celebrate. The WT would collapse within a year.
• 

  jam

  I would tell them, if you folks don't leave the borg after breaking

  up families for years, don't bother asking for my forgiveness.

  The GB could come back the next year and tell you "New light",

  we must killed them now....
• 

  lriddle80

  I would disassociate myself.