Possibly the most lucent, well thought out and written comment I've ever read on a Witness board.
From JustJW's:
From: Ben Sent: 29/05/2002 20:52Slipnslidemaster:"There are no facts, only interpretations."
The safety of the children should come first. Elders are instructed that upon hearing an allegation of child abuse that they are to contact the Society’s Legal Department. I’m sorry but that tells me right off where the priorities are.Our brothers and sisters in Malawi were robbed of their businesses, taken from their homes, raped, tortured, and murdered for not buying a political card in a one party country. Now we allow dirty old men to fondle and violate our children for fear of being sued? What in the world does the legal department have to do with our children? The legal department should exist for the sole purpose of attending to the legal affairs of the corporations used by the society for the dissemination of the literature. Lawyers have no business talking to elders about our children.
We are sacrificing our children for the sake of protecting an image that we are projecting for the outside world to see. That is really what all of this boils down to…our public image. If we really are what we say we are, let them see us as we truly are. We are not perfect. We make mistakes, terrible ones at times. Do we think for one minute by covering up our mistakes that others will assume that we are without fault? How vain and silly and childish to think so.
One of our children is molested and the perpetrator is free due to a mere policy which will, I assure you, change in time, all for the sake of protecting what we perceive to be our reputation with the world? I’ve got some very sober news. The world hates us anyway and thinks very little of us. The more we pretend that we are better than them and the more we seclude ourselves the more suspicious they become of us and the more they distrust and hate us. When you are right why should you care what the world thinks of you?
When will we realize that the world is very aware of our faults and our imperfections. They know what is going on because not one of us does not have some contact with the world. They know that we are not perfect and it makes them shake their heads at us as they watch us go about our business trying to fool them into thinking we are better than them and all the while the only ones being fooled are ourselves.
It’s been said that you cannot elevate yourself by putting others down. We cannot claim to be clean by casting off those who call us down on our mistakes. Killing the messenger will not make the bad news go away. Putting our heads in the sand and pretending the problem is not there will not protect our little children.
I hear a lot of talk about waiting on Jehovah. When you wake up in the middle of the night and your child has a raging fever, do you wait on Jehovah or do you drive immediately to the emergency room of the nearest hospital? When you are overcharged for a service or product do you just accept it as persecution or do you do something about it as quickly as possible because this involves your hard earned money? Why is it any different when it comes to our children? Eccl 3:7,8 tells us that there is "a time to keep quiet and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace". Some of our brothers and sisters feel that it is the time to speak. We can cast them off and call them dirty names but that will only come back later and fall on our faces to our shame if we do so.
I would not want to be in that congregation that all took sides with the person who molested that young sister only to find out that the man was guilty as sin. What does that make those that abandoned their sister to side with the sinner? How do we suppose Jehovah views those that abandon his own for the sinner? On which side of that courtroom do you suppose Jesus would have sat? Which side would YOU have sat? It’s a sobering thought, is it not?
- Nietzsche
Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America