I know of a number of elders that have been removed for bad advise, or acting outside policy in matters similar to the discussion here. In fact one whole body in my area was removed, essentially for 'lording it over' the flock and having two sets of standards, one for their families and one for everyone else. So it does happen, just not often enough.
PEDOPHILES are to WTS as flies are to honey?
by Focus 173 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
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Friend
Expatbrit
I do equivocate WT society policy with the actions of local congregations. This is because society HQ is kept well aware of what happens at local levels by CO's etc….
Your suspicion is a common one but nevertheless not a good one. It is true that COs visit congregations regularly. It is true that COs reports back to the Society on each congregation visit. It is also true that the form (called the S-2) for that report contains a question asking about any congregational problems. But it is not true that congregations routinely speak of these problems to COs with it being included in those reports. In most cases that section of the S-2 report is left blank. (I just thumbed through three congregation’s files of S-2 forms going back more then 10 years each. Not one of those more than 60 reports had an entry in the section in question.) For that reason the Society is very often unaware of specific local problems.…So when there is a widespread policy (a policy can be simply an adopted course of action rather than a written legal document) being exercised at local level (e.g. coercive pressure not to involve secular authorities), it is reasonable to conclude that the society is well aware of this, and concurs with it's continuation.
Elders are told to call the Society’s legal department upon hearing reports of child abuse. Do you know what elders are told upon calling? Relevant to reporting, elders are instructed to advise victims (or their families or other witnesses) that whether they report is up to them. Furthermore, elders are told that no one should discourage those persons from reporting if that is their desire. How do you explain that contradiction to your conclusion?In fact, with it's magazine articles emphasizing "not bringing reproach upon Jehovah" by involving secular authorities in criminal matters ("minor" and "serious" crime distinctions are not made in the literature), and with it's demonising the secular authorities as part of Satan's system, the society creates this local policy.
Let’s not quibble here. The subject of this thread, and the one having everyone worked into a tizzy, is of a serious criminal nature. Show me an instance where the Society discourages JWs from reporting serious criminal behavior out of a misguided notion of "not bringing reproach on Jehovah". The QFR article cited on this thread certainly does no such thing. That article deals only with the scriptural issue of Christian brothers taking their civil matters to court; it does not deal with criminal acts at all.On the subject of the actions of elders: the society is responsible for all action of elders performed in their capacity as elders, period.
Laws of the land typically would not hold the Society to that high of a standard. Acting in their capacity or not, an elder that knowingly or inconsiderately acts outside designated policy cannot jeopardize the Society anymore so than a hospital can be held accountable for a physician doing the same. Sure, the elder (or physician) can be held accountable, but transferring that accountability back to the Society requires evidencing negligence on the Society’s part, whether that be by means of an inadequate policy, training or appointment. This is why my last post highlighted what it did as the main problem from a libelous standpoint.
To illustrate: I, as an employer, often send out my employees to clients. I do not know all of the actions that person will take at the clients. For all I know, they may spend the entire day using the client's computers to look at pornography. But, because I placed that employee as my agent at the client, I must assume the ultimate responsibility and consequences for all of the actions of that employee while he or she acts in that capacity.
Your analogy is a false one. In the United States, which is where the Penn. Corp. of the Society must be sued, to be held libelous for your actions in almost every case, for an employee to libel your company then it must be evidenced that they were acting as you would have them act or that you knew of their reprehensible actions and did nothing about it. All by themselves your employee’s actions need not jeopardize you. Easily, if they acted inappropriately, you could hang them out on their own to whither.1) If elders are incompetent; 2) if they do not follow the society's printed policy; 3) if they do not understand the society's policies or 4) sincerely misapply them: the society is still ultimately responsible and must accept the consequences.
1) Yes. Your conclusion is correct.2) No. In this case your conclusion is incorrect.
3) Maybe. In this case much depends upon the extent the Society took in deciding the individual’s qualifications and whether there was any reason for suspecting them.
4) No. In this case your conclusion is incorrect.
My comment:
Your answer deals with elders. In this case elders are persons (elder or not) who are third parties to the criminal act. My comment was regarding persons who are either victims or witnesses to the act. Certainly in those cases the Society does not view a person as "spiritually weak" because they report a serious crime to legitimate law enforcement officials. Certainly the earlier cited Awake article contradicts your assertion here. Do you suppose that elders are instructed to tell publishers that they should act contrary to what is published in the literature in this regard?
For a fact the Society does not view it as spiritual weakness that a JW would report a serious crime to legitimate law enforcement officials whether the offender is a JW or not.Your reply:
I have to flat-out disagree here. The fact that elders are instructed to compulsorily report serious crimes only when there is a legal requirement demonstrates the society's preference: to not have such things reported. Someone reporting when not absolutely required by law will certainly be considered spiritually weak.My answer is simple. In situations such as the one you describe, there should be no prerogative on whether to report or not. It should be compulsory at all times. Given the nature of these offenders, there is a high probability that they will abuse another victim. To not report is to endanger other children.
That is simple enough to say, and I happen to agree with you. But when parents are in this terrible situation they oftentimes feel otherwise. The answer, then, is not so simple, and not even uniformly legislated among various secular jurisdictions as a result. On this point, noticeably you ignored answering one critical question. Again:If you learned that a JW had abused your daughter but were concerned that reporting to law enforcement might make your daughter’s circumstances worse, would you feel free and comfortable seeking pastoral help from congregational elders if you knew they were obligated to report the crime whether you wanted it reported or not?
Don’t you see? If victims are afraid to seek out pastoral help then the question of whether elders should report becomes practically moot!
This is an emotionally loaded subject. All the more important for it to be considered without resorting to name-calling and insults.
I could not agree more with you.Friend
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Friend
TR
Xandit is correct. Elders are frequently removed for failing to follow Society policy. Less frequently elders are removed for offering bad advice, but it happens.
Because elder are removed that does not necessarily mean negligence on the Society’s part. In fact it may evidence just the contrary. That is, if the Society can evidence that it routinely removes elders who act contrary to its policy or that offer hurtful advice then secular courts often weigh this as evidence that the Society is acting in good faith.
Also, as Xandit points out, there are some instances where entire elder bodies have been removed for dereliction.
Friend
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TR
Friend,
I must live in a special corner of the JW world. Either that, or eleven years of association and four of those as an m.s. was not enough to see any trouble.
Less frequently elders are removed for offering bad advice, but it happens.
Is this, in your opinion, because elders withhold information from the c.o.'s, or are the c.o.'s unwilling to take any action?Xandit,
. In fact one whole body in my area was removed, essentially for 'lording it over' the flock and having two sets of standards, one for their families and one for everyone else. So it does happen, just not often enough.
How is a whole body of elders replaced? Or does that cong. shut down?TR
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ISP
I said earlier......
'the WTS has its problems but they are typical of this 'sector'! Pedophiles have targeted 'christian' groups historically. Every Christian belief sytem has its own nightmares in this regard and there is much evidence of cover-ups etc. They are too numerous to tell. I am critical of the WTS in that they should have very clear rules on this. After all they can dominate and rule over millions worldwide and surely they could easily have a uniform approach - that is an example to all. But they are no worse/better than the miserable bunch that operate in this 'market'.'Read this if you want to see the whole picture....a picture that goes beyond peurile WTS/Anti-WTS party politics.
Check this out> http://www.skeptictank.org/clrabuse.htm#ClrAbuseIndex
ISP
Edited by - ISP on 4 March 2001 3:51:42
Edited by - ISP on 4 March 2001 4:30:12
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Tina
Well said Focus,expat,and waiting!! regards,T
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JT
waiting says:
Lord, I've heard and said things like this for 30 years. A lot of us would never bother to look up *exactly* what the Society said - too much work, but we knew it was negative anyway - so that was good enough for us.
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you have summmed it up very well- and that midset is what you will find in the avg congo- so regardless of what Friend and bro x try to say to give the impression that what we are talking about was the EXCEPTION the fact of the matter these these are the NORM
and how sad
just my 2
JT
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Frenchy
If you believe for one minute that the Society's ‘stated policy' is what is promoted exclusively then either you did not live through the 1975 fiasco or you are still blinded by all that flashing light. According to them they never said that the end was coming in 1975.
I got my first, close up, taste of this difference between what is written and what is practiced when I had a run in with a District Overseer (Gary Thompson) on the matter of publishers going along with other publishers on Bible Studies just to chalk up more field service time on their cards. In essence he said that the practice was acceptable. I called his attention to what the om book says about it.If a publisher works in areas or in situations where it is not wise to be alone and it is, therefore, necessary for another publisher to accompany him, both may count the time if both share in giving the witness. Om p. 104
He got very angry with me and told me that we were not to discourage publishers from accompanying others on their studies. "Even if it is not necessary for them to do so?" I asked. "Yes, he said and went on to say that the ‘traveling brothers' would not get in all their time if they could not count the time they went on studies with the publishers.
That's when I told him that there were two sets of rules then, a written one and an unwritten one. He didn't like me much after that but I pushed him until he finally said it in front of the body.
So all this hair splitting about what that stated policy actually is and is not is really quite silly. It doesn't matter what the stated policy is. There is where the quibbling exists. What matters is what is being done or not being done. The stated policy is there only for the lawyers to call attention to when those ‘untrained volunteers' do what they know they had better do if they want to keep their positions.-Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
Edited by - Frenchy on 4 March 2001 9:53:17
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JT
expatbrit515 says
To illustrate: I, as an employer, often send out my employees to clients. I do not know all of the actions that person will take at the clients. For all I know, they may spend the entire day using the client's computers to look at pornography. But, because I placed that employee as my agent at the client, I must assume the ultimate responsibility and consequences for all of the actions of that employee while he or she acts in that capacity.
If elders are incompetent; if they do not follow the society's printed policy; if they do not understand the society's policies or sincerely misapply them: the society is still ultimately responsible and must accept the consequences
###############you are on the money- wt is nothing more than a corp masquarding around as the mouth pc of god.
consider this- usually on sunday at the circuit or district convention
the speaker for the Keynote talk is often introduced as a Representive of the WTBTS--all appointed folks are reps of wt
pioneers , ms and elders alike
even the pioneers have a card that they carry which has thier EMPOYEE NUMBER
I REcall after giving the card to this one sister she asked :
"Am I just a number to the Society?"
how sad
just my 2
JT
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Tina
Hi Jt!!
Good to see you!! You're posts are always right on the money,you wade thru the rhetoric and break it down to what it simply and really says/means,Thanks,Tina