Hello all!
Waiting: couldn't get a handle on your quote, but will keep searching. Reminds me of the first $1B corporation I worked for; had a rep for "eating its own young."
Glad you mentioned the Amish. Reminded me of another book in my library: Amish Society (John A. Hostetler; John Hopkins University Press, 1968). The author was "[b]orn a younger child of an Amish family which was later to be excommunicated largely because of the father's alleged worldly pride in a fine registered dairy herd, he [the author] was socialized to the norm which taboos education beyond the eighth grade. He is now holder of the Ph.D. degree in sociology..." I couldn't believe the incredible similarities between the Amish and JWs.
Excerpts:
"Persons who leave the strict Old Order Amish church to join other churches are treated as apostates and must be banned. No member may knowingly eat at the table with an expelled member or have normal work or domestic relations with him." (p. 14)
"As soon as the law will allow, Amish children are taken out of school for work at home." (p. 19)
"Differences in religious conformity began to emerge among the Swiss Brethren in the seventeenth century...The controversy centered around three specific norms of practice: the Meidung or shunning...[The Reist group] agreed that excommunicated members should not be admitted to the communion service, but they could not accept [the founder] Ammann's strict position of Meidung, which said it should be observed between marriage partners and in eating...some even taught that husband and wife should separate." (pp. 31-32)
Under the subheading The Stages of Sectarian Emergence (pp. 35-36), he outlines the following conditions (a virtual history of WTS):
A sectarian movement must establish an ideology different from that of the parent group...
The articulation of differences in belief by an enthusiastic leader claiming divine authority...
A sense of urgency is vocalized by an authoritarian personality who imposes negative sanction on the opposing persons or groups...
The goals of a sect must be specific...
A sect must establish cultural separatism...
OK, I'll stop quoting :-). Ultimately, their internal struggles resulted in several divergent groups with varying degrees of stricture. Members can "jump" back and forth between some of these groups and still be considered at least quasi-Amish. Or, they (typically the younger ones) can choose a more liberal option and become Mennonites (the fundamental practices and beliefs are almost identical, but control of personal behavior and enforcement of Meidung are both much less strict among Mennonites). That is how they make their own "accommodation."
THANK GOD, THANK GOD, THANK GOD I am no longer a part of that kind of group.