Last night I concluded a very lively social evening by talking with an elder who was enjoying a few late gin 'n'tonics in my local pub.
Suitably booted and suited, my Dub–in–the–pub pal told me that he had just been to an elders meeting, conducted by the CO.
He said that a lot of stuff was only handed down by word of mouth these days. But, new light that he had just received, was as follows: (Bear in mind that we were both pretty steamed by midnight!)
1. Elders MUST call on all DF’d ones once a year to encourage them to turn back and where necessary to have their questions answered.
2. A general easing up on the harsh treatment of DF’d persons was in the pipeline.
3. Governing body members no longer had to be FDS.
I’ve heard rumours about most of this via this site, but it was good to hear it from the horses mouth.
As an add on to this post, I did row in re the FDS parable and 144,000 being totally unconnected, DF’ing being unscriptural and the blood nonsense being about Xtians not upsetting the Jews. He took it well and didn’t start screaming about apostasy, so I guess there is some hope for him yet.
Englishman.