It looks like the article with "those who simply leave the faith are not shunned" has been replaced by this one:
http://www.watchtower.org/library/w/1988/4/15/article_01.htm
Make me GAG: WTS website article
by Scully 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Elsewhere
I sent them a letter on Sept 30th asking about that article... I still have not recieved a response.
Dear Sir or Madam:
Your FAQ page says that Those who simply leave the faith are not shunned. Yet a referenced article says that those who went out (disassociate) are shunned.
What is the difference between a person who went out and a person who simply leaves the faith? One situation results in shunning, but the other does not. I would appreciate a more detailed clarification on this. What scriptures are used to make the distinction?
http://www.jw-media.org/beliefs/beliefsfaq.htm
Those who simply leave the faith are not shunned.
http://www.watchtower.org/library/w/1988/4/15/article_01.htm
Such shunning would be appropriate, too, for anyone who rejects the congregation: "They went out from us, but they were not of our sort; for if they had been of our sort, they would have remained with us. But they went out that it might be shown up that not all are of our sort."1 John 2:18, 19.
Edited by - Elsewhere on 22 November 2002 16:13:43
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refiners fire
..."Why is such a firm stand appropriate even today? Well, reflect on the severe cutting off mandated in God's Law to Israel. In various serious matters, willful violators were executed"....
Can there be any doubt, if these guys were in charge of the State, torture and executions would follow. You can bank on it. What are the deaths of 5 million opposers in the pursuit of Utopia? A small price.
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NameWithheld
Puke. Notice how many "..."'s there were in them quoting the court's ruling? Makes you wonder what they dot dot dotted over. Hmmm. Of course, JWs expect dot dot dots in all quote, probably don't know how to read without them in there.
RF, I wouldn't bet against that - there's no doubt at all in my mind that they would jump at the chance to stone a few apostates!
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refiners fire
..."Paul wrote that we cannot avoid them completely, 'otherwise we would have to get out of the world.' ".....
Name. Of course if "we" cannot get out of the world, we could always get "THEM" out of the world. And if "we" held the organs of state, "we" would.
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metatron
I always love the experiences that have all the veracity of a Communist
show trial.NOTHING ANY WITNESS SAYS IN PUBLIC ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION should be believed.
They are not permitted to criticize the Society or offer any variant opinions
contrary to the Watchtower.Not one single scripture says 'never speak to a df'd person' - the Bible clearly
says to "admonish them" and not treat them as enemies. 1 Cor. clearly says
'not even eating with such a man' as a WORST CASE SITUATION.The Watchtower continues to lie about the subject - knowing they are wrong
and have been wrong since the 1980's , when they attempted to change to a more
scriptural view of the matter - but stopped because of the greedy desire for
control by the Governing Body.metatron
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waiting
lol.......I've read the *...* thingie so many years, I didn't even notice them! I actually had to go back and find them.....and yep.....the WT still uses a lot of *...*'s.
Lynette's sister later told her: 'If you had viewed the disfellowshipping lightly, I know that I would not have taken steps toward reinstatement as soon as I did.Being totally cut off from loved ones and from close contact with the congregation created a strong desire to repent. I realized just how wrong my course was and how serious it was to turn my back on Jehovah.' WT
Just insert *come back* for the word *repent* -- and that's a true statement.
Total Negative Reinforcement. Cut the person off from all that he's known....and there's a decent chance he'll come back. Repent? Not most likely. Lonely? yes.
Interestingly enough, it's been known for decades that the person who's reinstated is usually a much weaker jw and will stay that way. JW's used to remark on that oddity. Perhaps because the person just came back for family & friends - seems logical to me.
Crappy article. Thanks, though, for bringing it here.
waiting
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Reborn2002
I found this Watchtower article appropriate for this discussion.
*** Nov 15, 1952 Watchtower ***
Questions from Readers
In the case of where a father or mother or son or daughter is disfellowshiped, how should such person be treated by members of the family in their family relationship?-P. C., Ontario, Canada.
We are not living today among theocratic nations where such members of our fleshly family relationship could be exterminated for apostasy from God and his theocratic organization, as was possible and was ordered in the nation of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai and in the land of Palestine. "Thou shalt surely kill him; thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him to death with stones, because he hath sought to draw thee away from Jehovah thy God, . . . And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is in the midst of thee."-Deut. 13:6-11, AS.
Beinglimited by the lawsof the worldly nation in which we live and also by the laws of God through Jesus Christ, we can take action against apostates only to a certain extent, that is, consistent with both sets of laws . The law of the land and God's law through Christ forbid us to kill apostates, even though they be members of our own flesh-and-blood family relationship . However, God's law requires us to recognize their being disfellowshiped from his congregation, and this despite the fact that the law of the land in which we live requires us under some natural obligation to live with and have dealings with such apostates under the same roof.
God's law does not allow a marriage partner to dismiss his mate because his mate becomes disfellowshiped or apostatizes. Neither will the law of the land in most cases allow a divorce to be granted on such grounds. The faithful believer and the apostate or disfellowshiped mate must legally continue to live together and render proper marriage dues one to the other. A father may not legally dismiss his minor child from his household because of apostasy or disfellowshiping, and a minor child or children may not abandon their father or their mother just because he becomes unfaithful to God and his theocratic organization. The parent must by laws of God and of man fulfill his parental obligations to the child or children as long as they are dependent minors, and the child or children must render filial submission to the parent as long as legally underage or as long as being without parental consent to depart from the home. Of course, if the children are of age, then there can be a departing and breaking of family ties in a physical way, because the spiritual ties have already snapped .
If children are of age and continue to associate with a disfellowshiped parent because of receiving material support from him or her, then they must consider how far their spiritual interests are being endangered by continuing under this unequal arrangement, and whether they can arrange to support themselves, living apart from the fallen-away parent. Their continuing to receive material support should not make them compromise so as to ignore the disfellowshiped state of the parent.If, because of acting according to the disfellowship order of the company of God's people, they become threatened with a withdrawal of the parental support, then they must be willing to take such consequences .
Satan's influence through the disfellowshiped member of the family will be to cause the other member or members of the family who are in the truth to join the disfellowshiped member in his course or in his position toward God's organization. To do this would be disastrous, and so the faithful family member must recognize and conform to the disfellowship order . How would or could this be done while living under the same roof or in personal, physical contact daily with the disfellowshiped? In this way: By refusing to have religious relationship with the disfellowshiped.
The marriage partner would render the marriage dues according to the law of the land and in due payment for all material benefits bestowed and accepted. But to have religious communion with the disfellowshiped person-no, there would be none of that! The faithful marriage partner would not discuss religion with the apostate or disfellowshiped and would not accompany that one to his (or her) place of religious association and participate in the meetings with that one. As Jesus said: "If he does not listen even to the congregation [which was obliged to disfellowship him], let him be to you just as a man of the nations and as a tax collector [to Jehovah's sanctified nation]." (Matt. 18:17, NW) Hurt to such one would not be authorized , but there would be no spiritual or religious fellowshiping.
The same rule would apply to those who are in the relation of parent and child or of child and parent. What natural obligation falls upon them according to man's law and God's law the faithful parent or the faithful child will comply with. But as for rendering more than that and having religious fellowship with such one in violation of the congregation's disfellowship order-no, none of that for the faithful one! If the faithful suffers in some material or other way for the faithful adherence to theocratic law, then he must accept this as suffering for righteousness' sake .
The purpose of observing the disfellowship order is to make the disfellowshiped one realize the error of his way and to shame him, if possible , so that he may be recovered, and also to safeguard your own salvation to life in the new world in vindication of God. (2 Thess. 3:14, 15; Titus 2:8) Because of being in close, indissoluble natural family ties and being of the same household under the one roof you may have to eat material food and live physically with that one at home, in which case 1 Corinthians 5:9-11 and 2 John 10 could not apply; but do not defeat the purpose of the congregation's disfellowship order by eating spiritual or religious food with such one or receiving such one favorably in a religious way and bidding him farewell with a wish for his prosperity in his apostate course.
So, as the article which appeared in the Watchtower magazine which is the very mouthpiece of Jehovah God points out,
*** Watchtower 1964 May 1 p.277-8 Building a Firm Foundation in Christ ***
8 God's Word is the basis of our faith. As we pore over its pages our mind is communing with God's. Our faith is established and strengthened. We are "always ready to make a defense" by offering "a reason for the hope" that we hold, and we are thereby equipped to teach others the way of life. (1 Pet. 3:15; 2 Tim. 2:2) Why, though, is such emphasis placed on "accurate" knowledge? Why should such care be exercised in our study of the columns of The Watchtower , and of our application of the Scripture texts to the material under consideration? It is through the columns of The Watchtower that Jehovah provides direction and constant Scriptural counsel to his people, and it requires careful study and attention to details in order to apply this information, to get a full understanding of the principles involved, and to assure ourselves of right thinking on these matters.
*** Watchtower 1965 June 1 p.352 Questions from Readers ***
This strengthening of theocratic controls continued over a period of twenty years, from 1918 to 1938, and corresponds to the twenty-year building program of Solomon, in which time he completed Jehovah's temple, his own house, the porch of judgment and the House of the Forest of Lebanon or the armory. In 1938 Jehovah revealed this correspondency to his servants and it was published in The Watchtower in a two-part article entitled "Organization." This appeared in the issues of June 1 and 15 and proved conclusively that Jehovah's organization must henceforth be guided and directed by Jehovah's spirit through the visible governing body made up of those servants whom Jehovah himself would appoint. The concluding paragraph in this series stated: "Jehovah's theocratic government is now in full control of the people of God."
so now we have evidence showing that the Watchtower is the flagship magazine by which God provides direction, and as the first article brings out, Jehovah's Witnesses are disappointed that they cannot kill you if you are an apostate, or leave their religion.
So yes RF and NameWithheld, I agree, they WOULD LIKE to KILL YOU. They admit this.
Elsewhere, you won't receive a response. When a person exposes one of their falsehoods and the WT has no way of weaseling out of comments they themselves made, they choose to avoid or ignore the issue altogether.
Edited by - Reborn2002 on 22 November 2002 16:48:25
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refiners fire
Reborn
Just consider what would happen after Armaggedon with the resurrected ones. Not all of them will be willing to accept the truth. What happens with these? Will God smite them dead the instant they reject the truth? Will they grow old and die naturally? I seem to recall reading in the WT that they will age and die a natural death. Will such ones be allowed to reside in company with the spiritual ones? In the same street? Will they be herded into ghettos where they cannot pollute the righteous ones? Will they, perhaps, be sent to some far away place, a Gulag?
Just a thought.Wonder if the WT has erver written anything on this matter.
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Reborn2002
LOL @ refiners fire
Yet another example of a gaping hole in WT doctrine.
I guess in the Earth which is restored to Paradise either God will resurrect someone (in his omnipotence and omniscience he knows the beginning and the end so what's the point?) only to either destroy them again immediately for rejecting the Troof, or those people will age and die naturally, but per WT doctrine, they will not be marked acceptable association, and branded and cast into a deplorable ghetto, smack dab in the middle of Paradise!
LOL
Thanks for the input, that made me laugh today.