My husband and I were talking about the shunning part that the JWs do? Where can I find more accurate information on this subject? I am mainly trying to learn when the whole practice started, and stuff like that. Whenever I search online for this information, Google keeps directing me back to the JW org site, and I really don't trust what comes out of their mouths. They have been very notorious about changing their history and trying to say oh we never said that. Case in point the 1914 generation teaching.
When did the Watchtower start the shunning?
by Tameria2001 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Tameria2001
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Simon
I think it really kicked in as a control mechanism when Franz left and they wanted to prevent anyone listening to anything he had to say.
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Londo111
The early 50's.
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the girl next door
Hard stance 52, softened stance 74, hardened stance 81.
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Diogenesister
Yes they basically sealed the deal in 81 when they made associating with disassociated ones a disfellowshipping offence.
They did so purely as a way to disfellowship Ray Franz, who was working for and renting from a disassociated jw. They also officially made it a DF offence ( in a "questions from readers") after he had been seen eating with his employer, so retro-actively DF him.
Punishing someone for an act committed before it was made illegal is something the legal system of any reputable nation would never do.
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Finkelstein
The corruption of the WTS leaders is self evident.
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steve2
A member of my extended family was disfellowshipped in the mid-1950s for criticising the brothers in New York Bethel for allowing her adulterous husband to divorce her when she was willing to forgive him (he was disfellowshipped for a year during which he remarried) even after he remarried and had children to his new wife.
The disfellowshipped woman believed the organization helped her husband betray his marriage vows. She even wrote directly to Brother Knorr who characteristically ignored replying but directed the brothers in the New Zealand branch office to disfellowship her.
I grew up being told I was not to talk to her because she was an apostate. Her own JW children shunned her except when she became old and infirm. Her JW grandchildren had absolutely no contact with her ever.
This was decades before Ray Franz -so it is incorrect to say disfellowshipping only came into force after Ray left Bethel - although his departure sparked a conflation of disfellowshipping and disassociating in terms of both leading to being shunned.
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ScenicViewer
The modern practice of disfellowshipping, and the shunning that accompanies it, started with the March 1, 1952 Watchtower magazine. Here are the articles.
(Watchtower Magazine, March 1, 1952)
Keeping the Organization Clean, p 131
Propriety of Disfellowshiping, p137
Sin Making Reinstatement Impossible, p145Just 5 years earlier, in the January 8, 1947 Awake Magazine, p27 & 28, the Organization strongly condemned the practice of 'excommunication,' which is acknowledged by Watchtower to be the same as disfellowshipping. That article said the following regarding (mainly) the Catholic Church's practice of excommunication (df'ing).
How many of the things listed below are now a part of Watchtower practice?
- You are looked upon with the "blackest contempt."
- You are cursed with the Devil and his demons.
- Abandoning the Church's faith, or joining an offshoot of it, are reasons for excommunication.
- It is a part of canon [organization] law which the Heirarchy presents as "God's law."
- the 1947 article says that excommunication is unscriptural because it is not based on the teachings of Christ and the apostles.
- Excommunication should not be a "punishment" nor a "medical remedy" for sins committed.
- It is "foreign to Bible teachings."
- Excommunication has "pagan influence" and "superstitious" beliefs behind it.
- The practice was adopted by Catholics only after 325 A.D.
- It accompanies the growing "pretentions" of a heirarchy.
- It is used as a "weapon."
- It is used to gain "ecclesiastical power" through "secular tyrrany."
- Excommunicated people are viewer as "executed" and opposers are "impaled."
- It was used to control and punish those who "opposed the dictates" of the heirarchy.
- Excommunicated people lead a "doomed existence."
- Excommunicated people are "plotted against." Attacking their lives is "accounted virtuous."
As a side point here is a remark from the article Keeping the Organization Clean, saying that Miriam (Moses' sister) was disfellowshipped for 7 days for being 'high-minded, proud and foolish' by being stricken with leprosy. Have you ever heard of anybody being df'd for just 7 days? Watchtower must have been reaching for any Biblical example it could find to support it's new teaching of disfellowshipping.
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Bobcat
Marked