Does it matter how long ago a serious sin happened?

by roybatty 19 Replies latest jw friends

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  garybuss

  
  
  The shelf life of sin is interesting, but the real damaging element for many of us was the fear of thought sin. The book publishing business hammered that over and over. To think sin was to sin . . . . and don't trust your own mind because you might have an independent thought and question the unquestionable.
  
  Once members are taught to not trust or to fear their own thoughts, they give up critical thinking, or if they have a rational thought they recognize it as weakness and re-set themselves back into the group mindset by chanting, or repetitious verse reading, or ritual meeting attendance, or unpaid religious literature distribution.
  
  
  
  

  The Way I See it http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm

  
  
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  SheilaM

  Roy:

  The Y <gasp> I am shocked and disgusted LOL
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  Joyzabel

  ROTFLMAO @ Swan!! Oh my gawd, gal, you say the funniest thing!

  Roybatty, why now? What do you want to accomplish by reporting her now?

  j2bf
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  JT

  I don't know who this Garybuss guy is , but i Love his style- he talks like he is from Old school, the days of real 100hour Pioneers- smile, when CO didn't take any breaks, danm the cold weather, we preaching till noon- smile

  but he is on the money- the key to understanding how the system works is to understand the entire wt concept of Body of Elders-

  as in practically all Judical cases it ALL DEPENDS ON THE ELDERS-

  IN SOME halls a sin last week by the right person is over looked, a sin 20yrs ago by the wrong person results in DFing

  the wt has given these men almost complete control of how they want to MAKE THE CALL-

  IN some way it is a weird relationship- on one hand they make all the calls since they are on the scene and in another sense they have to go by everything the wt says or they themselves could be in a JC meeting on the other side of the table-
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  minimus

  JT, Gary Busselman posts here but contributes articles on Freemind's, on Randy's site. He's been around for a long time. He's a mature apostate.
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  Big Tex

  You can be disfellowshipped or disassociated for anything. If the elders want to take action, they will and worry about finding a justification for it later.

  My personal experience with this is regarding my childhood. When I told my elders (I was 26 at the time and my abuse was when I was pre-school age) I was given the response was that .. well .. gee .. you know .. it happened so long ago; and who really wants to go stirring up trouble after all these years; and hey you look okay now, so it must not have been that bad. You should be so thankful to Jehovah for healing you. And remember justice is just another name for vengence and you can't be vengeful.

  If it were me, I'd let sleeping dogs lie. Being a JW is tough enough, don't go adding more than you have to.
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  minimus

  06193, your suggestion sounds just like your elder's counsel to you........but I agree with you.
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  garybuss

  
  Hi JT, I was at my first door at age of six in 1950. We had service before bookstudy Tuesday nights for one hour and two and a half hours of back calls in dog patch in the cold and in the dark on Wednesday nights and then we sat till 10:30 every Thursday night while the Company Servant chewed our asses for not doing more book sales.
  
  Saturday mornings we went door to door pounding with magazines for a nickle apiece . . . no breaks. Sunday was all day in unassigned territory with a picnic lunch and summer Sunday meetings were always at night so we could be in book sales all day. We drove 100 miles to the territory and often traded goods like boxes of jello or eggs for the literature. Once we got a live chicken for a book. We got the best side of that deal.
  
  I was a casualty of the 1974-1975 era and was a believing walkaway for 18 years. My story is at: http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm
  
  I enjoy your posts and I enjoy the board and all here. gary
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  roybatty

  Roybatty, why now? What do you want to accomplish by reporting her now?

  That's a good question Swan. A major concern of mine is pulling my kids away from the JW cult. My 12 year old son already shows signs of not wanting to any part of it but my 9 year old daughter is still under the influence of the JWs and here mom. If there mother were df'd it would make it extremely difficult for her to get the kids out in service, answer at the meeting, associate with other JW families, etc. However, the more I think about it, the more it will probably just place undue stree on my kids. And I'll admit that a part of me would like to see a self-righteous JW taken down a couple of notches.

  Yeah, SheilaM, joining the Y was my big crime. Coaching those kids and instilling in them good values is just so anti-Christian.
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  bigboi

  Does it matter how long ago a serious sin happened? I guess from the strictest interpretation of Tower policy it should not matter. However, there are extentuating circumstances that have been covered by JT and others here in the thread. However, I remember reading somewhere that officially if a long-serving Elder did something and enough time passed then the sin could be forgotten and forgiven and the Elder could continue to serve without any restrictions whatsover. What this seems to be saying to me is that an Elder could committ an offense, hide it and even it were ever found out be totally exempt from any punishment. I wish I had a link. That little revelation was jaw-dropping!.