"Remove the wicked one from among you"".
Theres nothing in there about shunning and cutting off loved ones completely.
Mandated Shunning is a Crime
by Lee Marsh 125 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Drearyweather
Example 3: A parent that throws their 15 year old kid out of the house
WT doesn't ask parents to throw their minor kids out of their house:
Thereafter, what would parents do in behalf of their erring minor child? They are still responsible for their child, though he is disqualified as an unbaptized publisher or even if he is disfellowshipped because of wrongdoing after baptism. Just as they will continue to provide him with food, clothing, and shelter, they need to instruct and discipline him in line with God’s Word."- W88 11/15
If a minor child living in the home is disfellowshipped, Christian parents are still responsible for his upbringing.Loving parents may thus arrange to have a home Bible study with him, even if he is disfellowshipped. Maybe he will derive the most corrective benefit from their studying with him alone. Or they may decide that he can continue to share in the family study arrangement.” - km 8/02
In some instances, the disfellowshipped family member may still be living in the same home as part of the immediate household...Since his being disfellowshipped does not sever the family ties, normal day-to-day family activities and dealings may continue. - lv 207-209
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Drearyweather
Example 4: One parent, caves in and signs the papers for the baby to get the care it needs. She is disfellowshipped and then shunned for saving the life of her child.
Again, if someone accepts blood transfusion under extreme pressure, he/she is not disfellowshipped. In fact, even a JC is not formed. Just some pioneering privileges will be withheld for a few months:
"If someone willingly accepts a blood transfusion, perhaps because of being under extreme pressure, a committee (not judicial) should obtain the facts and determine the individual’s attitude. If he is repentant, the committee would provide spiritual assistance in the spirit of Galatians 6:1 and Jude 22, 23. Since he is spiritually weak, he would not qualify for special privileges for a period of time." - Shepherd 18:3
Example 6: A JW finds out that her daughter who was disfellowshipped is dying of cancer. She has been shunning her daughter for 12 years. The mother desperately wants to see her daughter again but her elder husband keeps reminding her that he will shun HER if she goes to the hospital.
Again, disfellowshipping doesn't occur in this case. The elders guideline states:
If a publisher in the congregation is known to have unnecessary association with disfellowshipped or disassociated relatives who are not in the household, elders should use the Scriptures to counsel and reason with him. He would not be dealt with judicially unless there is persistent spiritual association or he persists in openly criticizing the disfellowshipping decision.
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MeanMrMustard
@Drearyweather:
Exactly. Most of the examples given above just show how far parents, friends, and family go faaaaarrrr beyond what the WT says anyway.
That only goes to show - people have a choice. This "my-parents-had-no-choice-the-were-FORCED" line is false.
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Beth Sarim
Throwing ones kid out before they're an adult,,
...is just pure evil in itself.
Probably terrible parents.
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Lee Marsh
You have to ask yourself though, what pushes people to do this to their family? Or their friends? This is not normal behavior. If it is totally wrong according to the JWs why don' t they stop it. Why do they do it?
Instead of the word forced what about coerced?
Merriam-Webster
coerced; coercing1: to compel to an act or choicewas coerced into agreeingabusers who coerce their victims into silence2: to achieve by force or threatcoerce compliancecoerce obedience3: to restrain or dominate by forcereligion in the past has tried to coerce the irreligious—W. R. Ingehttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coerce
Cambridge Dictionary
coerceverb [ T ]
formal
UK /kəʊˈɜːs/ US /koʊˈɝːs/Add to word list to persuade someone forcefully to do something that they are unwilling to do:
The court heard that the six defendants had been coerced into making a confession.https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/coerce
When you threaten a person that there is a penalty for not following the rules, you are coercing obedience. For Witnesses there are penalties
- Possibility that you will be disfellowshipped for just talking to a disfellowshipped person. Then you will be shunned. If you haven't read Ray Franz then perhaps now is a good time.
- Death at Armageddon
- Losing out on a paradise earth.
Coercion is a legal term and it most definitely illegal. Few parents want to shun their child or never talk to a parent or miss out on a family member's marriage or the birth of a child that you will never see. It is beyond cruel to force them to do it. And they do it because they have been coerced into thinking they do not have a choice.
The victims of shunning are alone. Many times they have no friends on the outside. They are unfamiliar with the legal and social systems that could help them. After years of warnings they are afraid of therapy. And they have been repeatedly told over YEARS that those who leave, whether willingly or not, are doomed not only to die at Armageddon but doomed to a terrible life outside the Witnesses.
On top of that they grew up in a world of immediate friendship. They know very little about how to and who to trust. And depressed, searching for some kindness many fall into bad situations.
With the internet many have learned to develop happy satisfying lives. But it is so much harder than it needs to be if their development had included how to live in the real world instead of a closed group - a cult.
Making mandatory shunning a crime might not make sense to some of you. But we have to start somewhere. Courts are listening.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
Its judgments are binding on the countries concerned and have led governments to alter their legislation and administrative practice in a wide range of areas. The Court’s case-law makes the Convention a modern and powerful living instrument for meeting new challenges and consolidating the rule of law and democracy in Europe.The European Convention on Human Rights is an international treaty under which the member States of the Council of Europe promise to secure fundamental civil and political rights, not only to their own citizens but also to everyone within their jurisdiction.
The European Court of Human Rights is an international court set up in 1959. It rules on individual or State applications alleging violations of the civil and political rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1998 it has sat as a full-time court and individuals can apply to it directly. The Court examined hundreds of thousands of applications since it was set up.
The Convention secures:
• the right to life
• the right to a fair hearing
• the right to respect for private and family life
• freedom of expression
• freedom of thought conscience and religion
Our goal
Current relevant cases
As mandated shunning cases make their way from member state courts to the ECHR we will post updates.
Our ultimate goal is to set the legal precedent for mandated shunning as a hate crime, by funding international legal cases that highlight the issue and get it enshrined and enforced in law. We already have a major case in the Belgium Supreme Court. If successful, this will set the necessary precedent for prosecutions of high-control groups for mandated shunning. [Bold mine] -
EasyPrompt
"forced - obtained or imposed by coercion or physical power
coerce - persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats; obtain (something) by using force or threats" (definitions from oxford languages)
The FD$/GB/WTBT$ falsely claim to represent the God of the Bible, but then they disregard His clear commands on showing love and respect for life. The FD$/GB/WTBT$ do threaten the people they have influence over. They do carry out the threats when they cut the people off from their social groups and also sometimes their physical resources.
"18 U.S. Code § 912 - Officer or employee of the United States
Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 742; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(H), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)"
In the United States, it is illegal to falsely assume to be an officer acting under the authority of the United States.
How much more so it is illegal for the FD$/WTBT$ to falsely claim to be representing the God of Love when they enforce their ostracism doctrine that has a basis in Greek philosophy rather than the law of the Christ!
When the governments of the nations dismantle the WTBT$, Jehovah will not stand in their way. He will give them the strength and desire to do it, because it is in harmony with His will.
"It is God’s minister, an avenger to express wrath against the one practicing what is bad."
May you have God's speed and blessing in your work, Lee.💖
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Lee Marsh
https://www.aawa.co/shameful-shunning-in-english-and-dutch/ This is what they do and it must stop
Shameful Shunning in a Thousand Words
Original [English version] posted on November 3, 2013 by Rick Gonzalez
beginning quote --
This is a picture of my dad eating. He had just made lunch for me, but he couldn’t eat it with me. I had to eat it at another table with my four-year-old son while he sat there away from me.
Why? Because that’s what the Watch Tower Society tells him to do.
I posted this picture on a Facebook forum October 26th. The first response I received was, “Don’t know what to say. This boggles the mind; mind-control religion at its very worst!”
Minutes later a flood of comments and “Likes” followed, reminding me that a good picture can easily replace a thousand words.
For those of you who are curious, I must explain that my extended family began shunning me a year ago after I questioned the authority of the Watchtower’s Governing Body. My family’s unanimous well-meaning response to my doubts was by expressing their opinion that I “must be an apostate” and “severe shunning would surely bring me to my senses.”
After my mother died eight months ago, my dad, being all alone, went to the elders in the congregation he attended to see if he’d be allowed to visit with me. They said that since I was his son, he could visit with me at his house. But he could not discuss religion – nor could he share a meal with me at the same table.
Two weeks ago, I called my dad and asked if his grandson and I could visit him. He said “yes” and even offered to make lunch. But shortly before serving the meal, he said that he wasn’t going to sit at the same table with us. When I asked why, his reply was, “The organization says so.”
That confession allowed me to vent my feelings for maybe thirty minutes, describing to him about the harm caused by shunning and other Watchtower policies. He listened politely. But I could see that he was in a “cognitive dissonance mode” – so nothing I said registered with him.
After I spoke my piece, he served a nice meal to me and my son. Then he chose to sit alone in a small area of the kitchen with his back turned to us while eating his lunch. I sat there speechless, trying to figure out what was going on in his mind. That’s when it occurred to me that I had to capture this moment on my camera phone.
As I nibbled on my lunch, a feeling of pure sadness engulfed me. But as bad as I felt, I had this gut-wrenching feeling for Dad. This had to be much harder for him. Here’s an 80-year-old man thinking that he is doing this for God. He feels he has to suffer through this intuitively wrong act to be loyal to what he thinks is “God’s organization.”
But the story does not end here. My son is growing up seeing this silliness going on. Can the Watchtower be blind to the damage caused by their harmful policies, not just to us adults but to innocent kids who have “no dog in the fight?”
Tears were running down my face as I drove away from my father’s home. But I also realized that I was not alone in this situation. Today, there are thousands of us who no longer believe the Watchtower’s lies we used to feed on. We now know the truth about several Watchtower policies that sacrifice the civil rights of current and former members.
We can no longer turn a blind eye to the suffering and cries of others due to the Watchtower’s policy of shunning. I know that I can’t!
Extreme shunning is inhumane! It is a cruel and unjust punishment – a despicable act of a mind-controlling religion that’s afraid of losing its members and financial contributors. My goals are to make the non-JW world community aware of the emotional and psychological damage from shunning, for the court of public opinion to find the Watchtower guilty as charged, and to put a stop to this barbaric practice.
And yes – I think that sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words – sometimes, maybe even more! ---- end quote
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MeanMrMustard
Yeah, its horrible.
But what you are proposing is legislating someone's religious beliefs. It makes no difference IF the WT didn't teach shunning. The point is they do. Your family believes it. They could choose to do something else, but they don't because they agree - enough to cast their family aside.
Shunning is a dick move - but don't let the family get away with removing their agency and blaming the WT. They can choose something else.
You are proposing legislation of the very foundations of freedom that allow you to leave the religion. Of course the ECHR would say something like that. They confuse rights with entitlements all the time. Notice, shunning is akin to "hate speech". Such a dangerous concept. Do you know how easily the free speech we are exercising here could be considered "hate speech" if certain people were to get the power you are so willing to use now?
So reckless, and you don't even realize it.
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EasyPrompt
The UN will get the power they crave. They will remove the religious institutions, and in the process they will remove a lot of our freedoms. They'll go too far. It'll be like hell. But then the UN will be removed and replaced. It's going to be a process. That's why it's called "great tribulation". Once it starts, it'll be over in 3 1/2 years. Then we'll really be free.
