Bad Elder Stories (page 3)

berylblue

Mary, how terrible...so glad you told him off.

Rosemarie

I told this story when I first got here but it is a bad elder story worth telling again. My husband died in 1999 and the elder of my congeration and his wife showered attention on me and my children at the meetings. We were in the process of building a new kingdom hall and this elder asked for money to be put up for the society from the congreation. During one talk after the meeting I told them I had no money till my husbands life insurance came thru. He asked to use my money for the building project and the society would give it right back. Not long after that he came to me after a meeting and said he was taking $20,000.00 of the money to use and would have it back before the society needed it. Gave me a contract and everything. Three weeks later he came to my house drunk and made sexual advances towards me. I told other brothers at the hall what was going on and a committee was started. His wife came to my house and told me I didn't know what I had done to their family. He denied borrowing the money that was supposed to go for the building fund. I gave them the contract. They said it had nothing to do with the society and I was trying to defame God's name. Arguements broke out...another brother told them he saw him drunk too...he was told to stay out of it..more arguements...to make a long story short...I am disfellowshipped. The elder said he didn't borrow the money...his wife did behind his back and it was her debt and they filed bankruptcy. The whole time the elders were telling me if I took anyone to court God would stop me and I would die. He is still in good standing.

gentleheart

I would have to say the worst Elder I knew was not even quite an Elder when we met. I'll have to explain that one. I received an IM on AOL one day at work from someone requesting some information about real estate in my city as he saw "paralegal" on my AOL profile. The person requesting lived about an hour away, was male, and had a great sense of humor. We chatted back and forth, nothing truly out of the ordinary. After several days of this, he asked if he could call and chat with me on the telephone. During this time, I was an emotional wreck (mother just died, suffering the pain of isolation from my family due to DA, son had just moved back with his father, lots of stress at work, I needed something, but I just didn't know what). Something about him was so "different" from most of the non-JW men I had dated since my divorce and DA. He called and during the course of the telephone call, we clicked in such a way, it was almost eerie. I had been debating going back to the "organization" and the longer we talked, the more I got a strange sense that I knew him from somewhere and that he just MIGHT be a JW. Sure enough, after 5 hours on the telephone, he used a phrase that only a JW would use. I broke down crying and asked him point blank if he was a JW. He said yes, he was; and an Elder. Come to find out, he knew my family, etc., and it was such a feeling of "coming home" that I didn't think about the consequences of going back; I was hurting and depressed. The next day, he showed up at my office to take me to lunch (yes, ALONE!) Then, he waited until I got off work and took me to dinner (AGAIN ALONE!) When he brought me back to my home, he was definitely NOT acting Elderly. LOL If I had said the word, we would have had sex right then and there. I told him I wanted to reconcile with my father, my family, but I was very tentative about going back to the KH. He "took over" and more or less pestered the congregation whose territory I lived in to take action. Unfortunately, stupid me got involved with him. During the 6 months I was attending meetings, trying to figure out what I wanted, we were having sex several times a week, anywhere and everywhere, and he was sneaking over to see me several times a week. The closer the time came to my reinstatement, the stranger things got (canceling dates for Elder's meetings, etc.) Finally, a month after my reinstatement, he began the "I don't know what I want, but I love you" mode. I knew that mode from non-JW men I had dated, so I wasn't emotionally devastated over that, per se. The devastation came when I walked into the KH the last time and some mutual friends couldn't wait to tell me that he had JUST been re-appointed an Elder. To my surprise, he had stepped down during an ugly divorce several years prior (I knew about the divorce), and until he was re-appointed, he had no compunction about playing games with me. His father is a prominent Elder in his congregation, and he made a comment or two that it would take time for his family to accept me given the fact that I had DA'd myself. (EXCUSE ME! HIS father was DF'd for years for alcohol!) He's a thing of the past, I've not heard a word in over 2 years (and don't want to ever do so), but what little ability to trust I ever had in the organization died with him. I have seen so much since a child, but I never thought an ELDER (past, present or future) could possibly act in this way. Oh, BTW, he did tell me that he had "met" (nothing more.....) another woman off the internet. I guess my whole belief system crumbled after that, plus the fact that I didn't feel I had to prove myself to ANYONE to be accepted and I realized when I did go back how far I had grown away from the organization. Sorry for rambling, but..... once i got started typing.......

Gentle.....

jws

I remember there was a couple of teenagers from our hall that began dating around age 17. They seemed to hit it off well and everyone expected wedding bells in another year or so. But that all came to a shocking end when he was disfellowshipped and she was reproved. From the talks that followed, there was apparently some "dry humping" involved.

Now she was an elder's daughter, which explains the lesser punishment. He wasn't as fortunate and times were hard for him. I heard updates on him through friends (since I couldn't talk to him). He tried awfully hard to get reinstated, but they would use any excuse to hold against him. Once his car broke down during a snowstorm and he walked the rest of the way to make it to the kingdom hall. They chided him for being late and held it against him. But he was being, as far as I could tell, very upstanding and doing everything he could to get reinstated.

Meanwhile, while he was DFed, his girlfriend found some dork from another hall and got married so fast it would make your head spin. Knowing what she was like and this guy, it looked like a total setup and a very mismatched one. Early 80's, picture the Farrah haircut, very outgoing and sexy, matched up with a shy, lanky, nerd. Meanwhile, the guy got tired of trying and gave up, filled with anger and frustration. Fast forward a few years, said girl again tries to enter his life. Turns out, she's been cheating on her husband regularly. But mr. disfellowshipped turned her away. Who had the better morals and who probably should have been punished instead?

Aside from the occasional elder being a hardass, this whole incident led me to believe these elders were part of a conspiracy to protect their own. To go easy on the one elder's daughter and not DF her and then to keep her boyfriend out of the picture until her parents could get her married off.

DIM

the absolute worst was some idiot named Rod Bartholomew while in the Hatboro, PA congregation (I think he's in the midwest somewhere now)...i was like 15 or 16 years old and this guy would just pick me apart any chance he got. One time he pulled my dad aside and told him that he had seen me in ripped jeans - I was working on my car! Although it doesn't seem like a big deal just writing it out....it was awful to be a teenager and to always be picked apart just because I wasn't an elders kid. On the other hand, my best friend at the time, Bill Morrison and his girlfriend Jen Smith were having sex and doing anything they could....everyone knew, but nothing happened. Oh yeah, Bill's dad was an elder. Coincidence?

Dawn

After reading all these stories the scripture comes to mind where Jesus says Many will say to me Lord Lord...didn't we do all these things in your name...and he will turn them away saying "I never knew you, get away from me you workers of lawlesness".

And how about "having a form of godly devotion but proving false to it's power". If these elders were truly touched by the holy spirit they would be filled with empathy for those in need and would reach out to try and help them. I realize that they are only human and would still make stupid mistakes - but for the most part they would really truly want to save everyone and turn noone away.

foreword

Dawn...agree with you 100%

Beck_Melbourne

Bad Elder Stories??

I knew an elder who would not allow his wife to visit their grown disfellowshipped son. Some time on the son had an accident and as a result was wheelchair bound. He had no one...as all his family were JW and were forbidden to have anything to with him. He couldn't cope alone, and he took his own life.

~Beck~

shamus

Isn't that enough to make you want to strangle the father? Jehovah's witnesses are so nice.... I want to kick one right now just for hearing about that....

Scout

My spouse and I used to help an invalid brother in a convelescent home. Once when we went to visit him, he was depressed. He told us that the reason he was so depressed was because we were the only ones from the hall visiting him.

We decided that at the next Thursday night meeting, we'd talk to all the "friends" and create a visitation schedule.

Everyone was quite supportive, except one jerk of an elder. He told us that he wouldn't visit the sick brother because he didn't want to "part of our clique". We were so shocked and when we mentioned his comment to another elder we felt close to, the other elder said "well, that's just his personality". To which I replied, "well I thought we were to put on the new personality" to which I was told not to talk negatively about an elder.

Can't win with that group.

Bad Elder Stories