by Scully 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Some elders don't even ask the questions. One of the elders scheduled to go through the questions with my husband said, "Oh, I know you know this stuff. Why don't we watch the football game on TV instead."
So he never had to answer 1/3 of the questions. Duh!
Blondie
"Do all questions have to be answered correctly"? Wish Id thought of that. I could have fluffed a couple of key questions and saved myself years of suffering.
Minimus,
But, I've heard elders say that they couldn't adequately explain it either.
Incompetent, immoral elders, I'd be ashamed to know them.
IW
Geesh, IW, I wouldn't call them "immoral" because they couldn't explain a Watchtower mystery. But, I do think they should be executed.
interesting you mention about the questions. i have 2 experiences with that.
Minimus,
Here's the way I look at it. Someone who claims to be a shepherd and who encourages others to follow the Tower even to their death but who cannot explain a simple basic JW concept is immoral. If they do not understand the basis of the JW theology what in the hell are they doing there teaching others?
Elders should put their money where their mouth is otherwise they are culpable and immoral. Just as culpable and immoral as the GB. imo
IW
(sorry about the split)
2 experiences are. my wife before she was baptised had trouble making a reply on a few questions.
the "brothers" overseeing this just gave here some paragraphs from the society writings to help answer.they asked her how she would respond after reading the words in the paragraph, and just left it at that. kinda letting her take it at face value.
the 2nd experiance: my father studied for 4 years. he finally gave up trying to please them. interesting note: my father went through the questions for baptism 8-9 different occasions. my father was not able to answer the questions because he has a hard time reasoning,remembering,comprehending. he has had 3 strokes. my father would try to prepare for the questions because he wanted to dedicate his life and live forevere, he prepared by studying 8 hours a day, everyday. just to try to remember about 5 questions and answers at a time.no exagerration.
it was very painful to see how they treated him. no matter how hard he tried, a man with mountanous disabilities was never good enough. he got so depressed and tried to kill himself, thinking that God could not love him, because he could not live up to there legalistic ways of doing things. no, God could not look over his learning disability. now he takes his life day by day it has only been 6 mos since he has been to the hall. amazingly his depression is gone. and un fortunatly there is no words i can express. that would tell just how frustrating that time was.
JP, thanks for sharing this personal story with us.Isn't it terrible to know that mere, untrained men have the power to crush a person's spirit and determine who can come into the "ark of salvation"?
IW:
Part of the problem, from my perspective at least, is that there is no system of checks and balances in place. There are no tests for elders or ministerial servants for competency. There are no audits of who is doing what, who is teaching what, what the Bible "students" are actually learning compared to what the WTS's actual doctrine du jour is. The ministry that JWs do is passed off as being a kind of "professional" way of doing things. There are "schools" for speaking from the platform, "schools" for elders training, "schools" for pioneers, "schools" for missionary training, and people "study" to 'come into The Truth™', you write a test every couple of months called the Written Review. But the effectiveness of all these programs seems questionable, because there is no verification process, and particularly when you have poorly taught students "qualifying" for baptism, who then go out and poorly teach other students, ad infinitum.
The notion of teaching and training is a good one, but without a system whereby the effectiveness of these programs is tested (and really it is the responsibility of the corporation to initiate a program of this nature, not the employees) you have people going willy-nilly and doing whatever they want, simply because they have nobody checking up on them. That seems to be exactly what is happening in the organization.
Love, Scully
I wonder how many of the 'faithful J-duds' could answer the questions today? I fear most of them would get a number of these questions wrong. I always figured it was the heart condition that counted. If the Publisher stayed 'active' they would get it sooner or later. We were 'encouraged' to 'help' the study pass the questions. This would bring the Baptism count up for the Hall.I discouraged one person from getting Baptized, (wrong reasons for being Baptized) and the PO got pissed at me. No more question sessions for me. Maverick
