I can honestly say I never trusted the elders in my congregation; there wasn’t a single one of them that I thought would be of any use what-so-ever in helping with a problem. On the contrary, whenever I HAD to speak to an elder, I invariably felt worse afterwards!
This brings me to the point of this post. Whilst accepting that there are undoubtedly some elders somewhere who are sincere in their desire to be of help, when I was a JW I often thought about those that may have left the organisation - and especially those that have since been found out to be plain obnoxious in life.
Imagine such a person had been an elder on a judicial committee and the case involved details of an extremely intimate and/or highly sensitive or embarrassing nature. That person, now no longer in the "privileged" position of elder, possesses information that could be extremely damaging. I’ve never felt comfortable about this and can imagine many potentially heart-breaking scenarios resulting. It’s also no secret that some elders’ wives know as much about what took place in JCs as the elders themselves!
We had one case in our hall concerning an attractive married sister who had spent the night in a hotel with another sister’s husband. Gossip abounded and I could imagine certain elders salivating at the thought of getting to be on the JC. In fact, the case was so juicy one could have sold tickets easily!! One elder gave me information about the case that I had no right hear – but which I couldn’t report I’d heard because of the closed-ranks mentality of the body (his father was the PO). He thoroughly enjoyed reciting the details of what took place in the hotel room.
I know there are a number of ex-elders on this forum who would never dream of revealing what they know, but the others are potentially dangerous. Here’s another reason why one’s "sins" should never be confessed to a group of men.
Dansk