Amazing:
I agree with your comments, but need to add that I believe the greater danger remains with active Elders. Often, these men will use older confessed information against the unsuspecting JW in future issues. Example: A young man, perhaps 17 or 18 years old, masturbates and confesses to an Elder. Later on, maybe at age 22 or 23 the same young man is now dating, and is seen holding hands with or kissing a girl ... he will often be counseled, and if the Elder he confessed to learns of the newer events, will use the older information to show how the young man has a "weakness" ... or ... at other times, such information will be used to stop a young man from advancing in the organization ... always peppered with the notion that he somehow needs "more time."
How true that is!! I was asked to appear before the Service Committee; that they wanted to talk to me about why I wasn't appointed an elder. The service overseer was the first to start talking and told me that they were concerned about my temper.
"My temper?", I asked incredulously. "What do you mean?"
"Well", he replied "there was that altercation you had with Bro. XXXXXXXX"
"Bro. XXXXXXXX", I exclaimed, "but that was TEN years ago!"
I'd had an argument with this elder, quite literally a decade before - and the elder apologised!! Now, it was being levelled against me!
Struggling now, the service overseer then said: "Er, well, you also had a recent argument with Bro. XXXXXX"
"Bro. XXXXXX!!", I asked in utter shock!
Now, OK, if I've done something wrong I'll take the punishment, but this was an absolute lie! I've never had an argument with this person, or anyone else in the KH save for the elder above - and he deserved it - in my life. The bottom line was the service committee was doing its utmost to hold me back. I knew it was a waste of time so just sat there like an imbecile for the rest of the meeting. What can you do with a group of people, one of whom is the P.O., and he allows his son, also an elder, to make fun of virtually everyone in the congregation with impunity. This is the same guy who told me about the intimate details of the couple having the affair that he'd learnt during a JC!
The body of elders are obviously responsible for my family and I being shunned - and yet one has a daughter living with a guy and she's not even been counseled. I don't have a problem with the girl at all - but the double standards many of us have been subjected to by elders leaves a bitter taste.
Dansk