It might not be a DF offence but it certainly doesn't provide an environment where our dear sister get an invitation to local elders place for dinner with her pagan husband.
Why Marrying An Outsider Is NOT A Disfellowshipping "Offense"
by Divergent 23 Replies latest jw friends
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Scully
Want to date a non-JW? Keep everything on the down-low, not a word to your JW family or friends, and keep the romance clandestine. Take a trip, meet your lover there, elope. Come back with a spouse. There's nothing the Elders™ can do about it. -
La Capra
I recall, back in the 1980's, in our congregation, 2 single female members who were best friends. Both were physically beautiful and with great personalities. One was the daughter of an elder, the other's father was not a JW (her mom was). As they approached their late 20s and it was apparent there were no suitable prospects, they happened to meet two fellows that were not JWs and were also best friends. As the relationships progressed, both couples decided to get married. They brought their beaus to the meetings, the fiancés had bible studies (with the elder) and they were going to get baptized--blah-blah-blah.
The elder's daughter saw fit to go and get married before her beau's baptism took place and NOTHING happened to her. Bride number 2 started to plan her own wedding, inviting many the same friends that attended the elder's daughter's wedding (said elder having performed the ceremony).
Boom-the special needs talks start up: there were three of them in two months: That we shouldn't date unbelievers, that we shouldn't associate with sisters that do, that we shouldn't attend such a wedding between a a sister and an unbeliever, that the bride-to-be should be marked, etc.
It was so horrible that under threat from her mom that she would not attend their wedding, the second bride and her fiancé postponed their wedding until after he got baptized. Everyone talked about how faithful she was and how she was rewarded. But I thought everyone was a bunch of hypocritical bullies. I was about 15 and decided then and there that I would never mark or shun anyone, and would associate with any and all who treated me kindly and wanted to hang out. (Of course I eventually got marked and shunned for that attitude.)
Oh, and that elder's son-in-law? He never did get baptized, the elder's daughter was never marked or shunned, and the elder retained all of his "privileges."
So that's what the elders might do about it.
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Dunedain
La capra - I have seen very similar hypocrisy too, in my old congregation. In fact, elders children getting away with everything, while others are "marked" for the same offenses, is RAMPANT in the org.
Your attitude was commendable, I would do the same thing when I used to see the hypocrisy.
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jwleaks
The whole concept of marriage is lost on god. Consider the following. Two devout Satanists get married in a ceremony according to the rituals of Satan, in which during the nuptuals 100 virgins are sacrificed to the lord of darkness and their blood is drunk by the wedding party. Gruesome? Yes. But the two most important questions are: Does jehovah recognize the marital arrangement? If 'no' then marriage means nothing in the eyes of god. If 'yes' then do the words of Jesus apply in which he said "what god has yolked together let no man pull apart" thereby crediting jehovah with the aforementioned satanic marital arrangement.
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Vidiot
Personally, I think most of the problems that present-day fundy religions have with the "institution" of marriage stem from the simple fact of the elephant in the room...
...that in the Bible they so proudly claim to follow, marriage constituted property ownership.
However, we cannot own other human beings in this day and age, so IMO, many of the so-called "Biblical" stipulations and restrictions regarding present-day marriage can arguably be considered as no longer valid.
And they find that prospect disturbing.
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wisdomfrombelow
You can get disfellowshipped for marrying an unbeliever. And it is automatic if the unbeliever is a disfellowshipped witness. I think the branch manual said that if a person would willfully remarry their disfellowshipped former mate, that would be grounds for their disfellowshipping. Someone can "fact check" that but I believe it is one of the only instances where it is automatic disfellowshipping and not automatic disassociation.
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Vidiot
"Automatic disfellowshipping" and "automatic disassociation" are pretty much the same thing, from what I can gather.
And the list of things that are automatic DAing offenses - as opposed to old-school JC-style DFing offenses - is growing (the Org has been doing that sort of thing lately, to avoid looking like they're threatening the membership into rule compliance).
Pretty soon the former will outnumber the latter, I suspect.
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Divergent
wisdomfrombelow:
You can get disfellowshipped for marrying an unbeliever. And it is automatic if the unbeliever is a disfellowshipped witness.
This is unusual and has never happened in my country before to my knowledge. There were quite a number of cases of JW's here marrying outsiders and almost none that I know of got disfellowshipped. The only exceptions were a sister who married an outsider and had a wedding involving other religious rituals and another sister who slept with her "worldly" boyfriend and got pregnant before marrying him
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konceptual99
It's simple. How could a person disfellowshipped for marrying outside of the Lord get reinstated? Only by getting a divorce. Which God hates and if not for adultery would be non scriptural. Catch 22.