waton, aha, got it :)
Evidence of WT bad intent - How they handled changing the meaning of "porneia"
by AlainAlam 38 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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LongHairGal
ATLANTIS:
(Petra)
I remember when I read that testimony of Hayden Covington where he talked about the importance of unity at all costs. I don’t remember verbatim what was said but it was along the lines that changes ‘had to come from the top and not from everywhere else, and even if there was a wrong/false teaching it had to stay that way until they [the leadership] changed it.’
I was shocked when I read this and it really sealed the deal that the Witness religion is not interested in the welfare of their followers but only about their power over the situation and their image.
There is NO forgiveness for this religion as far as I am concerned and I want nothing to do with them.
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road to nowhere
There were lots of divorces some time back, every one the man was aaid to be turned queer i wonder if it was the "unnatural " definition being misapplied
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Nitty-Gritty
@AlainAlam,
I think you need to rephrase "they played a direct role in breaking marriages up" . The reason why the question of lewd practices within the framework of a marriage even came up was because one of the marriage mates abhorred such practices, this is why the original article mentions "the offended party". There was a sister in my old congregation whose husband wanted her to perform oral sex on him. She was disgusted with this and found him disgusting. She was torn between "obeying" her husband and her belief that what he wanted was a "lewd" practice. This was in the late 80's so no divorce for her! However, she would have loved it if she could have divorced him on the grounds of porneia.
What I find disturbing though is by whose authority can the WT say it's ok if you got an unscriptural divorce? I guess they must reckon that since whoever did this, did so in good faith, i.e. believed what the WT said about lewdness within marriage being porneia and therefore Jehovah will not hold them accountable. But the question remains, will Jehovah hold those who made such assertions accountable? Well you already mentioned that this mistake was not intentional, therefore perhaps Jehovah did overlook it...
In summary, I do not think this was a case of breaking marriages apart. The marriages were already broken if there existed sexual disharmony among the marriage mates. And as regards unscriptural remarriage, well that was no fault of the marriage mates who were only acting on the WT's misinterpretation, and this misinterpretation was a mistake and not done out of malice.
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AlainAlam
Hello Nitty-Gritty,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and for the effort you're putting into being objective. This shows your genuineness :) I noticed two persons disliked your comments, don't let that bother you :)
Allow me, however, to answer two points you mentioned.
The first is that the "misinterpretation was a mistake and not done out of malice". I believe I agree. I have a hard time thinking these men would actually *want* to cause unscriptural divorces - particularly given all they've done, like promoting communication in the family, for example. But that was not my point. The fact that they didn't even admit responsibility or apologize for such a mistake is the problem. I can't understand how someone repentant would go on with his life without saying "here's my mistake, I'm sorry about it". It's like John Baptist said: produce fruits that befit repentance. Where are those fruits?
The second is "The marriages were already broken if there existed sexual disharmony among the marriage mates". Well, no. A problem between me and my wife doesn't break my family. We can work through it. If we accept the biblical perspective that divorce is only acceptable in cases of immorality outside marriage, then one mate's abhorring lewd practices inside marriage is not grounds for divorce. If a spiritual authority tells me such a divorce would be acceptable in Jehovah's eyes, and I choose to divorce (inside of working to salvage my marriage) based on this authority's assessment, then that authority played a direct role in the breaking of my marriage. I think that's obvious.
Please do let me know if you think I'm missing something!
Alain
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TD
I find this really troubling. They played a direct role in families breaking up and honest-hearted individuals committing fornication. They can't just dismiss it in a footnote.
I agree, AA,
However this is far from the only example of that behavior.
Gamma globulin, which is the basis for virtually all post-exposure vaccines was once forbidden.
To put this in real life terms, let's say you step on a nail or some other metallic object. If it's been more than five years since your last tetanus shot, your physician will inject tetanus immune globulin instead of the standard booster. He won't think twice about it and neither will you.
Not only has the JW parent organization never apologized for forbidding this type of treatment, they promote the fiction today that blood based preparations were gradually allowed as they became available, which is not true.
People suffered real, physical harm remaining faithful to JW medical quackery and nobody has ever even acknowledged it, let alone apologized for it.
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JWTom
Another great example that is along these lines it the organizations response to viewing porn and especially Internet porn that has become easily accessible in the last 20 years or so.
When BoE first started handling cases where people were confessing to viewing porn the organization in many cases came down like a hammer and some (many?) were even disfellowshipped for this. Within a few shorts years the org. had decided...."whoa! there are way too many people viewing porn to be this strict, we need to dial back the severity of looking at porn". I was an E at the time and it was really eye opening to see how the direction was very severe at first...but then became much more relaxed. All the JWs that received more severe punishment were just collateral damage since the org. had no idea a strict/severe approach on porn would backfire on them.
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AlainAlam
TD, you're right. I just watchtowered it:
*** w58 9/15 p. 575 Questions From Readers ***
That's it. No apologies there.
● Are we to consider the injection of serums such as diphtheria toxin antitoxin and blood fractions such as gamma globulin into the blood stream, for the purpose of building up resistance to disease by means of antibodies, the same as the drinking of blood or the taking of blood or blood plasma by means of transfusion?—N. P., United States.
No, it does not seem necessary that we put the two in the same category, although we have done so in times past. -
AlainAlam
JWTom, thanks for bringing this up. First time I hear about it. As far as I know, the oldest reference to pornography and disfellowshipping is the '06 QfR. What did the elders use to do before that? Were there any instructions? I tried to look up letters to the elders online, but I couldn't find anything relevant.
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wozza
I disagree with NittyGritty ,the governing body provided a clause to the JW marraige contract to get out of a marraige.
No one can convince me that the brothers at that time would have ignored the decision of the body then and said to themself that I hate my mate but I will ignore the GB and endure the lewd conduct! they would have done what we all did , fall in line with JW teaching.
The inconsistent JW teachings can be demonstrated by this fact ,that GB condemns ones for not doing everything they teach as an apostate ,and yet they accept and glorify the writings of Solomon in the bible , yet he died an apostate to the kingdom of god in his time!