Ozzie,
I agree with Danny Bear (!)
Your observation that:
They just do not see themselves as sinners along with everybody else. And so they cannot reflect the love that Christ showed.
IS profound.
The whole "we are God's specially chosen people, the only ones using his name, the only ones who correctly understand the Bible, the only ones doing this great preaching and Bible-education work, all through God's ONLY ORGANIZATION on earth" develops in all Witnesses, to some degree or another, the idea that though they may be imperfect, they rarely willfully sin (that's why OTHER PEOPLE get DF'd!). Since they are so enlightened and do not practice sin, they think of themselves as superior to the world. Which, when reflected upon, is precisely the bad attitude of the Pharisees that Jesus was pointing out and condemning in the first century.
It is this lack of love that essentially drove most (if not all of us away). In some cases it was realizing that our own JW families did not love us as Christ taught. In some cases, it was that our own elders did not love us as Christ taught. In MY case, the straw that broke the camel's back, was that our own elders did not love ANOTHER physically and spiritually sick person and her innocent children as Christ taught.
Interestingly, I DID get to point this out to the elders at the first meeting after I submitted my DA letter. One of them seemed at a loss to understand why the elders were not viewed as "fellow brothers" and
rather as the adversarial disciplinarians. (Obviously this was the youngest elder.) I gave them a laundry list of instances where I personally experienced a lack of loving interest on the part of the elder body.
And my DA letter precisely stated that I was grateful for the assistance and help shown "as long as I was active." It was subtle, but it is SO true. If one is slowing down, one can expect to be ignored in direct proportion to the lack of time or meeting attendance. Instead of that raising alarms, and efforts to help, the cold shoulder is given.
The Society's actions described on another thread about how the Thai Gilead student and the diabetic Bethel brother were treated in their time of need are stunning examples of the historical lack of compassion displayed by Jehovah's Witnesses.
And when individual Witnesses are motivated to do the kind, loving thing, their natural impulses are often "checked" by another brother or sister's hardline attitude.
Very sad.
outnfree
(who had more to say, but has to go pick up my tee from driver's ed now)
