Do JW really spy on people in the congregation? (page 3)

shamus

I just can't believe my ears and eyes. I've been to many meetings with spouse, and never felt a genuine spirit of love

Indeed, they are told by reporting such wrongdoing, they are helping the erring individual, and will ultimately help them. The problem is, when they 'find out' the wrongdoing, they 'reprove' with scripture, and then decide for themselves if the person is 'repentant' or not. Most times they are not, and end up DF'd.... to have no contact with family/friends until they are deemed 'worthy' of being in the 'congregation'.

Sometimes it takes only 6 months, usually years.

They have no spirit of love, because they do not know what love is. They turn it on and off like a light switch.

Remember, when you're in 'the truth', big brother is always watching.

I can remember this one very disturbed individual who used to drive by brothers and sisters houses at all hours of the day and night (shift worker) and would call it doing a 'drive by'. Now he was not enlisted or anything like that to get dirt, but it just shows the bizarre kinds of people that this religion attracts.

garybuss

When I was 21 I lived in Vermillion South Dakota for a few months. I was followed by Witnesses and my house was staked out by a Witness there by the last name of Marvin. He got his orders from his CO in Yankton. His name was Lance Roberts. When I confronted Roberts about it, he admitted ordering it and it stopped.

They said I came and went at odd hours. I worked nights in a bakery:-) I stayed a Witness for 9 more years after that. When they started to get mean to me about the same time they were trying to build escape routes for their soon to fail predictions for 1975, I left.

I left 30 years ago and I still am touched by it all. I made the HUGE mistake of marrying a (third generation) Witness woman and allowing my children to be indoctrinated. Plus I was raised by second generation Witness parents so I had a seriously flawed outlook and a mess for core beliefs.

Gretchen956

OMG I know Lance Roberts, his sister Virginia was in my congregation in Montana. Oh the stories I could tell about them.

Re: spying - I have had numerous first hand experiences with this and it is NOT just serious stuff either. Here is a partial list of my offenses while a late teen for which I had been turned in to the elders and then promptly hauled in for a committee meeting. Yes, I said JC meeting:

In a car in which there were 8 teenagers, my then boyfriend kissed me very briefly on the lips.
I was turned in for "flirting" with a clown at the world's fair.
I was turned in for smiling at some boys in another car on the freeway out of state (strangers) as I passed them.

Those are just the ones I can remember! However, the worst case of spying I personally know of was when the elders from the Libby Montana congregation watched outside through a window while my cousin had sex with her boyfriend so that they could df her. I'll never forget it because on the way out of the committee meeting one of the elders commented to her that in his 30 years of marriage his wife had NEVER been on top (as she had been doing). She just looked at him and said, oh I'm so sorry.

I was always in trouble though, because I was considered uppidy (not knowing my place as a woman), independent, and stubborn.

Sherry

undercover

I've only been followed once that I know of and I don't know that it was a JW. It might have been a PI. I was friends with a recently divorced sister who's ex-husband was giving her trouble on several fronts. She suspected being followed by strangers and was getting nasty letters from attorneys. At the same time, elders where hounding her on her new freedoms from marriage. They didn't like all the brothers hanging out with her. I caught on to being followed late one night after leaving her place. I never knew who it was.

I tend to be pretty observant about what goes on around me and since I have become inactive, I have actually tried to keep an eye out for being watched. But I haven't seen anything. And I have to feel sure that I haven't been watched, because if they had been, they would have surely been able to nail me for several things by now. Let's just say that I have enjoyed my new freedom from religious superstitions and oppression.

That's not to say it doesn't happen. Maybe some people are more of a threat to elders or situations than others. I wasn't prominent or anything. Just a regular ole dumb dub.

Undaunted Danny

The misadventures of the Watchtower's ominous Orwellian odyssey.....

Circa 2000,when I lived at 148 union street (home here in) Bangor Maine.The Jdubs had an office in the basement(unknown to me for 14 months) where the incoming feed for the building's telephone service was also located. I no longer live there. Undaunted Danny "apostate with attitude" [ Edited: Tactical to practical: Here are some useful tips for dealing with stalkers,creeps,ghouls,groupies and UFO sightings. (A)Stalkers?Rule # 1 always break up the Line of sight [ LOS ] So they don't know where you are at. (B) http://security.yahoo.com/ erase your tracks online security (C MORE..............http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/9/73889/1.ashx

oneofmany

The elders stay away from words like "spying" but in fact say you must turn in those you think may be doing wrong, and those who are elders in congregations with child molestors try to find out who may be talking about the molestors. I have often had things told to my marriage mate in the bedroom told back to me by elders.

And since I know my mate did not tell those most intimate details to the elders and was assured of this, I have no doubt that some among Jehovah's Witness congregations stoop to wiretapping. The regular eyeball type of spying is far more rampant and, as explained, taught as a matter or routine "to keep Jehovah's congregations clean" but isn't called spying but doing detective work, or being observant, being awake, being alert and the like.

It's worse, as said, when the elders themselves have fear we may talk among ourselves about child molesting they themselves or ministerial servants have done. It's good to see so many others talking about this here too. I wish Randy Watters and Bill Bowens would address this issue or else get somebody else too. I've also known elders and ministerials doing the Peeping Tom stuff another person mentioned earlier.

I am ashamed to say it, but following talks on the need to do so, I myself did once turn in another Jehovah's Witness whom I spied on. That's the only word for it "spied", not just observed or reported or did a little detective work.

Forgive me.

kilroy2

Danny read your post, and could not disagree more about the gun thing, the stat, for that comes from the anti gun side, when you look at the stats with out the anti gun glasses on over 1.5 million people each year defend them selves successfully from crime, I have a ccw and carry a weapon and have for many years and never had a problem, If needed I would rather have gun in my pocket than a sony, lets see who has the best chance when some one comes at you with a knife or gun and you point a sony at them, and I point my fire storm. .380 auto. in this case the pen in not mightier than the sword or pistol.

Undaunted Danny

Killroy2

I am a gun lover,my price piece' was' a legal Ak-47 with a 75 rd drum mag.

I could talk gun chat all day till the cows come home.

Everything I say/do is true and is for "tainting the jury pool" alt

Undaunted danny over and out.

M.J.

While JWs feel that this is all totally justified to "keep the congregation clean", and this is yet another sign of the group's "dedication to Jehovah", they are not unique in their use of these stringent methods. This is a common mark of authortarian groups. Take for example a small cult/commune in AZ called the "Aquarian Concepts Community". Here is a quote from an opposing website on their methods of control:

To instill loyalty and obedience, a system of rewards and punishments is used to keep members in line. Depending on your behavior, you can accumulate chips - sort of like poker chips I guess. White chips are for good obedient lap dog like behavior, blue chips are for warnings, and red chips are obviously bad. If you have a lot of white you get the primo chores and housing. Blue and red get you relegated to the yurts [living in a mud hut] and hard labor details. Group members are all to fink on each other for a chance to advance in pecking order and get the white chips. Lots of backstabbing and spying on each other in order to carry the favor of Gabriel [the cult leader] and the elders. It's similar to how people are taught to spy on each other in places like Nazi Germany and hard line communist countries like the Old Soviet Union or especially East Germany. Places where you always had to be careful because you never knew who was going to inform on you. Even in your own family. http://www.citilink.com/~mjfitz/join.htm

Here is a report by a dissenting website regarding the methods of a major church (5-10 million members) called the Iglesia ni Cristo:

Ministers, Deacons and Deaconesses have openly admitted the Iglesia Ni Cristo Administration has instructed them to visit the homes of members to look for irregularities, signs of members celebrating non-sanctioned worldly holidays such as Christmas and having religious artifacts in the home as well as anything else the church might not approve of. Reports of such members are made to the Central Administration.

cruzanheart

(spouse said that doesn't happen very often, people ripping their way outta there)

Yes, it does. It happens all the time. Poor thing, your husband sounds like he's trying really hard to do what everyone is telling him is the "right" thing, but I think deep down he knows it's all a sham.

Nina

Do JW really spy on people in the congregation?

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