Hi everyone, this is very interesting, I found it on E-Watchman on the Paradise cafe forum...
Special talk of a Governing Body member in Romania
http://e-jehovahs-witnesses.com/viewtopic.php?t=709
Saturday on the 18th of september 2004 Gerit Leosch, one of those 10 members of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, made the talk for dedicating the first asembly hall in Romania. There were 9500 brothers in a town with a population of 10.000 in north west of Romania named Negresti Oas.
In the next day (Sunday), in the city of Cluj Napoca, in the center of Transilvanya was organised a special meeting where there were invited all brothers from Romania. The assistance was 24000. Leosch pronounced a very long speech (one hour and 30 minutes). He talked about getting in the new world under the rule of Christ. He spoke a lot about the modern history of the organisation and gave many usefull advices for the elders.
Two of his sentences were surprinsing for me:
1. "We have to recognize that the first 3 presidents of the Society disposed of discretionary authority".
2. "The Governing Body came into existence in 1976".
What do you peoples think about that? Are they preparing little by little to admit some things?
Reference is made to the Pathways JW forum, here are further comments...
http://pathways-online.com/yabbse/index.php?board=9;action=display;threadid=420;start=0
| Re:Special talk of a Governing Body member in Romania « Reply #4 on: September 21, 2004, 07:51:11 AM » | Reply with quote |
Hello everybody
Yeap, I was there, feeling miserably because of the cold rain pouring above our heads, in the open air stadium... The assembly was very, very poorly organized, and I was one of the >5000 that remained standing in the rain, on the running track, because the stadium was in repairings and 1/3 of it wasn't usable.
Anyway... Losch (not Leosch, lamb
Now, this was a very interesting step forward. But it was followed by two steps back.
Instead of giving a recent example of GB errors, he did the common thing. That is, stumping on the memory of Russell and Rutherford, who were presented like sincere men, but imperfect and authoritarian.
Instead of explaining why some wise guy in some GB department gave green light to an association as an NGO with the UN (in my opinion, a simple error, not a conspiracy - perhaps they were keen to use UN facilities in helping the brothers when disasters struck, like they did in the former Yugoslavia), he went on to say that even Moses was imperfect, and erred.
And I was standing right there, 50 m from him in the rain, keeping my teeth from strucking each other, and hoping for more. Well, this didn't came.
The main theme was: we are not your leaders, we are your slaves, only Christ is your leader, and our leader.
Another point of interest (which, by the way, was raised on this very forum) was the relation between the GB and the 'discreet and faithful slave'. He stressed out that in the Ist century the entire congregation was the discreet and faithful slave, but that not all of them were participating in doctrine decisions. He pointed out that more than half of the annointed today are women, and many more are brothers unable to be in a position of authority. However, they are still part of the 'faithful slave', the GB being only a representant, 'guided' by Christ.
So, Christ would govern over Jehovah's people through the representant of the 'faithful and discreet' slave.
This was followed by questions and answers - rethorically speaking - 'who's our master?' - 'Christ', 'is the GB the slave' - 'false', and so on.
Yes, I do believe that his sermon went over the heads of 80% of the audience, as this questions are not even thinked at here in Romania.
In the same time, we have here some thousands of 'apostates' - JWs that separated themselves from the main organization some 15-20 years ago (perhaps lamb know better), who don't recognize the authority of the GB and state that the FDS is right here, in Romania...
What can I say as a conclusion - I really enjoyed the trip to Transylvania - my family organized a two days trip to profit from the fact that the assembly was made in the center of Romania - I visited Sighisoara, the place of birth of Dracula's father, Alba Iulia, where a huge fortress is still standing, then many other cities linked with my people's history. Many, many fortified medieval cities and fortresses in pretty good shape can be seen there, and the landscape is fabulous. I live in the southern Romania, in the capital, so I had to cross the Carpathians to get there, and to come back, and boy it's beautiful!
I don't think we'll get any more excuses from the GB, as this sounded like a justification rather than an sincere aplology. All the bad was in the past, and nothing critical was said of the current or more recent GB errors. Thinking all the bad is behind us means closing the eyes on the deep, deep problems showing their ugly head in the JW community. That's pretty sad.
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What do you make of it? Any old timers have any ideas?
Truthseeker