Official WT Policy Breaks Up Families

IT Support

Gumby posted a comment about WT's disfellowshipping policy. I checked with him where it was from, and this is the source reference:

Baptized persons who have not associated for some time.

If you learn of serious wrongdoing on the part of such a person, the matter should be investigated if it poses a threat to the congregation's cleanness and welfare or causes a public scandal.
Consider the following:
Does he still profess to be a Witness?
Is he generally recognized as such in the congregation and/or the community?
Does the person have a measure of contact or association with the congregation so that a leavening, or corrupting, influence exists?
How did the matter become known to the elders?

Is the person willing to meet with a committee, thus admitting accountability to the Christian congregation?

Depending upon length of inactivity and other factors suggested above, elders may determine to hold the matter in abeyance.
In such a case, a record of the person's questionable conduct should be made for the congregation file so that everything noted might be clarified when the person shows interest in becoming active again.

If the sinful conduct is known only to believing family members and no congregation action is taken because of the factors outlined above, believing relatives will likely determine to curtail family association severely, viewing the relative as bad association. (1 Cor. 15 :33)
If the individual still professes to be a Witness and is willing to meet with the judicial committee, the matter should be handled in the normal way. However, when factors such as possible legal action exist, it is best to consult the Society before proceeding. (w87 9/1 p. 14)
("Pay Attention to Yourselves and to All the Flock" Unit 5 (a) pp. 99-100)

I thought the second-last paragraph was significant:

If the sinful conduct is known only to believing family members and no congregation action is taken because of the factors outlined above, believing relatives will likely determine to curtail family association severely, viewing the relative as bad association. (1 Cor. 15 :33)

The Society vehemently denies claims, e.g. made forcibly in the Moscow court cases, that it breaks up families.

Yet here are direct, specific instructions from the Watchtower Society that "believing family members" should shun "as bad association" family members "who have not associated for some time," even if they were never disfellowshipped or disassociated.

How sick are these guys?

Neo

Objective proof of the Watchtower's moral corruption.

franklin J

...they like to use the scripture from the new testament which says something to the effect " I came as a two edge sword ..." blah blah

they will never admit to it but they are homewreckers to those who are not strongminded and the next thing you know they will be asking their followers to drink kool aid.....and we will all meet in the new world....

jeanniebeanz

God! I hope that someday, some govt agency will be able to quash this. You know damn well that they would give up this procedure or modify it severly under the 'new light' procedure if they felt that their interests were at stake.

Grrrrr...

Jean

Sunspot

**...they like to use the scripture from the new testament which says something to the effect " I came as a two edge sword ..." blah blah

Yeah, Franklin, they sure enjoy cramming that (Matt 10:34-39) that down the JWs throats as "proof" that one should act hatefully towards their families.

Isn't it amazing, with ALL the scriptures that promote love, compassion, kindness, helping others, and forgiveness of others (not the elders kind of waiting to see if THEY think you're good enough, but TRUE forgiveness of one another), that the WTS focuses on that scripture.

If we took all the references and put them on a list of what Jesus taught about treating others, columns of pro and con,the WTS would (does) come out looking pretty stupid. For a so-called "Christian" religion, they do *not* reflect the real "Christ" at all.

Combining two scriptures here, they ARE the ones that keep transforming themselves into angels of light and who are misleading many. It "looks good* on the surface until you begin to dig into their teachings and sadly by then it's too late for most of us to back out.

They know EXACTLY what they're doing..............and so do we.

Annie

bavman

However, when factors such as possible legal action exist, it is best to consult the Society before proceeding. (w87 9/1 p. 14)

i found this legal angle interesting...

bavman

Balsam

Jehovah's Witness God strictly the Father figure of a tyranny running his home. If your bad his this Father's eyes you are to be punished.

I finding it interesting that is the kind of profile for God, rather instead of the nurturant parent attitude that Jesus took toward people. Jesus nurtured the sinful and weak, making allowances and kindness and mercy. Since Jesus is mentioned on a much lesser degree it would only be natural the main thinking of the witness is the Strict father Jehovah, the Godwho destroys those who disobey him.

Apparently the Apostle Paul or perhaps those who wrote in Paul name also followed the strict Father concept of God.

I find quite a divide in what Churches today teach as opposed to say 40 years ago, about forgiveness, mercy, love, and kindness to the underdog. JW's have continued in the mode of no forgiveness, that sinners in their eyes are spiritually dead and there for to be viewed as physically dead. Isn't that what disfellowshipping and shunning is an expression of? Why is it that punisher God held any appeal to people in the first place unless that is the the kind of people who are drawn to this kind of vengenful God. I think back and when we became JW's back in the 1972 my ex husband was the perfect self-centered tyrant. He wanted control and he got it through this religion he brought he and I into. I should have resisted, but found I more or less just fell into line willing looking for a human paradise. The ministers I've since talked too prefer the loving nature of what Jesus brought to the personality of the Hebrew God.

This rule to the Elders is interesting. In the very last it says if legal matters, like someone is going to sue the WTS for disfellowshipping they are to call the Society rather than proceed. I thought that was interesting. The know they have no grounds in a court of law on some matters of disfellowshipping like on blood if a disfellowshipped one pursued it.

freedom96

The WTS claim to be so loving, when in fact they are the opposite. Conform or suffer the consequences.

ValiantBoy

I love this. Myself and one of my sisters left before our other sister. I had not been to meetings in 1 1/2 years and Jody had not been in three years. Neither of us claimed to be witnesses but were not disfellowshipped. The elders in my sister's cong, about 70 miles away, heard from my Witness aunt that Jody and I were celebrating holidays and that I was gay. So they go to my other sister, Kay, and counsel her for associating with us, advise her that we are both guilty of apostasy and ask her to report any wrongdoing she knew of. She told them that if they wanted to know anything about us they could ask us themselves. Without two witness, Jody and I never were called before a committe and neither have been df'd. My oldest sister has since left also...she even attends church... so HAHA nosy elders!!

stevenyc

Does he still profess to be a Witness?
Is he generally recognized as such in the congregation and/or the community?
Does the person have a measure of contact or association with the congregation so that a leavening, or corrupting, influence exists?
How did the matter become known to the elders?
I guess that these two rules don't apply to sisters !

Official WT Policy Breaks Up Families

Share this