DA-ing Announcement in the Society's New Book (page 10)

jwbot

There is some great information here. Unfortunately, I think anyone hearing the announcement will not think to make a distinction whether the person was disfellowshipped or dissasociated, or whether they are baptized in the first place. They will just shun. You see, I was never baptised, and when I asked my mom who can I be shunned when I never made the conscious choice to even become a Jehovahs Witness? To her the answer was easy (because they asked elders), I was to be shunned because I was like a witness since I knew the teachings and knew the "truth".

So good luck with that.

Blueblades

Will the color of the book still be GREEN? You know green with envy. I wonder who chooses what color the books will be? Does the color denote what they are trying to evince to the rank and file.

You remember the Blue Bomb, The Truth book, the Red Climax book, the Green and Black NWT. Bibles.etc.They are good at displaying an array of colorful books. Eye catching covers, gold lettering, but then inside the writing leads you to where they want you to go.

Just a thought going through my mind. Probably nothing to it.

We will have to wait and see how all this plays out, time will show whether this is a big mistake or not on the wtbt's legal department and media rep.J.R.Brown.

Blueblades

Elsewhere

Will the color of the book still be GREEN? You know green with envy. I wonder who chooses what color the books will be? Does the color denote what they are trying to evince to the rank and file.

Odds are it will be a paper-back. The days of hard-back books are over with the WTS.

freedom96

The new wording is potentially scary for those in the congregation.

When they hear "so -n- so is no longer a witness" imagine the ideas that will be going through their heads. They will think the worst, and I think this could cause even more shunning.

William Penwell

I can see the elders making more "sheparding" calls just to get enough info on a person and then have them DA. All they would have to see is a old discarded xmas tree or talk to a strange person of the opposite sex and then they would have enough grounds to DA a person.

Will

PopeOfEruke

Wouldn't the JW religion be SO MUCH BETTER if we could have discussed issues like this when were were still brothers and sisters!!!

Why don't the GB realise that the days of Stalin and Hitler are gone; the Berlin Wall has come down; that allowing FREEDOM OF THOUGHT is the only way they can survive.

Governing Body, please stop this madness and allow the brothers to be free!

Pope

sugarbritches

HI- is this special meeting on march 20 th the same one that was formally scheduled for march 7th? There was an earlier post about a special meeting that was to take place on the 7th of March.??

Max Divergent

I think Willyloman is right, but I'd like to add some speculation on the legal side of it as I think our freedoms are fairly safe if we're already faded away into the wind.

The free exercise provision* only allows religionists to curtail the freedoms and rights of people within the religious community that they willingly joined (as the Judge said in Boer v WTS). It doesn?t mean a religion can reach out and harm people (by defamation, stalking or other unlawful harassment) who clearly aren't of their religion and don't consent to the rules of that religion, even if they once were and once did.

So what? Well, I still remember a WT from around 1991 or so describing in gory detail the inherently demonic nature of people who are DF or DA (and now No Longer... NL?). So we know saying you're "DA/DF/NL" is a proxy for calling you "the son of the Devil" or similar or worse as published many times over many years.

I think if we've clearly left the org some years ago** and don't by our actions consent to the religious rules of the JW's anymore, then they'd be putting themselves at risk of an action in slander WITHOUT RELIGIOUS FREEDOM PROTECTION if they made a DF/DA/NL announcement (and thus called you nasty, nasty names) after you've clearly left their religious community.

The trick will come when they 'adjust' the procedure and meaning behind the NL process. They have smart people working on all this and they'll probably do a good job of it. But we need to remember our rights as free citizens of liberal democratic countries - they think they're liteally above Ceaser's law but they're wrong.

Max

* it doesn?t matter much if it's US or British originated law as the basic principle is universal in the western world.

** per the elders book of due WTS process, also an OKM of about 1975 defined 'some years' as 3 years

Euphemism

I agree this is probably for legal reasons. 'Disfellowshipped' implies action on the part of the WTS... something that they can be sued for. "No longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses", however, is purely a theological description, it doesn't imply action.

A ridiculously fine distinction, but no different than the change from df'ing to da'ing for blood. I am definitely curious to see whether they eliminate the distinction between df'ing and da'ing altogether.

wheres caleb?

The slave is busy looking after the Master's belongings.

Riiiight!

What an evil slave!

DA-ing Announcement in the Society's New Book

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