by tattoogrl333 42 Replies latest jw friends
I don't see the usefulness of asking questions about JW's here. If I wanted to learn about Jehovah, I would not ask Satan for his point of view. Why? Because he hates Jehovah. I hate Satan for causing divisions among our brotherhood and for spreading lies about Jehovah and his people. I can't wait 'till he gets destroyed.
Dub comedy at it's finest.
Dub thinking: Jehovah = Society. Society = Jehovah.
Slipnslidemaster: "The gods too are fond of a joke."
- Aristotle
Hello tattoogirl:
I am so glad you are alert enough to be asking questions.
This is a very important issue for anyone to look deeply into before one makes any committment to the WTS. Once baptized, a JW can be df'd for any number of WTS reasons...being repentant does not keep one from being df'd. I'm sure you have seen that in the many responses you've already received and I can add myself to the statistics although I also lived through the humiliation for a year to be reinstated.
To be brief, I'd like to recommend the threads on the JUSTICE series posted by Amazing. If you look at the top right of your screen and click onto "search". Then type in the word JUSTICE as the "search for" subject and under "limit to" click onto 3 months. You will see several pages of topices entitled "JUSTICE #1" through to JUSTICE #14 or so. Each one of these threads carries an experience of an elder with judicial committees and disfellowshipping cases.
You will find it quite an eye-opener to read each one. This man wouldn't lie about these things. He has no reason to. He left the org. because of these type of things going on and couldn't stomach it anymore. Please take the time to click onto each one of the JUSTICE #s.
Many JWs will give you the reasons already stated for df'ing, but careful analysis of the context of the scriptures they use to back up the casting out and shunning rules show a different meaning for the scriptures. I'll post more on that later if this thread still keeps going on.
For now, it looks like you have plenty to consider so far.
Had Enough
Hello, GodRules.
You may think you were being courteous in your initial response to tattoogrl, but in fact you were unkind in questioning her sincerity. When responding on a discussion board, you should assume that questions are sincere until you have good reason to think otherwise.
You wondered why she (or ANYONE) would post questions to this board looking for answers to JW-related issues. The answer is simple... they want the whole truth, something that is not always on display (or even available) to the average JW. That's not a slam on JWs, per se, but it IS the truth. Certain questions are not to be answered even if the answer is known. Being blunt and too matter-of-fact may lead to a prospect wiggling off the line (so to speak) and a study (potential convert?) being lost. You know that's true.
I have a question for you. I hope you will do better with this type of question than other JWs I have questioned in the past. I will assume that your activity here is sincere...
You asked tattoogrl:
You are asking the point of view of those that are enemies of Jehovah's Witnesses and that many are disfellowshipped. So, what do you think the answer is going to be? Of course they are going to say that disfellowshipping is unfair, what else are they going to say? That in itself shows they are unrepentant. The sister explained it to you correctly, if the person shows repentance, then he/she will not be disfellowshipped.
Do you REALLY believe that, or are you just parotting the company line? Here's why I ask:
I know of a JW couple, both raised in the truth, both baptized as teens. Married eight... ten years. Not a good marriage. There is a separation. She moves out of their home and into a new residence of her ownn across town.
Making a long story short, she is guilty of adultery, but the story she tells the elders is not the one she confesses to a close friend (who then tells the story to the husband). When she sees the very likely possibility of the elders finding out, she "confesses", and thru her tears and well chosen words, they decide she is repentant, even after hearing of the second, differing story. She is put on public reproof.
The husband later commits adultery. It's the type of one night affair that will never become known... EVER. Yet, cut to his heart, having been caught up in a situation, he seeks out the elders. He confesses of his own accord, holding nothing back, but not showing a lot of emotion, since he's not that emotive. He IS disfellowshipped.
Restating my question:
Do you really believe that the only reason for which a person is df'd is because of lack of repentance?
peace
tj
this thread WILL keep going on.
Tatoogirl represents what is wrong with many religious organizations past, present, and future. Fresh ideas, zealousness and youthful energy. Minds that are inquisitive, to new ideas, adaptive to new ideas and unafraid to ask questions.
Tatoogirl also represents everything that is right about this board and the reasons that this board works. It is our differences without divisions that make what we do here so effective.
You go girl!
Life is a roller coaster. Get in, sit down, shut up and hang on!
Tatoogirl
When you talk to the sister again take the opportunity to pose this question.
"What would be the spiritual level (weak/strong) of a JW who was on the INTERNET and engaging with Former members"
you see according to WT Rules- the rules by the way that you will be under if you become a jw forbid GOD RULEs TO EVEN be here
so while he is here DEFENDING THE WT he is actually viewed by his faith as Dirt for even being here
you see what the answer will reveal to you is how jw feel about anyone who has a view different from theirs.
If Godrules were to be caught up here by his congregation elders the following would happen
1. he would be given the opportunity to confess that he as sinnned by being here in this forum
2. from that point forward he would be viewed as being weak
3. a talk in his hall local needs perhaps or the CO when he comes would give a talk about the dangers of the net
4. if he told the elders that as a grown man he can use his computer like he wants to and if he wants to hang out with DF DA and those called apostates it is his biz
HE WILL BE DFED
now this is exactly what would happen to my boy Godrules and he can't deny it
bottom line is he would be DOGGED ONE WAY OR THE OTHER
he would be viewed as being Spiritually Weak
so ask the sister about how they view jw like Godrules who come here
just a thought if you really want to see how they forbid their members from examining things
james
Tatoogirl,
You might want to ask the sister why a disfellowshipped persons immediate family members are also punished. When I say "immediate family", I mean my children and my wife. I did what I did and was unrepentant at the time, got disfellowshipped, and I took all that goes with that. I respected my JW family members choice and never made any contact with them. But I am extremely angry that my immediate family also was punished. Why did my kids have grow up without grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, great grandparents, etc.. Ask the sister what I should have said to my 3 year old son when he used to tell me stories about what he and his grandfather did that day. The "grandfather" he had not seen in years. Ask her what I should say to that same little 3 year old, who is now 20, when he is hurting and off the wall about the injustice done to him. Ask her what I should say to my less emotional, yet equally hurt daughter when she tells me "As far as I'm concerned I don't have any grandparents". What do I say to my wife who was denied a mother and father inlaw, brother and sister in laws, nieces, nephews, etc.. Any one of my JW family could have contacted my wife and kids and I would not have interfered. Yet not once did that happen. In fact when we used to go camping in the area where my family lived, my wife, who did not know my family, would call them and arrange for them to come see the kids. Ask the sister why no one in my family could do the same thing. Ask the sister why after so many years my family contacts me out of the blue to see us, without any explaination. Ask the sister why each year I see my family once, opening all those wounds again, so myself and my family has to start the healing process all over again. Ask..........Ask..........Ask..........Ask..........
Runningman is right:
Technically, any time they want. The theory is that there is no sin for which you are automatically disfellowshipped. It is your unrepentant attitude which gets you booted.
As you know, they can remove you if they deem you a "threat to the congregation." That can mean just about anything.
YHWHWho--
"Ask the sister why each year I see my family once, opening all those wounds again, so myself and my family has to start the healing process all over again. Ask..........Ask..........Ask..........Ask.........."
Your whole post touched my heart, and the above really, really made me want to give you a hug.
((((YHWHWho))))
--LisaBobeesa
Thank you LisaBobeesa. I sure could use that hug. The wounds are not healing so well after this years "reunion".
Hello YHWHWho:
Welcome to this board. Thank you for telling your story on this painful subject. It just breaks my heart to read these kind of horror stories over and over again...each one seeming worse that the last. My heart goes out to you and your family.
Your story is so sad on how the WTS stand on df'ing simply tears apart families. Life is too short to have to go this kind of pain.
My family situation is somewhat similar except its my da'd son who is in your shoes with his elder dad, my ex-husband. I am inactive and I won't avoid or shun my son. He is my family, my child, my only son, who treats me with the utmost respect and love.
His father, like yours, is the one losing out the most, since my son has little regard for anyone who would turn their back on a blood relative, their own flesh and blood son. I have the most precious relationship with my darling granddaughter and feel so sad for, and yet angry at, my son's dad who won't see him, but wants to see her, if he (my son) will go and sit in the bedroom while they visit. Needless to say, my son and his wife will have nothing to do with this arrangement.
What a sad excuse for an organization claiming to serve God. My son does not hate God nor preach badness against Him. He just has no use for the WTS who claims to be God's organization but has so many added rules and regulations above what the Bible says, just like the pharisees.
I hope you can find some inner peace. This kind of thing can eat away at you if you let it. Coming here and "talking it out" really helps. I know!
Had Enough
