Jehovahs Witness and Disability

mactoph

Hello all- I am putting together a directory of resources from different religious organizations that address the topic of disability and have had a difficult time finding anything from the Jehovahs Witnesses.... I am wondering if anyone out there knows of anything in the area of disability- websites, organizations, people?? The kind of thing I'm looking for is under the 'Faith Group Specific' section here at http://www.faithability.org/directory/ I'm not really familiar with the Jehovahs Witnesses teaching on the topic, but our neighbors were Jehovahs Witnesses growing up and they were great neighbors to my two younger brothers with disabilities- I just want to make sure that I have a good and accurate representation- any help is appreciated. Thanks, Christopher Phillips http://www.faithability.org/

4JWY

Christopher,

Interesting sites and articles to peruse that you shared. I can't think of anywhere that you would find specifics on this issue regarding Jehovah's Witnesses.

The only resources offered by the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses that I had been a part of for 4 decades were:

- the use of sign language at certain conventions

- reserved seating for the elderly and infirm at conventions, and handicapped parking areas

- headphones at a scattered few Kingdom Halls for those hard of hearing

- telephone hookup to their weekly meetings for someone unable to be physically present at the Kingdom Hall

Not sure on this, but I believe there may be a very limited amount of their literature offered in Braille. Much of their literature is written at grade school level.

They pride themselves on the fact that ALL individuals in the congregations worldwide, are taught in the same manner. There are NO separate classes, like Sunday school, for children and no special considerations given for those with learning disabilities or mental illness. For decades, it had been taught that a member seeking out counseling or psychiatric care was going against the JW governing body's directives. All members are expected to go in the door to door ministry activity despite any physical or mental disability, or old age concerns. In some countries, they do have programs for teaching people to read, so as to be able to indoctrinate them in their cult's teachings.

Unfortunately, there is a high rate of disability, mentally within their ranks. The way they deal with it is by reading scriptures to you, telling you to never miss a weekly meeting (5 a week), and prayer.

Hope this gives you a start on what you're looking for.

Aude_Sapere

The above post pretty much covers anything I was ever aware of in my 25 years in the organization.

-Aude Sapere

Ténébreux

I was in a congregation years ago that had a sign language class every Saturday afternoon at the KH, for the benefit of a deaf sister who only had a few people to talk to because no-one else could sign.

Mysterious

I remember at a convention seeing someone who was paralyzed from the waist down carried into the pool so that she could be baptised and then carried back out. There is also literature available in audio form that would benefit the blind where braille literature is not available.

Ultimately JWs belong to the opinion that whatever they can do to get these people to "serve god" for the "short time left" until "gods kingdom" when everyone would be returned to perfect health, they would do.

I do know that there have been some experiences where the mentally handicapped fell through the cracks, they would be discouraged from commenting because they were not contributing as much as the rank and file to what was going on at the meetings. I knew a handicapped brother that used to give bible readings but eventually stopped for some mysterious reason, not sure if he was discouraged from doing so or some other reason.