my father's uncle and spiritual mentor, benjamin ray kent, had been a deacon (ministerial servant) in watchtower founder c. t. russell's home ecclesia (congregation) in brooklyn, and also served as russell's personal secretary at brooklyn bethel.
after attending university my father served a 5-year prison term during world war ii, supposedly for his loyalty to god.
while his mother's proud and patriotic family disowned my father for his decision, it was his uncle ray who regularly visited him in prison.. that is the culture in which i was raised, and for much of my life, i took great pride in the belief that my father was a man of integrity to god.
That brings an interesting point for discussion.
Elders being considered now as clergy are fully responsible in court of any claim or damage due to sexual abuses?
At least in Spain I heard about many Elders having personal conscience issues regarding this. Some event considering asking private legal help.
the wainui-o-mata hall is closing and from 01 february they will be relocated to the 200 seater hall in newlands.
johnsonville is merging with the wellington west congregation and will be known at wellington central also to be located in the newlands hall.
wellington east will remain in the hall in kilbirnie at this stage but rumour has it that this hall will also be sold and they will make up the third congregation sharing the newlands hall.
More money $$$
wtf???
i didn’t know this was a thing.
is someone making significant money from this?
Wow... :)
another mind-numbing edition with instructions on how adult jw's should be conducting themselves as "christians.
i did like this paragraph though - after some reading between the lines:.
page 11, par.
Really disgusting how they try to sell this :)
so....i’m going to rewind for a second.
one of my brother-in-laws came over one evening late in 2016, november i think, just to hang out.
we hadn’t seen him in a while and this is before we told anyone in his family we were out.
Glad to hear that !
hello to all of you,.
here goes an introduction of a new member.
i'm 45 years old now and we wake up my wife and i from borg a few years ago.. i'm living between spain and france, due to my work.. it has been always refreshing to listen and read many of you here.. i hope it will continue the same..
Bienvenido (Welcome) !!
due to my work, i've been traveling quite a lot in south of europe.. i still have a lot of contacts within jw and exjw and i'm surprised in my conversations, most of them are very concerned regarding sexual abuses scandals in their area, either italy, spain and other countries.. one of my contact high ranked even told about the craziness in some branches south of europe regarding that matter.
it has been confirmed that several scandals are being judged on court, but some other ones has been closed paying a large sum of money.. any confirmation from other sources?.
I think @formerministerial is speaking about settlements outside US, specially south of Europe...
for those who missed last weeks clam meeting, there was a video played that was amazing ... however not in good way.. we are all aware how thousands of full time bethelites world wide got the boot and put out onto the street.
some having giving most of their lives to the organization, but often with no real way to support themselves other than to depend on the generosity of others.
so when this video talked about how special it would be for those who could step up and become a commuter bethelite, it made me think how calculating the governing body must be.
Baker McKenzie has done a perfect job.
Bethelites seen as "regular workers". Where is the scriptural side of this?
https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/4508841/politie-invallen-bij-hoofdkantoor-en-kerkgebouwen-jehovahs.
police raids at head office and church buildings jehovah's witnesses for abuse.
the police attacked three of the buildings of jehovah's witnesses on november 19 as part of a major investigation into sexual abuse.. the police came in at the head office of the religious community in emmen and at two church buildings, so-called kingdom halls.
They know quite well that other countries are as well checking them in this regard !!
Netherlands has been the first :)
just got done watching this program and what impress me the most was the bravery of those x-witnesses to sit there on national tv and tell everyone how the wt.
cult affected them.
no hidden faces, no avatar names and no disguise.
Bravo !!!!
