Sir82 - you make a good point. The recent concessions that the mormons are making are probably directly related to Mitt Romney's presidential run. I bet they desperately want to get a mormon into the whitehouse (or at least more positions of power) to legitimize their cult.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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Mormon 'support' for gays, pressure on the WTS?
by Simon inthe mormon / lds church has noticably changed it's stance toward homosexuality and instead of condemning it seems to be supporting protection for people's rights (of course they want to throw some protection for themselves in there as well).. how will this affect the wts?
the lds is the more-successful counterpart to the wts, similar age and history and same non-mainstream appeal.. i have no doubt that the lds church is only changing because they know which way the wind is blowing and society has completely changes it's attitudes towards gay people.
maybe they just want to stay ahead pf the curve before federal legislation enforces people's rights.. now, can we see the wts changing their views" will they be one of the last holdouts?
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Automatic disfellowshipping if "sin" is repeated?
by snugglebunny inback in the day, if someone was put on probation for an offence, rather than being disfellowshipped, if he re-offended whilst that probation was in force, disfellowshipping was automatic.
normally a probation lasted 12 months.
after the probation was finished that was it.
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OneEyedJoe
A couple years ago, one of my first indications that something was systemically wrong with the organization was when a friend of mine told me about his cousin that had just gotten DF'd. His cousin had recently gotten married, but it came out that they'd had sex before hand. He got DF'd but his new bride only got reproved. My friend said that this was because the elders in his congregation had a "three strike rule" and he'd gotten in trouble with other girls in the past (many years prior).
My first thought was that Jesus reproved his disciples for daring to limit forgiveness to 7 times, but these assholes are taking someone who's clearly not going to re-offend (being that he actually married this girl) and they're giving him the boot because they can't bring themselves to forgive a measly 3 times?
Same thing with DFing people just because they get in trouble twice within some arbitrary, man-made time window. If they're repentant, they should continue to forgive them indefinitely in keeping with Jesus' statements. Maybe some good will come of it, though. Maybe some of those who are DF'd because of rules like this will wake up as a result and won't remain in a mental prison.
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Mormon 'support' for gays, pressure on the WTS?
by Simon inthe mormon / lds church has noticably changed it's stance toward homosexuality and instead of condemning it seems to be supporting protection for people's rights (of course they want to throw some protection for themselves in there as well).. how will this affect the wts?
the lds is the more-successful counterpart to the wts, similar age and history and same non-mainstream appeal.. i have no doubt that the lds church is only changing because they know which way the wind is blowing and society has completely changes it's attitudes towards gay people.
maybe they just want to stay ahead pf the curve before federal legislation enforces people's rights.. now, can we see the wts changing their views" will they be one of the last holdouts?
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OneEyedJoe
If they're forced to do it at the threat of loss of cash they'll probably dust off their tried-and-true method of not making it a DF offense, but saying that they've disassociated themselves by their actions. The end result is the same, the R/F won't know the difference and they'll be able to say that they don't DF people for being gay.
I don't think they really care too much about getting new recruits - they're happy to be the "few" that are finding the "narrow road." If they capitulate on the gay thing, I think they're likely to lose a few of the bigots that they've created since the acceptance of gays has been probably the #1 crime that they've been accusing christendom of for the last few years. They'd much rather reinforce their being the only true religion in the eyes of the R/F and if they're the last ones holding to the bible's bigoted view then that "where else will we go" question becomes just that bit more difficult.
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Who is your favorite "Apostate"? Who helped you see the truth about "The Truth"?
by minimus ini would have to say that ray franz was the biggest influence for me.. when i first got on this board, a poster by the name of james, a former bethelite and organization heavy, helped me understand a lot of the inner workings in the upper echelons of the society.. .
and of course, farkel's common sense approach was (usually) helpful..
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OneEyedJoe
Paul Grundy (jwfacts) is the one that I owe my awakening to. Can't overstate how much I appreciate his clear fact-based approach. -
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GB says, "Our way of worship will soon be altered."
by Separation of Powers inmy mom called me yesterday to ask how i was doing.
i hadn't seen her in a while, so it was nice to hear her voice.
we went through the motions of jw small talk and then she started telling me about her co visit from last week.
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OneEyedJoe
Our CO visit a year ago I think he gave a talk about all the recent changes and there was a strong implication that more was to come. I'm not convinced that anyone knows what the changes are yet, but from even a cursory examination of their history it's obvious that there's going to be changes, so they probably just like to keep the R/F prepped for that.
Plus statements like that are always good for a little fear mongering.
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Is Watchtowers view & practices currently split in two? Split leadership direction?
by thedepressedsoul ini've been deeply following jw "culture" the last 2 years and i am getting the impression that the leadership is currently split in two different directions.
on one hand you get this sense of a happy, joyful and less strict religion and on the other hand there is still this strict, harsh religion of the past.
let me explain more.. there have been a lot of video's lately that show dancing in kingdom halls, bethel dancing to the "happy" song, jw.org downplaying their beliefs and making it sound like daisies.
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OneEyedJoe
I'll say it before vidiot comes in here and says it (I happen to agree)
the rebranding is about presenting the appearance of "mainstreaming", whilst keeping the internal policies unchanged.
I think in most cases where you have leadership by committee, you'll see some degree of mixed messages coming through, so that may be a part of it as well. I think GB 2.0 is much more in the loop as to what's really going on than their predecessors, (even if they don't realize it and consider themselves to be true believers) so they're inevitably going to be more manipulative about presenting a great facade for the org while leaving the insides rotten. I think it all started with the public/study WT split - at least for me that seems to have been the beginning of their efforts to put on a good face for the public while keeping the true policies as harsh as ever.
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Has the WT ever specifically said in print that GB is NOT the FDS in contradiction of current position?
by Pubsinger injust out of interest.
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OneEyedJoe
That '81 article is pretty damaging to it's current position. If I ever get asked if I believe that the FDS is God's channel for communication on earth today, I will say something to the effect of: "How can I believe that when they where confused as to who the FDS even was until 98 years after Christ was enthroned! They didn't even realize when they were appointed, and what they were appointed over. How can I believe that they are God's channel if they couldn't get that on simple thing straight 100 years ago?"
In my head, I've played out the possible scenario of being asked the 'apostasy question' about believing the GB is the FDS. I think I'll start with "First, I'd like to point out that you didn't believe that until a couple years ago." Then say something like "there's actually some pretty firm scriptural evidence that this is not the case" and pull out the '81 WT article. Depending on the situation (i.e. if I really don't care if I'm DF'd) I might add - "this article makes it clear that anyone that insists that the GB is the FDS is an apostate!"
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Has the WT ever specifically said in print that GB is NOT the FDS in contradiction of current position?
by Pubsinger injust out of interest.
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OneEyedJoe
One other thing - if you have time to read the full article it's actually sorta funny in light of their current stance. In hindsight, it reads almost like a case study in how to manipulate scripture to "force an interpretation of the parable" (right after saying there's no point in doing so). If I remember correctly, much of the reasoning rests on the way isreal is refereed to sometimes as a single entity and sometimes as a group of individuals. It really demonstrates that they can interpret anything anyway that they want to and they'll find backing for it somewhere in the scripture. Of course, this isn't unique to JWs. -
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Has the WT ever specifically said in print that GB is NOT the FDS in contradiction of current position?
by Pubsinger injust out of interest.
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OneEyedJoe
"Witnesses of Jehovah understand that the "slave" is comprised of all anointed Christians as a group on earth at any given time during the 19 centuries since Pentecost. Accordingly, the "domestics" are these followers of Christ as individuals.
Some readers may feel that this is a rather sectarian view of matters. Or they may object to the idea that the "slave" and the "domestics" represent the same class, one as a composite body and the other as individuals. The objectors may arguethat not all of Christ's anointed disciples have a share in preparing the spiritual food, so that perhaps the "slave" pictures only the leading ones, and the "domestics" those they serve in the congregation.
There is no point in trying to force an interpretation of the parable. Self-deception is of no benefit and is spiritually damaging. Therefore, we must look to the Scriptures for an understanding. In doing this, what do we find?
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Thus we see a clear Scriptural basis for saying that all anointed followers of Christ Jesus make up God's "servant," with Jesus as its Master." Watchtower1981 Mar 1 pp.24-26Pulled this from the jwfacts article on the FDS. The 1981 WT (during the ray franz apostasy scare) specifically describes the idea that only the leadership is the FDS as an apostate teaching.
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Conti Appeal Preview - Oral Argument Jan 14
by Chaserious inwith hopefully a good deal of interest here in the conti appeal tomorrow (or later today, depending on where you are), i thought that on my ride home from work tonight i'd preview what to expect and what i think the key issues are for any who are interested.
i have had a busy few weeks and haven't had time to read everything, but i had some time to look at the appeal briefs during my work commute the past couple days.
it'll be interesting to see what develops out of the network news coverage of this case.
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OneEyedJoe
That'd potentially be a double kick to the WT's balls, actually.
If the number of alleged past offenders are as high as we suspect and were no longer able to hold their positions, the sudden dearth of "qualified brothers" would severely hamper the Org's ability to function internally.
I hadn't thought of this angle before. This could be a significant factor in their refusal to comply with Zalkin's subpoena for their DB of child molesters - they don't want that list to make it to the public domain because many of the folks on it are elders/COs/etc. Imagine someone setting up something like the sex offender DB for JWs. That would cause quite a stir if only a small percentage of JWs stumbled upon the fact that there were child molesters working as elders in their congregation.