i am sending it on monday, does anybody have any advice or revisions in mind?
july 22, 2002 .
dear friends, .
Say what you like. this is YOUR letter ,Your statement - if it from your heart it does not matter what the blind misguided elders think
Someone was right when they said that your reasons and logic will fall on deaf ears, so even if you wrote like Shakespear , it would not matter.
Just think of your family , if you can handle their rejection of you - post it !
a great man has left us.
my father-in-law died last night.
one of the most intelligent men i have ever met, ironically struck down with a brain tumour that eventually robbed him of all cognitive ability.
Dean, please accept my condolences and sympathy for your wife, I know what it is to lose parents and she will need a lot of support, despite belief in the ressurrection.
I worked with George once .We had disfellowshipped a sister . He was called to be chairman of a the appeal. With insight and care, he and his people overturned our decision . I was miffed at first. But George was right , she went on to be a good "sister" and as far as I know is still going. He struck me as one who really fulfilled the Bible's equirement to be "Wise, discreet and experienced" and there are less and less of those . The Cong will miss him.
Best wishes..
this is how jehovahs witness keep the congregations clean.
when anyone does something wrong, adultery, childabuse etc only the elders dealing with the case are supposed to know about it , appart from those directlty involved.
this means that appart from rumors and gosip, which jehovahs witnesses are instructed to ignore (i suspect this is the reason why)no one knows about it.this creates the impression among the general publishers that these things rarely happen.
That is the second time I have heard the expresion "Jehovah is using the Panorama episode to clean up the Society"
Does that mean that Bill Bowen will be re instated because he was acting for Jehovah?
After a meeting in conversation I was told that "Satan gets everywhere " "The Apostates are behind it all " and "The two lads in Rugby had been d/f and this was their way of hitting back" ( That is a quote, I have no knowlege of them.)
No matter how you may reason , as to the vast number of people coming forward and the legal nature of the criminal cases , it did not matter. To the dedicated dub it is all Satan's work to discredit the Lords org - their words not mine
Funny that today the WT study was all about cleanness!
i read an article about a 1989 watchtower that stated the preaching work would be completed in our 20th century, but was revised in the bound volume to say "in our day".
i told my brother this and he said, "if it's on the net about jw's it's a lie".
i want to prove to him it was a fact.
Just to support Saint Satan, here's a paste from the c/d rom.
"
*** kj 216-7 12 "Until He Comes Who Has the Legal Right" ***
Shortly, within our twentieth century, the "battle in the day of Jehovah" will begin against the modern antitype of Jerusalem, Christendom. The ancient "soil of Israel" pictures the realm in which Christendom has operated. It pictures the standing and relationship that Christendom has claimed to occupy with God by means of his "new covenant" of which Jesus Christ is the mediator. Now is no time for anyone in Christendom to rely on any righteousness on the basis of his own merits and to boast of his own self-righteousness. Jehovahs "sword" of warfare will cut off from this position that Christendoms clergy claim for her all religionists who depend upon her having an acceptable standing with God.
Sorry I cannot trace the more recent Watchtower. I do remember an incident after a group study once when sweet old sister J. said what comfort she took from an article she had kept that said that the work would be over in the century . We were all skeptical that they would have said it. Keen young brother L . took out his bound volume for that WT. and , guess what , it did not say any such thing .
Sister J was insistant, so Bro L got his car, took her home and they returned with the original article. Yes it did say it ,but the bound volume had been doctored to leave out the statement.
Bro L wrote to the Society because he was miffed that the volume was not a true copy . They replied and said that the words had been altered to avoid any ambiguity etc .
So when is a copy not a copy??
Edited by - BluesBrother on 21 July 2002 12:29:28
they were the good old days, in the uk about 10 years ago were able to purchase food tokens to get our lovely hot food supplied at conventions i used to really look forward conventions then,then all of a sudden voila no hot food supplied at assemblys no more i was "gutted" i really missed the currys and sunday veg mmmmmmmmm.
but why did they stop doing it, i think this really upset most having to bring your own grub.they do give free water at them now though
You are speakin here to an ex food token overseer. Some big deal!!
Nostalgia still rules whenever my wife and her sister get together and remember the good old days of burgers and ice cream at assemblies.
Nothing upset the r and file more than the loss of the food service ..
was it the bible you started to doubt or jehovahs witnesses ?.
with me it was the bible which i could not reconcile with common sense , obviously from that i could see jw' s were certainly wrong.but many here still believe the bible.. why?if you can't trust a group of men who are alive today in brooklyn how can you trust people who are long dead , and have no chance of speaking to?.
it worries me that i believed in jehovahs witnesses.it worries me more that so many feel they broke free from brainwashing etc only to still believe the bible.. jehovahs witnesses are flawed because they try to follow the bible which in turn is a flawed book.
My doubts and critcisms are only directed at the Watchtower Society and the conclusions that it reaches from scattered verses of the Bible
My reasons for faith in a Universal Creator have not changed and I still believe that the Bible is his word . However I now recognise that perhaps some parts are not meant to be taken as literal history . It does not matter whether Genesis stand up as a literal history of creation, I am sure that a God was the instigator and creator of all that we see
I admit that I do not read it as much as I did once, but I have a deep respect for the Bible
i say this because half the witnesses i knew never seemed to be into answering at meetings,preaching the good news,being united with others.you see when i got baptised which was about 2 years ago i was really into answering at meetings,preaching etc and guess what people in the hall thought there was something wrong with me,they would say things like youll get used to it, you wont be happy much longer,this made confused because i thought these people were really into what they did with there hearts.i was obviously wrong,i then started to wonder does going to meetings,preaching,etc really show your a true christian you know serving god with a whole heart,all these organised rules didnt really matter i thought,you see if these people had do bible research,arrange the preaching themselves do you think they would do it.i now believe that serving god through organisations doesnt really make you closer to god i think serving god on your own really shows ones heart condition and how much you love god.
p.s.
im not a" jw no more" and still working out religion etc, i do swear and lie now though lol
Some do enjoy it !
If not, then of course it is your fault. It is a lack of appreciation for Jehovah's provisions, you are spiritually sick, you are not being blessed with joy, you must pray harder and try doing some more in the ministry!!
Perspicacia? perhaps you should be at the service meeting instead of here
i've just been watching the last few minutes of panorama again.
the bit were ted j gets waylaid by our intrepid woman reporter.
(is that the reason for his awful grimace?).
I remember one occasion in the very early 60's when word got out on the grapevine that N H Knorr was giving a pre assembly talk at Twickenham on a mid week evening . Very quickly we bookeda coach ,filled it full and set off the c.60mile journey .
The stand was full , they had to open up the rest of the stadium and we listened enthralled as he spoke for at least two hours.
Would it happen now? I dont know . In Britain there is always a novelty value in hearing the President or a G.B . speaker wheras the Americans here them much more often.
I know lots who would travel to hear a speaker from the U S.
this honestly seem to be message im getting from most jws.think about it whats more important the source or the information ie:say for instance i was an ex jw and told a witness who new me there house was on fire would they believe me, or label me as being unspiritual and liar.they seem to think that the watchtower society is jehovah, if he tells them to jump its matter of how high?
Once again spot on Joanne
"You spend so much time in the Borg and eventually their thinking becomes second nature"
I am sorry to hear of your sister. It is quite understandable for your parents to feel as they do.
J W's really do confuse God with the Watchtower. My wife frequently accuses me of turning my back on God when I refrain from participating in the cong.
When I was active , I really believed that "Worldly " people were untrustworthy , if they were nice it was only on the surface - and worldy women were all sexually wanton., because that is what the WT teaches you and after all , they are "Spirit directed"!
.
based on what i've read of your experiences and even heartbreak on this forum, it's obvious that you have more than your share of jw hard-liners in your disparate corners of the world.
please believe me when i say that i intend no criticism whatsoever; but i've often wondered how it is that so many of your compatriots can sell themselves over so utterly to an upstart (125 year-old) apocalyptic american religion as we have done here?
Speaking personally from the UK.
a) Upstart 125yr old? No problem since we bought entirely the reasoning,using Matt.13 24 -30.that the true religion would only be evident at the end of days.. No point preaching the "Good news" about a kingdom unless it is imminent
b) Apocalyptic ? Yes that's the exciting thing about it.
c) American ? So what? I believe that Europeans are a lot less patriotic than Americans and we never thought anything wrong with it starting over there. We are subject to American culture in films, television etc , we quite like it. As dubs we always viewed ourselves as citizens of the kingdom and felt a rejection of local nationalism, as I still do incidentally
