i remember reading about this guy in a national newspaper in 2010 after he had had his trial for child sex abuse.
porter avoided prison, despite being guilty of some acts child abuse.. the local elders defended him and were on his side and didn't df him, from what i remember.
then after an outcry porter was was df'd, and i think sent to prison.. anyone up-to-date on this?.
He moved to Mill Hill, London as the storm broke and the last I heard remains a Witness.
An article on the Silent Lambs site carries this comment
”Peter Bell, presiding overseer of Jehovah's Witness centre, at Kingdom Hall, East Barnet Road, denied media reports that Porter had ever been an elder there. He said: "The courts misreported the facts. Porter has never been an elder here and never will be. He will not be an elder anywhere.”
i would love to hear from anyone who may have encountered the following the traveling overseers:.
david wesley - an incredibly kind and humble man.
just the most down-to-earth co you'll ever find.
I heard Jim Buckingham once at a Circuit Ass. He must have stood in because he was not our normal C/o. He was certainly a force.
John Blaney is well remembered around here. John Blaney stories are often bandied around .... who knows if they are all completely true? A real character of the kind they don’t have today.
i see this phrase a lot: "the indication of a cult is what happens when you leave.
" i'm not sure where that originated, but it is a faulty categorization.
"cult" is almost always used in a derogatory way.
It is a bit of a grey area. They fit some definitions of a cult but not all of them . I consider them a cultish high control group.
“disagree with anything coming from headquarters is a disfellowshipping offense ”
That is technically true but not always the case in practice. If one goes around the Hall deliberately disagreeing,then yes.. In practice many experienced dubs hold personal opinions that disagree with the latest doctrine. The clever thing is who you talk to about it.....
meetings have always been bad.. if paul had to "command" people to not forsake the gatherings, the meetings must have been really bad.. considering that jesus said in matt 18:20 "for where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there i am in their midst.”".
and then in matt 11:28-30: "come to me, all you who are toiling and loaded down, and i will refresh you.
take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for i am mild-temperedi and lowly in heart, and you will find refreshment for yourselves.
I can’t talk about the first century, nobody knows, although if they had prophets and speaking in tongues it might have got quite lively ?
I was a child in the 50s and it all seemed a bore. As I grew older and took interest I was able to comment and used more than teens would be today . In a small congregation though.... it was not great.
I moved to a large big-town congregation as a young man in 70s . Those meetings were great ! We had a bunch of talented elders who were not afraid to go off script .. Thursdays were a hoot! Good things don’t last and as I moved on I found some pretty good meetings in one place and poor in another.
Then the clampdown started and no one felt allowed to add anything to the printed outline until today when it is all scripted and choreographed with videos from HQ ...
Speakers have lost the art of teaching.. thank God for zoom.
i would love to hear from anyone who may have encountered the following the traveling overseers:.
david wesley - an incredibly kind and humble man.
just the most down-to-earth co you'll ever find.
I second what Punk said. Today’s company men seem like clones , purely agents for “the Society “
I give you Clifford Hensman, a Bro Kensal, Tony Taverner, John Fry , Ken Wildig , Richard Cullen and a memorable D.O. David Carter
a few old timers on here often refer to the dumbing down of the jw organisation.
what examples can you think of from over the years?
(i ask as an interested outsider who was never in).
The simplification Of doctrines, e.g, no more prophetic patterns , no “the Greater Moses” or any of the other patterns. You never read of “the John class” or any other class. The parable seem to be simply explained as they are... not having a first and second fulfilment.
Also the New World Translation has been made simpler to read even if it is less accurate. The songs have been changed so people don’t know them by heart now . The meetings are full of silly videos that state the obvious... I could go on.......
hello , i could probably be wrong but i would appreciate an explanation.
i have a link https://uia.org/s/or/en/1100013878.
i understand that in addition to being inside a container with the un, osce and who and 75,000 other ngos.
International Bible Students Association…..A long term legal entity used by the WT . The old Bethel in North London was called IBSA House.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xznh9icm1os.
i came across this footage recently whilst searching for something completely unrelated and it blew me away!.
it's from the august 1974 convention at murrayfield, edinburgh and you can clearly see the stage set up still keeping the 6000 years and 1975 mantra going.. what makes this very personal for me is that i was here.
In 1974 , the 6000 years thing was still very big. We used to think about the end coming in, not years but months….
I was not at Murrayfield for that convention but I remember the drama from Twickenham , the exploding alter and wasn’t it the Sons of Korah being swallowed up by the Earth ?
I used to enjoy those dramas, hammy thought they were . You knew it was your own people out there and you wished them well. The slick videos of today don’t have it for me.
The camera captured the spirit of those conventions ….rain ! but British making the best of it and still enjoying themselves. We had food at those times too!
so my mother passed on 20 aug 23 from the big c. i was there when she went.
that was indeed very traumatic.
i won't go to describe it.. dad went 17 years ago so there's just me now.
Sorry to read of your loss, Punk.... I know that when my Mother died I felt very alone, as though the umbilical cord had finally been severed.
So you say that JWs attended the non dub funeral but nobody spoke to any of you? I find that very sad . At funerals we always sought out the relatives to express our condolences, it seemed the right thing to do. At one of my own family, a d/fed daughter of the deceased was accepted and spoken to.... for the day at least.
zoe has nephew in the new bethel and we have been there to visit him.
even had a meal in the new dinning room and had a tour.. it was a bit underwhelming and the display of old bibles open to pages showing jehovah’s name is supposed to prove everything they say is spot on!.
everyone is talking about the upcoming dedication where members of the gb are flying over.
Oh oh….. I hope my team don’t have a football fixture that day , it will be a long day in front of the zoom watching their pride in their accomplishments, even though it is apparently smaller and does less than the old Mill Hill Bethel.
Thanks for the info Teddnzo.
