must read news paper article about jw culture.. jehovahs: "you do not bring a brother to justice" a parallel community with deviating values and norms, which conceals abuse cases as quickly as possible and where women are subordinate to men.
that picture emerges from a report on the jehovah's witnesses published on thursday.
bas soetenhorst january 23, 2020, 5:16 pm a gathering of tens of thousands of jehovah's witnesses in the rai in 1979. image anp with the jehovah's witnesses, the biblical principle is that you should not bring your brother to justice.
Gorby,
Thanks for all these posts that keep us current on this matter. I have a question since the background of all this a bit fuzzy for me and I cannot remember the details. Is this the same university research that the org greenlighted active Witnesses to respond to? If I remember correctly (and I may not!), didn't those insiders who did respond have to get the okay from their BOEs first?
i found this interesting in the news that dogs used to sniff for drugs at airports are being significantly cut back here in the us due to the increased legality of marijuana at the state level (though technically still illegal at the federal level) and passengers arriving from canada.
a large number of the dogs are being put into early retirement.. i learned that dogs can be trained to sniff for drugs but once they "learn" a smell, they cannot unlearn it.
basically, there is no difference to them between marijuana or cocaine or meth.
RubaDub, thanks for the interesting post. Maybe this is related to the old proverb, "you can't teach an old dog new tricks"?
there's a post on exjw reddit stating that the ibsa are planning on building a media operation at the sydney bethel.. the estimated cost is $10 million aud and this in spite of the fact that they still have not joined the redress scheme or attempted in any monetary way of assisting abused victims within the organization.. the link below includes detailed plans.
they will be converting part of the current printery into a media complex.. they also propose to build a theme park in the form of a historical biblical site, including a man made mound and what one person suggests is a temple.. its not surprising that a bunch of old men in new york has dreamed all of this up - film sets in new york, england and now australia.
they are bonkers but it's a novel way of getting money from their followers.. https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/ernz3y/new_media_centre_at_the_australian_sydney_bethel/.compact.
Listener, thx for the post and link.
I remember SBF saying a few years back that the org seems to be concentrating on making a few Bethels in the world key ones (like the one in Selters). So the Aussie branch is clearly one of them if it rates its own media production center. The "replica of an historical Biblical site" is an interesting twist. As some have commented here and on the reddit post, perhaps they are indeed launching into tourism of a sort. I suspect too that they may feel a bit intimidated by Hobby Lobby's Steve Geen and his massive Museum of the Bible in Washington DC, so they want to imitate that in very minor ways like Mark Sanderson's "museum" in Warwick and now this "replica" in Sydney.
Maybe they view this as a way to keep the money flowing in from faithful Witnesses who will visit and contribute. Finally, do we see the heavy hand of Geoffrey Jackson here?
in february, oxygen will premiere a two-part documentary about the jehovah’s witnesses in which a journalist who has spent five years looking at the group alleges “an abuse story that has layers of coverup.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wy4qx7lraa.
anni, thanks for the trailer and info. This is the issue that will not go away for the WTBTS.
Your post also brings up legal issues.
The peopleDOTcom article contains an interesting link to another article telling of how an LDS man is now in prison "after church clergy heard [the man's] private confession to sexual abuse of a minor, and then turned his name over to police for investigation." The context is that this man's wife is now suing the LDS church.
"At issue in the lawsuit, which names the Salt Lake City-based church as its sole defendant, is the church’s role in expecting its members to admit their transgressions in order to “get back in favor with the church,” and the members’ expectations that such confessions would be handled internally and kept confidential, Bill Brandt, an attorney for the wife, told The Oregonian."
In light of the recent "success" by the WTS in having their $35 million settlement thrown out over this very "confidential confession" principle, this could open up more potential liability for the WTS. How can they claim they have clergy-penitent privilege and yet also report a cong member in states with reporting laws? There's a contradiction here. If they withhold reporting, they risk legal action in criminal courts from the states, or in civil courts from the victims. If they go ahead and report, they also risk legal action for claiming clergy-penitent privilege but then not living up to it, as this Mormon woman has done.
What a mess they are in!
when the doctrine regarding 1935 being the close of the calling was done away with in 2007, it was not unexpected to see the number rise.
over the next few years it went from around 8,500 to 10,500. this seemed to indicate that there were a couple of thousand people that may have felt they had the calling all along, but too shy to profess it.
for the 30 year period between the mid 1978 and 2007, parktakers had barely dropped.
It is interesting to think about the individual cases of the current GB members since they all began partaking of the emblems long after the old "baptized before 1935" doctrine was thrown out. At least one case has been discussed here, that of Mark Sanderson, and I think someone here once mentioned that he or she knew of doubters regarding Geoffrey Jackson. Sanderson's case goes like this. He was raised in during the 1960s and 70s in San Deigo not partaking in his cong at the time. At 18 when he finished high school, he went off to Canada to pioneer. Immediately he began partaking and has ever since. Of course, he got flack for doing so—see here:
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/6327964561047552/new-khs-still-being-built
The comment by newsheep is not directly on-topic but is provided in the context of a comment on the elder Kelly Flodell. The key description: "t was Kelly who had taken Mark Sanderson aside when he was really really young and told him he better know what he is doing partaking of the emblems. That Mark wasn't even an MS yet and in his late teens partaking of the emblems. Heard this story over and over from Kelly."
I bring this up for the following reason. It is quite likely that each GB member today went through the experience of having various cong members doubt their genuinely "being of the anointed." That this must have been personal and painful is clear. Therefore, they probably don't want to come down hard on others, especially males in the full-time service, who would be experiencing the same thing they went through.
Just some thoughts to share.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/montana/articles/2020-01-08/court-reverses-35m-verdict-against-jehovahs-witnesses.
Thanks for the update. As I've said before, some day the SCOTUS is going to have to decide on this clergy-penitent privilege when it comes to reporting CSA, and this Montana example is why. The states are all over the place on the matter. There is no consistency. You would think that some national child rights advocacy group would take this task on ...
on 10 june 2019, the finnish jw organization lodged an application against finland with the european court of human rights.
the case was quickly - by the court's standards - communicated to the finnish government on 10 december 2019. the complaint itself isn't available online but there is a brief summary (see the link above) prepared by the court:.
the application concerns the jehovah’s witnesses’ religious activities in finland and their compatibility with the data protection regulations.
What is of interest here is that some branch of the org has decided to take this to court at all, That means the GB are testing the waters regarding the GDPR.
current jw growth is slower than during most of their history.
the only probable exceptions are following 1975 when there was a brief worldwide decrease, the late 1920s when around half of the members left the movement, perhaps around the 1917 schism, and various schisms during russell’s time.
there were also periods of sluggish growth during the 1950/60s and around 2000. .
Do the LDS publish the number of congregations? As you have long preached, SBF, those numbers tell the real story.
current jw growth is slower than during most of their history.
the only probable exceptions are following 1975 when there was a brief worldwide decrease, the late 1920s when around half of the members left the movement, perhaps around the 1917 schism, and various schisms during russell’s time.
there were also periods of sluggish growth during the 1950/60s and around 2000. .
What about the Mormons and Catholics?
2020 is days away.
has anything really changed for the witnesses or the religion?
?.
"They are now at a new low of brain-dead."
Thank you, PON!
