last week i posted a thread asking about who knew any "real anointed" and got some cracking replies.. that got me to thinking, as someone brought up in the 70's and 80's in the watchtower religion, my experience of bible studeis in their homes and those who made it to the hall were mostly batshit crazy or at least people with some serious quirks.. i'll relate a few, none of whose names i remember with any clarity.. in our cong we had an older couple who were from london, but who had been in the 1950's in the circuit work in the mid west usa.
they brought along some woman one night they had started a study with who told everyone cheerfully she was a recovering alcoholic and this was her cure (coming to the meetings).
this went on for a few weeks until one night they brought her to the memorial and she was royally pissed, and i mean barely able to stand; and went up to the platform table and necked some wine.
Number 6: thanks for the story.
"one night they brought her to the memorial and she was royally pissed, and I mean barely able to stand; and went up to the platform table and necked some wine."
I would either have bust a gut in laughter or killed myself suppressing my desire to do so.
MacHislopp, you mentioned the Brumley info was in the early 90s. Can you please provide more detail as the exact time and location (what court case)? Thanks in advance.
i apologize if this has already been shared.
a chap named harvinder singh finished his ma thesis last year at the university of birmingham on csa among jws.
i think this may be the first of such academic works to directly deal with the matter.
I apologize if this has already been shared. A chap named Harvinder Singh finished his MA thesis last year at the University of Birmingham on CSA among JWs. I think this may be the first of such academic works to directly deal with the matter. His stated thesis is not news to anyone here or elsewhere who has kept up on the matter:
"I argue that this religious organisation does not respond or adjust its doctrinal practices of child safeguarding in the face of criticism and recommendations of scholars, the mass media and the secular courts unless legislation requires it."
But what is of greater significance is that he may be beginning a trend among academics to deal with this subject matter, and that would then shine light on the issue and hopefully bring about further influence/pressure for organizational change. He brings in the ARC findings.
You can DLed it here. It's the first of his papers:
https://bham.academia.edu/HarvinderSingh
Clearly English is not Singh's native tongue, so you'll have to work through his sometimes poor language, but he offers enough content to see past that.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
as much as i enjoy you and pete's company, you also know our understanding of how much we want you to be reunited with jehovah and his people.. .
we did not set the standards for what jehovah says about our associations with those who choose to not serve him.
so we will always be there for you and pete, but it is in your hands as to how we can enjoy your friendship.. .
pale.emperor and johnamos:
NICE FINDS—THANKS!
not having attended any meetings since about 2001, for reasons of safety (sounds a bit dramatic but i don't like my wife being out on her own late at night where we live now), i have started accompanying her to the mid-week meeting.. when i was young, the ministry school and service meeting were central to training brothers to take the lead.
you were assigned instruction talks, then if you cut it, you moved pretty rapidly to public talks - a full 55 mins at the time.
i was just 18 years old when i gave my first public talk and this was a first step to moving rapidly through the ranks.
Thx, eyeslice2 for the post, and waton for the comment.
"this week's wt study par 10 refers specifically to training sessions in 'field service' not speaker training"
Yeah, TRAINING them to hand out a tract that refers the non-Witness to the org's website. That's a whole lot of "training," eh?
we keep seeing posters bringing col. 1.16 and john 1.3 up as proof that christ is excluded from the creative acts.
the proof they submit is that the words "all things [gk., pánta]" appear in these texts.
however, they are missing this important element from the discussion: the word "all" is rarely used in greek, and even in our everyday language to mean literally "everyone" or "everything" under the sky.
Thx, Wonderment for the post. I was reading Acts recently and noted how the "all" in 3:18 certainly does not mean ALL in an absolute sense. There Peter says, "God foretold by the mouths of all the prophets (πάντων τῶν προφητῶν), that his Christ should suffer ..." Of course, some of the prophets never mention the Messiah at all, and only a few of them speak of his suffering.
As for 1 Tim. 2:4, other factors are likely involved. First, that the plural of πᾶς can indeed mean "all sorts of" is clear from entry number 5 for that word in the 2nd revision by Danker of the Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich NT Greek lexicon (BDAG, p. 784). There are 25 NT examples listed under that definition. 1 Tim. 2:4 is not present but then it is unlikely that the lexicographers meant the entry to be exhaustive. Second, it is likely that Fred Franz was influenced by the earlier context. In verse 1 the writer exhorts Timothy to offer prayers ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων. Does that mean on behalf of all men/people in an absolute sense? Given other statements reflecting Christian doctrines elsewhere in the NT, like 1 John 5:16, Mark 3:29, and probably Matt. 18:17, one must ask whether the author of 1 Tim. wanted Timothy to pray for ALL people in an absolute sense. "All sorts of" here then may make good sense. If that is so, then continuing that thought 3 verses later may be viewed as at work.
BTW, I'm not defending Fred Franz or the NWT per se here. Rather I'm looking at factors not mentioned by Bobcat that may have been in play, beside the WTS's taking the 144,000 in Revelation literally. Furthermore, just because God wants all to be saved, that does not all will, given the free will that humans possess.
it has happened somewhere i know.
what is it and what does it mean.
Yes, it is real, whether individual ex-elders here have experienced or heard of it or not. It's done, just like DOC said, when local BOEs and/or appeals committees screw up. It's done from HQ. It means that the DFing never should have happened. It's rare but it occurs. A CO explained it to me back in the 1980s. I know of one case of a high powered elder getting wrongly DFed by his enemies, other high power elders who hated him. The service department at Brooklyn (pre-Patterson/Warwick days) had to step in and rescind the DFing.
It's mentioned in the CO manual for a reason (see SBF's quotation above).
1-samuel herd-message to accounts servants.
2-roles and responsibilities.
3-resolutions4-collecting contributions5-contribution boxes and their uses6-balance of congregation funds7-recording bank activity8-recording the s24 to the accounts sheet9-setting up and maintaining a bank account10-balance of congregation funds11-setting up a cash box and a cash box holder12-setting up a cash agreement13-making payments with a bank account14-how to add a user to a congregation domain15-ldc update-201916-walk on your way in safety-local needshttps://we.tl/t-wuega8kvbn .
Thanks, Petra!
these are the english files, the german files will be posted on a different thread in about an hour.. 2019-10-01-s-67-instructions for merging congregations2019-10-21-malta campaign letter.
2019-10-21-malta information sheet.
2019-malta application form.
Thx, Petra.
Does anyone else find it odd that the org is planning a big blitz on Malta, asking for Maltese speakers living elsewhere to travel there to participate, and states that there is a "rapidly expanding population" there? What a minute. Have the native Maltese people suddenly become more fertile so that the native population is growing? Isn't the increased population there due to refugees and people escaping from Africa? Why would they speak Maltese?
I smell a rat. Are they afraid if they get non-Maltese need-greaters coming in, that the government will send them packing, but if they get Maltese-speakers coming in, there is more of a chance they will be able to stay? Or has the cong there shrunk so much that they cannot cover their territory? Combining congs? Increasing elderly in them? What's up here?
this is me reading a letter ray kindly sent to me in 2008 explaining why the watchtower was not capable of reform.
the letter is full of wisdom and is very informative.. ray franz's letter to me - why the watchtower cannot reform.
Thx for this post, AM. I can empathize with you since it was only
since after I left the org that I came to realize in a fuller manner how
difficult it is for intelligent women to be in it. What a trial for you
and for other women!
I generally agree that the WT org will not reform. I respect Ray Franz and his efforts, but I do have some disagreements with him. One is that there exists a single possibility for reform: only a massive crisis will ever cause real change in the org. I find it interesting that so far, at least since Rutherford's day, such a thing has not happened to them. Whether it will occur in the future or not, who knows?
Since I lived through the Ray Franz
episode as an active Witness, your experience here is also educational
for me as an example of someone discovering him after it was over. You
did it without coming to forums like this one. That seems unusual.
excellent observation from zizek about communist regimes: they didn’t care if people accepted the ideology or took it seriously, so long as people acted as if the ideology was true, that was the important thing.
in fact the regimes were deeply suspicious people who took the ideology too seriously.
people who took the ideology seriously were dangerous because they were prone to noticing the inconsistencies and flaws in the system.
A post by SBF that does not tell about his "joining" some minor religious group or the WTS's imminent collapse—wow, the times must be achanging!
You have point, of course, but let me play devil's advocate and bring up what might be called "loyal success stories" who have spent time learning Hebrew and/or Greek formally, and have remained within the Witness fold: Hal Flemings, Max Wörnhard (who was both a CO and a professor of classics), Rolf Furuli, Edgar Foster, Pavlos Vasileiadis, and Gérard Gertoux. Of course, one could just write these characters off and say "They're an exception." However, given how rare it is to find any JWs who study these ancient languages in a serious, formal manner, such a number should not be so easily swept away. Furthermore, for a theory, like the one you are proposing, to be solid, it should be able to handle contrary evidence, as you well know. Why is it that these types have not crossed the delicate line from apologist to apostate? Obviously they have thought a lot about theology. To them the religion is not just behavior.
Your response?
