Posts by Doubting Bro

14

Free to remarry?

by Earnest in

i wonder if anyone can help with this information?

i seem to recall that if a husband or wife commits adultery and is divorced, is it necessary for the innocent party to agree before that one can be reinstated?

regardless of that answer if the person is reinstated and wishes to remarry do they need the agreement of the innocent party before they can remarry if they wish to maintain a good standing in the congregation?.

Doubting Bro

Earnest,

Yknot is 100% correct. They can prevent them from getting married in the KH and even discourage any local elders from marrying them but from a WTS standpoint, the innocent mate refused to forgive and thus both the innocent mate and the cheating mate are "free" to remarry without congregational sanctions.

From personal experience, where this will come into play is if the man was the guilty mate and in the future they try to appoint him. I saw Bethel ask questions about someone who was a MS for several years and when recommended as an elder, a letter came back requesting the BOE to interview the ex-spouse (who wasn't a JW anymore) specifically to see if her former spouse's actions were why she wasn't a JW. I've also seen a situation where someone was recommended as a MS and had cheated on his spouse years earlier. She had forgiven him and stayed married but we still had to talk to her about it and ask if she "respected" him from a spiritual standpoint before moving forward. Needless to say, that was an uncomfortable conversation and caused her immense pain for having to relive the infidelity.

yknot -you know more about WTS procedure than the average JW elder. You're quite an elderette!!!

121

New Generation understanding tied to Freddie Franz

by 5thGeneration in

also don't know if this has been mentioned previously.. our speaker yesterday, gb member br.

pierce, tied the overlap theory directly to fred franz's lifetime.. did anyone else catch this?.

evidently (and i'm paraphrasing), anyone anointed after franz's death in 1992 is not of the 'generation'.. 5th.

Doubting Bro

Bane,

Let me help you a bit. Here's Matt 24:3

While he was sitting upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately, saying: “Tell us, When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your presence and of the conclusion of the system of things?” NWT

Where do you see the apostles setting a date? They wanted a date and that's why they asked Jesus when the temple was going to be destroyed (see vs 2). Also, could you point out the scripture where the apostles strongly inferred a particular date and then accused anyone that questioned that date of apostacy?

2 Thes:1,2 " 1 However, brothers, respecting the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we request of YOU 2 not to be quickly shaken from YOUR reason nor to be excited either through an inspired expression or through a verbal message or through a letter as though from us, to the effect that the day of Jehovah is here. " NWT

I was a little kid during the 1975 era but I remember very clearly what happened and how people disregarded this counsel. The WTS encouraged through parts, as well as in articles, the frenzy. What they should have done was said " Jesus said at an hour we aren't expecting it, then end will come". They chose not to do so because as an end time religion, the purpose is to get folks to whipped into frenzied activity. At no time in the WTS history have they been able to acheive such growth as the run-up to 1975.

The new generation teaching is an effort to get some of that excitement back. Time will tell if it will work but the apathy problem is growing more noticable every day.

57

this lurker's first post.

by dances with smurfs in

jw
friends

:|.

...........im gonna go have an anxiety attack now.

lol.

Doubting Bro

Welcome - Love the user name!!! Look forward to reading your story.

45

The Theocratic Life and Times of Theodore Jaracz - NEW

by Dogpatch in

jw
friends

the theocratic life and times of theodore jaracz .

by barbara anderson.

[we are doing a special focus on the dark side of brooklyn bethel for a couple of weeks over at freeminds.org].

Doubting Bro

Really interesting. Thanks for posting this!

88

The next dub that says "the light's getting brighter" to me...

by undercover in

jw
friends

...is going to get his punched out.

yes, friends, this is another thread about the latest generation teaching.

so, if you're sick to death of it, leave now, save yourselves.... anyhoo... as the wts has now unleashed on the world the true explanation of generation and what it means for those of us in this time of the end, dubs who accept without question this teaching are 'oohing' and 'ahhing' as the new explanation 'makes so much sense now'.

Doubting Bro

They're clearly grasping at straws. The more I think about it, the angrier I get at the insult to the intelligence the explaination truely is. It's not quite as unbelievable as the (still on the books) teaching that the seven seals of Revelation were 7 conventions in the 1920s but it's not too far off.

If I hadn't wakened up by now, this change certainly would have made me question.

14

The ad hoc Generation

by TD in

to me, the word, "generation" has always been one of those fuzzy terms with an annoyingly slippery definition set.. i have a blood relative who was the very youngest child in a family of 13. the age difference between him and his oldest siblings is more than twenty years and some of them were actually married and had children of their own before he was even born.

therefore some of his nieces and nephews are actually older than he is.

one nephew that he was especially close to when he was growing up is almost exactly his age, as they were both born in the same month of the same year.. a situation like this; where an uncle is the exact same age as his nephew can easily occur in very large families and makes you think about what exactly the term, "generation" really means.

Doubting Bro

I think the DC talk as well as the CO talk actually did spell it out clearer saying that the overlap took place between those such as Franz who were "annointed" in 1914 and those who were annointed prior to Franz dying. I either saw or hear verbage to the effect of "annointed when the sign was first recognized". Since he lived to be almost 100 and was "annointed" prior to 1914 but barely, he would be a good example to use to make the point. I'm pretty sure Loshe started prior to 92 but not sure about the others.

They aren't going to put it in writing because they really don't believe it. They want to give themselves wiggle room so when 20 years does pass and the end isn't here yet, they can say "well what we meant was alive in 1914" to give themselves another 10-20 years. Then, it will be GB 3.0's problem to deal with.

TD - I agree that they are hanging their hat on the definition of generation as it relates to Joseph and his brothers being part of the same generation of family decendants. But, as others have mentioned, its clear that Jesus was talking to his disciples (who varied in age but had the common event of being is apostles at around the same time) and telling them that they would not pass away as a group without seeing Jerusalem destroyed.

Even if Matt 24 had an future application, the timeframe between the "sign" and the end would also need to be about the same amount of time.

I'm not sure why they don't just change the inspection/appointment to a more current date (say 1975) and either leave the "last days" at 1914 or even move it. They've done it before and it would make more sense than attempting to change the meaning of a common word.

43

Exposing the Sickness: they printed letter to editor on the WT's treatment of Ray Franz in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Sat.6/12/10

by not a captive in

closure isn't needed.

in georgia recently, a religious "criminal" died.

this one had been brought to account.

Doubting Bro

nicely written

20

Ray Franz obituary in Atlanta Journal Constitution

by blondie in

jw
friends

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/atlanta/obituary.aspx?n=raymond-franz&pid=143464974&fhid=5304.

raymond franz | visit guest book.

paid full name=raymond franz .

Doubting Bro

BTTT

Thanks Blondie.

87

Official: Ted Jaracz's Funeral Brochure

by yknot in

jw
friends

i received this generous offering from 'anonymous brother'.

his comments : hmmm...why do i not see such things at most jw funerals?.

please give your 'thank you' to "anonymous brother'.

Doubting Bro

Thanks for posting this yknot and thanks to "anonymous brother" for providing the info. Like others, I have seen this sort of thing done at JW furernal's before.

As for using donated funds to print out the brochure, I seriously doubt a) any JW would care and b) it cost more than $50 total. Remember, it's a publishing company. Someone likely put this thing together in like an hour using photos they already had. I can't see why this would be that big of a deal.

If you think about, it's not really a eulogy of Jaracz the man as much as it is a review of what Jaracz did for the WTS. Other than mentioning where he was born and when he got married, everything else seems to be related to his service to the WTS. So, even for the most influencial member of the GB, it's once again more about the organization than it is about the person. Same with most rank & file funerals although I've attended some that were very light on the recruitment and heavy on eulogy (my grandmother's being one of them - the speaker even cried).

Honestly, I've seen more personal rememberance in retirement announcements than is in Jaracz's brochure. It's sad in way that a person would have a close working relationship having been in Bethel what almost 40 years and all they can muster is that he'll be "missed". The general consensus is that he wasn't a very pleasant man, so maybe that's the most positive thing they could say about him.

It will be interesting to see when they decide to move to increase the number of GB members. 8 seems like a low number.

16

Why are the British football team so useless?

by highdose in

jw
friends

last nights match was humiliating.

and lets face it... if they even make it to the semi's it will be amazing!.

ok you could say well they are playing agianst the best teams in the world... but other teams manage!?!.

Doubting Bro

USA USA USA