Posts by Old Goat

8

Interesting info on N.H. Barbour

by cabasilas in

i don't know if this has been mentioned here before or not.

if so, please ignore.

this looks like it contains an interesting amount of info on n.h. barbour:.

Old Goat

Dear Cyberguy,

His name is on website. It's located at the bottom of the post. As I understand the blog, you many post questions and replies.

It's very interesting.

43

Why We Can Hope for the End of the Watchtower

by metatron in

jw
friends

forgive me for starting a new thread - apart from the emerging news about child abuse settlements .

but i simply feel that, for all of us who have suffered persecution from the watchtower society, their.

end may now be in sight.

This won't end the Watch Tower Society. ... But, I'm pleased that they have to pay. I sat on a very complex case where a man sexually abused his daughter. The wife was complicit. It was nasty, emotionally draining and upsetting. I think we handled it fairly well, given the restrictions placed on elder bodies. The silly laws of this state and the firm word of the District Overseer prevented from calling the police. The decision from the District Overseer was that we could not proceed against the blameworthy mother, nor could we call the police on our own. That is the one thing I regret. I protested, but unfortunately did nothing more. Our laws have changed, and today I would get on the phone and call CPS. We got the daughter out of the house. She declined to call the authorities.

I can think of other cases handled very poorly. Those elders and the Society when they abetted them should pay, and pay hugely. If "The Society" puts untrained men in the position of counselors, then they are responsible for their failings. You elders and ex-elders out there: Did you ever feel adequately trained? In what way? Kingdom Ministry School is a joke. It does not train elders effectively or in those areas where they need it. When someone asked me if I would say that "theocratic training" was the equivalent of college, I laughed. It's not. It's not even close.

Jehovah's Witnesses will never be much more than a cult made up of the under-educated, unthinking, and self-centered until they provide real education to those they place in authority. I know this isn't a fix-all. It would be an effective first step. Those old guys who call themselves the Governing Body need to more clearly define the purpose of a judicial committee in scriptural terms. And for the sake of the brothers, make clear that a congregation elder or elder body does not stand in the place of secular authority. You do not lose your civil rights when you walk through the Kingdom Hall door unless you voluntarily surrender them. And what fool would do that?

My heart aches for those hurt by stupid elders. Ultimately the responsibility rests on the Governing Body. I want a new one! Made up of educated, spiritual men who aren't mysteries in their personal lives.

157

Judicial Committee Preparation

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

judicial committee preparation.

recently a friend inquired about how to best prepare for a judicial committee hearing from the prospective of the subject individual.

at a minimum i recommend the following:.

Old Goat

I should edit before I post. I'm sorry for the misspellings! I repent!

I see I have a theological question in my forum in-box. I don't want to discuss Theology at this time, but thanks for your concern and question.

157

Judicial Committee Preparation

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

judicial committee preparation.

recently a friend inquired about how to best prepare for a judicial committee hearing from the prospective of the subject individual.

at a minimum i recommend the following:.

Old Goat

The only reason I know the WTS has been successfully sued for character assassination is because of my personal exchanges over the years with two Bethel attorneys, one of which left Bethel years ago.

The only successful suit against the Watchtower Society of which I am aware was that by Olin Moyle. Russell adopted the public "church session" approach to sins. When sins became a congregational issue, the resultant meetings were very public and sometimes very divisive. Russell wrung his hands over the result, but the procedure wasn't changed. The entire congregation was involved.

When Moyle left, because he was so prominent, the matter was made very public. He was scolded in The Watchtower and publicly disfellowshipped at a National Convention. The resolution disfellowshipping him was printed and circulated to congregations. He sued. Those involved in publicly humiliating him lost. There are other examples of public disfellowshippings and public trials. Key would be the 1937 trial of the Canadian Branch Servant and the1894 disfellowshipping of prominent brothers who had personal and financial grievances against Russell. [Before you run of with that as if it were a scandal, their complaints seem to have been without merrit and they made the issue public first. It was a power grab.] There were also mass disfellowshippings in West Africa, done at a convention in, as I recall, 1949.

The Moyle libel suit was one of the events that moved the Watchtower Society into a less public approach. By the early 1950's a private trial before the Service Committee was established, and this process was additionally refined in 1957. There was mass confusion, but the process stayed in place.

I understand, but have never seen documentation, that there was an out of court settlement sometime in the early 1980's. This resulted in dropping the phrase, "for conduct unbecoming a Christian." Settlement or not, the Society saw the continued use of the phrase as a liability.

Changes to the procedure haven't been driven by concern for meeting a Biblical standard, though the Society did not totally lack that motive. Changes were driven by legal realities. Those who want a public hearing will never get it within the congregation. Don't expect it. The issue isn't Biblical, but legal. That's why I said earlier that a Committee Meeting is not the best forum in which to present your grievances.

157

Judicial Committee Preparation

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

judicial committee preparation.

recently a friend inquired about how to best prepare for a judicial committee hearing from the prospective of the subject individual.

at a minimum i recommend the following:.

Old Goat

Well, I don’t understand the point of much of this discussion. Association with Jehovah’s Witnesses is voluntary. A little observation tells one that becoming a Witness cuts you off from most non-Witness associations. You are isolated in a small group, and your associations come from that group. When you "dedicate" your life to Jehovah, you’re cutting yourself off from most of humanity. If you wish to leave, the real problem is reintroducing yourself into a society you came to view as hostile and "worldly."

If one wishes to leave, why make an issue out of the Judicial process. True, the "judicial committee" arrangement is a Star-Chamber process. There is little similarity to how congregations in the first century handled these matters. But, if you wish to remain a member of a sect with high behaviour expectations, then you will follow their procedures. You will meet with the committee. If you do not wish to remain associated, simply decline their invitation to meet. If you have doctrinal or other issues, state them clearly if you must state them at all.

What is the point of "going out in a blaze of glory"? If you are being wronged by the elders, state your case and follow procedures. If you want to leave, just leave. If you want to explain, you do it to the wrong audience if you explain to a committee. You really wish to make your explanations public, do you not? Post it on a blog, web-site, or forum.

I was an elder for many years, and I was a congregation servant before that. Most elders wish to do right. However, the governing body provides poor and inadequate training. You cannot rely on good-wishes and intent alone for a righteous and fair decision.

I have some sympathies for those who wish to sue. I don’t see that as an effective use of time. I don’t see going through the Judicial process as an effective way to state one’s case either, unless one is not-guilty or repentant.

The judicial committee arrangement is open to abuse. The elders seldom prepare, and those who do prepare seldom prepare well. Being judged by under-educated, untrained, ill-disposed men is not my vision of divine justice. Yet, my experience as an elder (probably more years than many who read this board have lived) is that this is too often exactly the circumstance. The Governing Body knows this. Preparation and qualification are constant problems and are the problems most often considered in Kingdom Ministry School training sessions and in private letters. Why would one wish to put themselves in an abusive situation?

Leave or stay. If you leave, take your fight to a more public and more effective forum than a courtroom or a judicial hearing. If you intend to protest, take the protest to people who will listen. A judicial committee will not listen to you, except to find in your words justification for their acts.

One last note. If you protest, stick to the facts. Don’t invent things. A clearly stated objection carries more weight than contrived nonsense.

84

The Great Taboo Discussion---Suicides among former Jehovah's Witnesses

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

the great taboo discussionsuicides among former jehovah's witnesses to write about this discussion neither appeals to me nor does it make me feel comfortable to discuss it.. however, it is necessary to consider in light of all the trauma, negative experiences, and personal traged-.

ies that have happened to individuals on this board.

(what inspired me to write this subject was a bone chilling account .

Old Goat

When I was a young man, I saw Watchtower teachings as life-based. Yes, The Watchtower focused on the nearness of divine judgment, but it also focused on the need to bring the message of life to as many as possible.

About 1957 and at least by 1959 there was a shift in focus. Behavior issues were raised, and one's relationship to the Watchtower organization became the focus. There was a shift away from responsibility to Jehovah and Christ to subservience to the seven old men in Brooklyn who then made up what we now call The Governing Body. (In practice it was the two old men, Knorr and Franz. The others didn't really have a decision making voice. They were merely faithful functionaries.)

This shift took two forms.

The first was an intensification of the wild speculation for which The Watchtower has always been noted. An example was F. W. Franz's article on the Cities of Refuge wherein he found prophetic fulfillments for things only mentioned by Josephus. Josephus was inspired? One can find a prophetic parallel in a secular history? Interesting. The stupidity over 1975 was of this phylum and genus.

The second was a strong tendency to turn personal preference into Bible law. There is the very strange fluctuation on private sexual practices between married people that has no real basis in anything the Bible actually says. Moses is blunt. If God doesn't like something, he plainly says so through the Mosaic law, and while it isn't biding on Christians, it is an expression of the divine view. Most of what The Watchtower has said about these matters cannot be found in the Mosaic Law or anywhere else but in the imagination of a few dirty-minded old men.

This Pharisaical approach to life has made elders and the service department the arbiters of right and wrong. They have put themselves in God's place. Remember the fluctuations over the definition of "pornea"? That hurt people.

The ultimate effect is to make The Watchtower a death-centered cult. The focus is on the wrong things. It's not on obedience to Jehovah and Christ, but on subservience to a the opinions of a few men who are Biblically and historically illiterate and who find their opinions on moral matters more significant than the Bible. They have no qualms about promulgating detail laws where none are found in the Bible. This is a sin. God will judge it.

If one shifts focus off of obedience to God and onto obedience to the Watchtower "voice," one will lose hope. One's focus shifts from the life that God gives to an impossible to please clique of old men who's voice may parallel the Bible, but which deviates into speculation and personal opinion. The Watchtower cult becomes a death cult for those who substitute subservience to Watchtower opinion for a personal relationship to God . Doing so leaves one with no hope.

For now I continue to believe it is possible to associate with The Watchtower and do God's will. But one cannot associate with it and remain faithful to Jehovah if they substitute the opinions of a few perverted minds for the plain word of God. Do not go where the Bible doesn't take you. If it isn't in The Book, no amount of sophistry will put it there. Don't make yourself accountable to stupid men. You're accountable to God only.

64

How much influence did the internet have on you leaving the organization?

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

untitled document  discoveries about the organization on the internet admittedly, had it not been for the internet, and all of the dis-.

coveries that were found on it; i would still be one of jehovah's .

witnesses.

Old Goat

Pyramidology was a core teaching and cannot just be brushed over as inconsequential. It was used as the basis for Russell's 1914 teaching.

Actually, it was used to supplement the 1914 conclusion, not as its principal proof. The "Gentile Times" argument was the principal proof. Even that wasn't unique to Russell and Barbour. One can find it in Hatch, H. Grattan Guinness, and Elliott, and, though starting and ending at a different date, in Brown.

Pyramidology was subsidiary for Russell, not primary.

Was it right to teach it? No, of course not. Were Russell, Storrs, and Seiss worse than anyone else for doing it? Probably they were no more nonsensical than most. Should the Watch Tower have abandoned it sooner? Certainly. Only the worship of Russell kept it alive.

I'm not an apologist for pyrmidology or for Russell. My point is that these things have a historical context, and in that context they are less upsetting to me than they would otherwise be. For me the focus is on behaviour. Today's behaviour of elders and the governing body, to be precise. It's generally bad, untrained at least, and it hurts those who believe.

64

How much influence did the internet have on you leaving the organization?

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

untitled document  discoveries about the organization on the internet admittedly, had it not been for the internet, and all of the dis-.

coveries that were found on it; i would still be one of jehovah's .

witnesses.

Old Goat

I knew that the material in the Revelation book was a huge pile of embarrassing shit long before I researched anything on the Internet, but it was the Internet that helped me realize I wasn't alone in leaving the Watchtower mentally. It's been therapy.

When I was much younger than I am now "The Revelation Book" was the two-volume work Light. (Makes me a tad old, doesn't it?) Rutherford's Light still forms the basis for Jehovah's Witnesses apocalyptic theology. There are many, many revisions, but the approach was solidified by what Rutherford wrote back in 1930.

In Russell's day the Watch Tower's approach to prophetic speculation was fairly standard. It had it's roots in several major 17th through early 19th century works, and surprisingly most of them were not Adventist. When the movement fragmented after Russell's death Rutherford and P. S. L. Johnson used prophetic types as swords. To his credit, Rutherford was more of a gentleman than Johnson. (Sorry, you Johnshonites, but it IS true.) That aside, it was this that moved Watch Tower prophetic speculation from its roots in Mede, the two Newtons, and others into its present framework. Even that true weirdness titled "Finished Mystery" had roots in more mainstream and respected (traditional is probably a better word) prophetic exposition.

There ya' go. A bit of history, whether you want it or not.

64

How much influence did the internet have on you leaving the organization?

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

untitled document  discoveries about the organization on the internet admittedly, had it not been for the internet, and all of the dis-.

coveries that were found on it; i would still be one of jehovah's .

witnesses.

Old Goat

I haven't left yet, and the Internet won't be the deciding factor if I leave. Too much of what is on the Internet is wrong, stupid or senseless. An example would be many of the comments on Russell and the Great Pyramid. Some of the comments contain interesting and well-researched information. However, the Watch Tower's Great Pyramid adventure is usually taken out of historical context. It's forgotten that mainline and respected Christian journals endorsed the idea. Positive reviews of Seiss's pyramid book appeared in The Illustrated Christian Weekly, The Reformed Church Messenger, and many others. I wonder why it took so long to discard pyramidology. But I don't wonder why it was believed or even find it upsetting.

What does bother me is the endless hypocrisy, the poor scholarship, and the lack of adequate training for elders and ministerial servants. And comparing "theocratic" training to college is simply mindless. There is no comparison. If anything will finally get me out, it is the continued bad behavior of Elders. That the Governing Body tolerates wickedness in Elder-bodies is beyond shameful. And they do. They know they do. We know they do.

One brief example of a corrupt elder body: I was chairman of an appeal committee. Within five minutes it was apparent that one of the original committee had lied to the brother they'd disfellowshipped. We upheld the disfellowshipping. It was one of those times when removing a true wickedness was a good thing. But, we took the matter of the elder's lie up with the rest of the original committee. We pointed out to them that they had countenanced the lie by not challenging it when it was told. This person's excuse for the lie was that he wanted "him (the one appearing before them) to tell the truth." Huh? HUH? You think this is rare? Think again!

The so-called "temple organization" (anyone old enough to remember that expression?) is corrupt. Clean house, brothers, or lose faithful but hurting brothers and sisters.

46

C.O. is in town, the harassment begins...

by PeachRose in

jw
friends

i haven't been to meetings in a long time (trying to fade).

ever so often i do run into a witness or 2 who are friendly, but reserved (after all i am considered in active).

anyway, my hubby & i are currently working on a letter to send to the society that will more then likely get us df'd or disassociated (same thing i guess).

Old Goat

The elders avoid me like the plague. I only see them at meetings, which I attend irregularly. And I get one visit each new Circuit Overseer.

I have health problems, and I used them as the basis for my resignation as an Elder. They are real, and they are hard to endure. But a larger reason for my resignation was Elder hypocrisy and lying. I grew tired of their double standards, their appeal to their own beliefs instead of the Bible, and their self-worship.

So, how did I get them to stay away? Well, I'd been an Elder for over twenty years and I was a Congregation Servant before that. You may have heard me speak at some District Convention. I know Witness theology better than they do. I know the Bible better than they do. (Sounds haughty, doesn't it? But they simply weren't and aren't Bible students. We don't train our elders as we should, and few train themselves.)

The last elder visit (without a Circuit Overseer as "protection") was by two brothers who tried to use a verse from Romans. The application given it was a common one, but it differs significantly from what the Watchtower says. It's not uncommon for Elders to interpret verses far differently than the Watchtower does. So, I called them on it. I was polite, mostly, but very pointed. It shifted the focus of our little gathering off me and onto them.

Also, the one wanted me to "report my time." Well, guess what, brother. I'm mostly bed ridden. Did it ever occur to you, that's why I don't have much time to report? There are other issues as well. One of those being a Circuit Overseers suggestion that I "made up" the hours I reported. He said my reports were unwelcome. I took him at his word, and I just stopped reporting. I was just becoming incapacitated. I wasn't going door to door very much because I was in bed or medicated into insensibility. But I was witnessing incidentally all I could, and I had two bible studies going. So, I told them what happened. They said, "well, you shouldn't have listened to him." But they listen to Circuit Overseers and District Overseers as if their word is divine. They will act on a Circuit Overseer's opinion even when it's contrary to Society policy, or even when it's contrary to the Bible.

There was more. But the lesson is this: Put them on the spot. Make them the issue. Do it politely and truthfully. Either they can handle it, or they can't.

Me? I still reject Elder behaviour. I believe the theology, without the side issues of who will be resurrected and foolishness like that. God determines those things, and no amount of back and forth speculation will change his decision. I know our history better than most. I know what we said, and when we said it. I'm not desturbed over most of those things. But I am distrubed by elder conduct and the tendency of Watch Tower Officials to ignore the Bible when it comes to human interaction. They speak fine words. From the Governing Body down, their practice does not match what is taught.