Yes, the "gay" accusation thing is their favorite tool, always attempting to defrock us of our burly manhood! :-))
I think when they reach this far they have plum run out of bullets.
Randy
Dogpatch
JoinedPosts by Dogpatch
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How Would You Respond?
by silentlambs inbelow is an email i received this morning, can you feel the love from the spiritual paradise?
this brings it to a new level of accusations, now i am apparently gay according to the jw gossip mill.
i will have to add that to the list.
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Dogpatch
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new Christian support group in Los Angeles
by Dogpatch innew christian support group for ex-jws in los angeles:.
just to give you the details:.
begin date: sunday, april 28, 2002. time: 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.. place: downey free methodist church youth center building.
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Dogpatch
New Christian support group for ex-JWs in Los Angeles:
Just to give you the details:
Begin Date: Sunday, April 28, 2002
Time: 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Place: Downey Free Methodist Church Youth Center Building
Address: 9245 Florence Avenue
Downey, CA 90240
This will be a time of getting to know one another, fellowship. Refreshments will be served. I am planning to do this once per month, last Sunday of the month. It may change to a Saturday if Sunday proves not to be a good day for many.
Cynthia Hampton
[email protected] -
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No professional group good at policing itself
by Dogpatch ininteresting excerpt from an article on bbc news regarding the catrholic church and their sex abuse scandal.
how much of this also applies to the watchtower society?.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1898000/1898608.stm.
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Dogpatch
wow deepinthought, that was really deep!
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No professional group good at policing itself
by Dogpatch ininteresting excerpt from an article on bbc news regarding the catrholic church and their sex abuse scandal.
how much of this also applies to the watchtower society?.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1898000/1898608.stm.
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Dogpatch
Interesting excerpt from an article on BBC news regarding the Catrholic church and their sex abuse scandal. How much of this also applies to the Watchtower Society?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1898000/1898608.stmInvestigations
The [America-Catholic based] editorial says there is a need for a new system for investigating allegations of sexual abuse.
It says no professional group is good at policing itself. And it is even more difficult for the clergy, not only because they are investigating their brothers, but also because their whole training urges them towards forgiveness, rather than punishment.
"The bishops, even those who have done the right thing, now have no credibility in policing the clergy," it says.
"No one will trust a clean bill of health given by a clerical board."
What is needed, says the magazine, is an independent lay board in each diocese empowered to investigate every allegation against a priest or church employee.
"Only such a board could credibly clear priests falsely accused of a crime," it says.
__________________Could you imagine the Watchtower allowing a policing board to watch over its elders? LOL
Net Soup!
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Bryant murder + Longo
by Dogpatch inhttp://www.publicbroadcasting.net/opb/news.newsmain?action=article&article_id=336044.
re: the bryant murders.
the similarities between bryant and accused murderer christian longo are striking.
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Dogpatch
from:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/opb/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=336044RE: The Bryant murders
The similarities between Bryant and accused murderer Christian Longo are striking. Both moved their families to Oregon recently. Both had business troubles in the past. Both were Jehovah's Witnesses who were forced out of their congregations. The main different between them, though, is that Longo fled to Mexico where he was caught and now awaits trial in Newport. Robert Bryant knelt down in his living room, and put a shotgun to his chin. Yamhill County Sheriff Norm Hand says closure may be impossible in this case.
__________Net Soup!
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JW film in Australia
by Dogpatch inpassing this on:.
dear fellow recovering xjw's,.
i have been consulting with kimberly ramsay, an independent filmmaker from .
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Dogpatch
Passing this on:
Dear Fellow Recovering XJW's,
I have been consulting with Kimberly Ramsay, an independent filmmaker from
Australia, who is making a movie involving Jehovah's Witnesses. It is my
hope that the movie will help the public avoid becoming entrapped in cult
mind control as practiced by the Witnesses, and perhaps even help current
Witnesses recognize how they are being controlled without their knowledge.Kimberly is looking for personal accounts illustrating the destructive
policies of the Watchtower, which will help her in creating the storyline
of this film. Please send your personal stories to her at
[email protected].I'm sure if you ask her, she will anonymize or modify the story so as not
to reveal any identifying personal information about you. I believe that
significant social change can occur through the medium of entertainment,
both positive and negative. I invite you to join me in using this
opportunity to create positive change, to help others not get trapped as we
once were. Thank you.Sincerely,
Andrew
San Francisco Bay Area
Ex-Jehovah's Witness
Support Group
email [email protected] -
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Losing my religion
by Dogpatch inpassing this on.... .
losing my religion.
it was 1994, my first year in college, well, my first year in four-year college, anyway.
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Dogpatch
Passing this on...
Losing My Religion
It was 1994, my first year in college, well, my first year in four-year college, anyway. I had just graduated from a trade school on the advice of the elders of the congregation, who knew I had been floundering with odd jobs trying to make enough gas money to drive myself all the way from Sumter, South Carolina to Columbia for my missionary work. My education was supposed to have ended there, so I could get a small, part-time secretary job somewhere to free me up to “advance Kingdom interests.” It was during my second semester at Columbia University that things started to change for me. Although I had never stopped going to the five weekly meetings, even having hosted one of them in my own apartment, I read Thoreau, and one grain of his wisdom stuck in my sensible door-to-door shoes: Have we really explored all there is to explore? As westerners, why have we limited ourselves to the Bible only? Why not read the Bhagavad Gita or the Koran? I started noticing that the meetings of the Crusaders, my religious group, took on an eerie tone. Advance Kingdom interests this. Advance Kingdom interests that. Door-to-door, door-to-door. Follow the direction of the Sheperding Ministers (the group of 12 white men in Columbus, Ohio, who wrote all our magazines and dictated the words of the Lord).
Up to that point, I had changed so little since my 17th year, I, a senior in high school, Drum Major of the band. Conducting our little high school band was one of the high points of my life thus far, and just to be on the safe side, I had talked to my band director about certain songs I could not direct: such as the national anthem, which we considered too worldly and also disloyal, for we were simply aliens on earth, our government not a democracy, but a Theocracy, ruled from heaven, our country, the only one God supported, of course. Well, I had settled quite comfortably into the role of leader, a role I had never been given in my life, except for the time I was given the responsibility to take care of the class gerbil in fourth grade and neglected the poor thing because I was too embarrassed to admit I was scared of rodents. Now, my arms moved with ease, telling the band to be quieter, louder, to pick up the pace, to slow down, until the day I looked up one evening, and one of the blurry dots in the stands intrigued me with its trigger on my memory bank. That face looks familiar, I thought. Is it him? Wait, no, it’s not, it’s just some—oops, it is. I saw the face of one of the members of our congregation, watching the band, and I felt an accusatory stare, or was it a glare, from his eyes and the eyes of the entire congregation. I could feel the gossip making its hurtful way through the congregation, as if I had been dealt one of those little bugs, which travel beneath the surface of one’s skin in so many science fiction movies. My arms flailed about with insecurities about my future standing with the congregation. Maybe he’ll be cool and not tell anyone, I hoped.
Days passed, and nothing happened. I’ll be alright, I imagined, as I slouched in front of the couch on the floor with my records scattered about the living room, listening to my Culture Club album, which gave me some relief from biting my nails and pulling my hair out by the roots, strand by strand. It was Thursday, a high-schooler’s eternity since the football game the Friday before. My fears had eased into comfort as I realized nothing bad was going to happen to me. I went to the meeting that evening confident that I was an okay person, that God was smiling down on me as one of his creative children just expressing herself. The meeting went okay, and I got to give a lot of answers as always. Geez, the answers are so simple, right there in the book, and nobody seems to want to raise their hand. What’s up? I thought, as the minutes dragged by. The time after the meeting was a joy, as I got to socialize and hang with all of my friends, young and old alike, all encouraging and strengthening one another to face the world and its sometimes cruel persecutors. We would often have an almost manic excitement in the air, but only after the meeting. During I noticed that everyone would become rather sleepy, as if the Devil himself were trying to oppress us and cover our ears. People would make frequent trips to the bathroom or water fountain to stay awake. I remember secretly thinking that the sisters with children to discipline were so lucky, because they had an escape. But it shamed me to think such thoughts, and I would convince myself I was just fighting my own selfish tendencies and sinful thoughts. So I made the meetings more interesting by preparing my lesson beforehand so I could raise my hand and answer questions from the podium over what we had learned. I learned to be quite a convincing speaker with this training. As one of the few loyal Bible students who had never rebelled or took boyfriends at school, I was always welcome to every gathering and sing-along, where I found a rare chance to show off my singing voice a little, but just a little, for we were ever cautioned against haughty thinking. On this day, as I was saying good-bye to a few of my friends and gathering my books, two men blocked my happy way to the exit.
“Sister Huerta, we were wondering if we could take a moment to talk to you about something that has come to our attention,” one dryly stated. I could tell by the sounds in their voices that I, the pillar of the youth in the congregation, had finally fallen from grace. “We understand from a few observers that you have been directing the band as a majorette in your school.”
“Yessir.”
“Well, we’d like to ask what your duties are in this task.”
“Well, I just direct the band at football games, but I do not direct the National Anthem,” I defended.
“This is to be commended, sister,” said the other elder approvingly, although I somehow guessed what the next word would be. “But what about the alma mater?” I had guessed the word “but” correctly.
“The, uh, ah, alma mater?” I feigned innocently.
“Yes,” they replied, waiting. I fell silent, hesitating, and their next question curiously enough flashed like written words in all capitals before my face, “DO YOU CONDUCT THE ALMA MATER?”
I know how to tell a white lie, how to tell sister Brewster she did a good job on that awful, quilted, polyester scrap vest she wears frequently. But lie to the elders? In a prejudicial hearing? No way, I can’t. “Yes, I have had to conduct it as a part of my duties. You see, when I decided to try out, I specifically asked the band director if I could avoid the national anthem during the year, and he had said OK, that he would conduct that one since it was in the stands. But on the field, each performance ends with a rendition of the alma mater, and I had not thought enough ahead to avoid that one.”
“Sister, your honesty is to be commended. It would be good to consider what God’s Word has to say about all this. We don’t need to remind you, a serious Bible student, of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and how they refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s national symbol. But have you ever stopped to consider how the school is like a mini-government? The alma mater is the national anthem of the school, and as the Good Book say, ‘he that is faithful in little shall also be faithful in much.’” Quipped the elder cheerfully. I began to cry. I was surrounded by feelings of death and gloom, a tired, sick feeling.
“There, there, sister,” one comforted, “we all make mistakes, and the purpose of this visit with you and with any of God’s Crusader children is to save the straying sheep before they get lost.” This somehow didn’t take away the sick feeling.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t see it before—what am I going to do? I am the only one who went to drum major camp, and there is no one else to fill my position on such short notice, and at the end of the football season!” I cried.
“A scripture in the letter of James will help us,” the first one said as the familiar rustle of Bible paper clouded the air. “The implication of this scripture, to let your yes mean yes and your no mean no, is that, if you have already committed to a job for the world and fell into a pitfall unknowingly, you are first to fulfill your contract, doing as little of the bad deed involved as possible. For example a brother might unwittingly sign a construction contract and find that a few of the projects are on the Navy Base. Then what? If he can get out of those through the mercy of his employer, then he will. But if his employer shows no mercy, he must fulfill his duties until the contract is up, asking God for forgiveness.”
“So I can finish out the year? We only have two more games and then maybe district, because it looks like we’ll make it,” I said, my tears subsiding somewhat by now.
“That Sumter sure has a good team,” one mused. “They’ve really come a long way in the past few years. Heh heh, there’s nothing like a good football team…”
“Ahem, ah, brother, back to the subject,” the other corrected, “Sister, what this all boils down to is, even if no worldly songs were played, it is one thing to be in the band, but quite another to be leading it. We have to live in this world, but we do not want to be deep into it. That is why we do not run for office, or other such worldly leadership positions.”
“Yessir, I understand. I’m sorry. I will talk to my teacher and see if I can be relieved of some of my duties. Thank you for correcting my path,” I slurred humbly, with my head hung low.
“Sister you have always set a fine example for the other young ones. I would hate to see you stumble now and bring anyone else down with you. The end is near! From the looks of things, I doubt this old world will make it to the year 1990. Armageddon is fast approaching. We must do all we can to leave this system behind and do all we can to advance Kingdom interests,” he preached and droned through the thunder of my doomed fate…The passing years seemed like a blur, with no distinguishing marks on any given year, simply the repeat act of knocking on doors, rejection after rejection. Excitement came around once of twice a year as the young people around me married, each one with a feast and a dance following. The yearly conventions were high points for a time, but the information was always the same and seemed to lull us to sleep every time with the familiar sermon narcolepsy which made us mill about in the corridors so much, looking for our future spouses so we too could have a big party. Wow. 1994. I never thought this world would last so long. I wonder sometimes, what have I worked for so hard? I feel duped. Why don’t they want me to go to college? If I had started in 1985 right after high school instead of becoming a missionary, I would have finished by now. Those that chose to go were gossiped about so badly, I didn’t have the courage to join those rebellious ones. I thought I would be laughing if Armageddon came the day after they graduated, all those years of learning down the drain. But they have good jobs now. They don’t seem to care what anyone thinks. They just do what feels right to them. Maybe Thoreau is right. Maybe reading other holy books, or even just non-Crusader books isn’t so bad. The world has not caved in. Now that I am starting friendships out here, why, I can see that they are even nicer than some of the Crusaders. The elders always used to pound out the scripture, “By this you will know my people, if they have love among themselves.” Maybe this congregation is just a bad seed. Overall, the Crusaders are still the only ones with enough faith in their convictions to go out and try to make converts and save the rest of mankind, no matter what people say or think. Maybe they don’t all gossip and spy on people and report them to the elders.
That year I received my first kiss at the age of 26. I didn’t like it very much. I had squelched my sexual feelings for so long, I didn’t know how to feel anymore. I thought about telling the elders what I had done, but decided to leave it between God and me. But God’s soldiers were not far behind.
“Sister, we just came by your apartment to ask if you were okay. We haven’t seen you at the meetings in quite a while. But more importantly, we want to talk to you about something that has been concerning us. The other day, as you were jogging, we passed you and noticed you were wearing a shirt with an Israeli flag on it,” they stated.
“Yes, I just, ah, was at a flag store in San Antonio and thought it would be nice to have a T-shirt from the Holy Land,” I said, knowing this was not going to fly at all.
“Sister, you know we refrain from nationalism of any sort. It is imperative that we set an example of neutrality in the affairs of the earth,” they scolded. Something in me welled up, a latent ball of mucous from the sick feeling I regurgitated from my high school chastisement nine years before.
“It’s just a T-shirt, for crying out loud!” They looked astonished, and I felt shocked that the words buzzed from my lips with such ease. For the first time, I saw them clearly, not as God’s representatives on earth, but a bunch of ego-fed men, knowing they had power over me. Well, no more! I felt my own pride like an angel hovering between me, and my precarious relationship with these men, along with the other 5 million members worldwide. “If I remember correctly, we were counseled years ago that a person’s dress was a matter of conscience and very personal, not to be dictated by the congregation. I like that shirt. I am not getting rid of it.” I slammed the door in their faces.
A couple of weeks later, the phone rang. It was my mother. Her voice was that of the Wailing Woman, mourning the loss of her children, for I was all she had. The voice was low and choppy, with a vibrato like Katherine Hepburn, but without any of her redeeming charm. It was the voice of a broken woman, shattered beyond repair, with a strong, nasal quality. She had emptied a thousand rivers. “Do you ‘ave to tear my ‘art out?”
“I’m sorry, mother, but I am 26 years old now. I have to do what’s best for myself, and I am tired of being spied on.” She hung up. Another ring. “Hello?” I said.
“Sister, it’s not too late to change your mind, if you want to retract your former statements,” the elder offered.
“No, thanks. I need to be on my own to figure everything out for myself,” I said.
“Sister, it will indeed be very lonely out there,” he warned. “You know you cannot talk to any of the Crusaders, and they cannot say hello to you. Is this what you want?”
“Just do it. Just make the announcement,” I said…“Vivi! Vivi Huerta, I could just strangle you!” said my chubby, bipolar neighbor Marge. “I heard you were leaving the congregation. I hope you realize that God is not with you anymore! He doesn’t love you anymore! You have—CUT HIM OFF!!!!”
“No I haven’t,” I screamed. “I know in my heart He still loves me, and He loves you, too. I don’t care what anyone says or does, that’s the truth,” I hissed, and I turned around and entered my apartment to face the first of many lonely nights as an outcast of the only friends I had ever really known, both in childhood and adulthood.
I lay on the bed feeling heavy. I had a dream that night that everywhere I turned for a friend, people turned away slowly and walked. So I ran to my mother. She turned and walked away. I ran to my father. He, too, walked away. I called out to God, and he turned His back on me and I slipped further and further into unconsciousness, as though I might slide into death. Just at that moment, I awoke with a start and a sweat to the sound of my cat, Sally. She was hungry.Valerie Fernandez
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No more shunning from me!
by Dawn ini was a jw for years, and i constantly run into old "friends" at the store, gym, doctor's, cinema, etc.
up to now, i have just looked the other way because i knew they couldn't talk to me.. but after reading some posts here - i realized that i was contributing to their shunning.
acting like i was still under their law - well no more!!.
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Dogpatch
from:
http://www.freeminds.org/buss/shunning.htmShunning:
”A Part of the Faith of Jehovah’s Witnesses”
(Watchtower 4/15/88, p. 29)by Gary Busselman
shun - to keep away from; avoid scrupulously or consistently.
(Webster’s New World Dictionary)
- to keep clear of; avoid. (Funk and Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary)Why It Works
Why would I be afraid of someone who threatened not to talk to me unless I behaved a certain way? Why would I punish someone by not talking to them? Why would people try and try to gain the acceptance of a group who would look right through them without speaking or even acknowledge them when they chance met? What are the rewards for the shunners? What are the rewards for the shunned?As a former Jehovah’s Witness, I have shunned and been shunned. I believe many, maybe most, people when exposed to shunning are not attracted to or by it. When I explain the disfellowshipping doctrine to people who are not familiar with Jehovah’s Witnesses practice of shunning they stare at me in disbelief.
When I was a practicing Jehovah’s Witness I remember once a disfellowshipped woman with small children had attended a Thursday night JW group meeting that ended about 9:45 PM. She was required to sit in the back and she could not speak to or be spoken to by anyone there. When we left the meeting this disfellowshipped woman was still there after 10:00 PM deep in a residential neighborhood with small children and a broken down car. We all did our duty to the Watchtower and shunned her. We did not offer to help her. I never saw her again.
Why the threat of shunning helped to keep me “in line” is clearer to me today. I believe that very night we “freed” the woman with the broken car, but we further enslaved ourselves to the Watchtower. For two reasons:
(1) We reinforced each other by participating in a crime. In order for me to accept my own (truly un-Christian) behavior I had to approve, reinforce, accept, and condone the behavior of all the other members of the group. Shunning gave me the illusion of power. The illusion of power to a powerless person is a drug.
(2) The group members modeled for me what they were willing to do in keeping the commands of the WT. For a moment I put myself in that woman’s place, and I knew I didn’t want to be there. Raised by Witness parents and indoctrinated by the WT since age seven, all my real security was tied up with a Watchtower ribbon. The thought of leaving the group was unthinkable. Regularly scheduled portions of JW group meetings were discussions on disfellowshipping, shunning, and the consequences of leaving “Jehovah’s Organization.”
Shunning means those whom we used to call brothers and sisters we would now pass in the market or street without acknowledging. When I practiced shunning while in the company of another Witness the act of shunning would, in my own eyes, be a witnessed proof of my loyalty to Jehovah. I was on spiritual high ground (a sort of religious “high”). While alone I was less bold when a shunning opportunity would arise, but if I thought that there may be even a chance that another JW might be watching I would “play the part” all the way. If it was a private situation, however, I might feel somewhat uncomfortable and maybe even make eye contact and nod.
Shunning as Spiritual Abuse
Recently, during a conversation with another former JW, the subject of abuse came up. The question was asked, “Is there any context of involvement with Jehovah’s Witnesses that is not direct abuse, indirect abuse, or a set up for abuse?” We batted this around for a couple of hours and concluded that in every situation we could come up with involving JWs there is a real or potential victim. Conclusion: Any contact with a JW or the “mother” organization (the Watchtower) is abuse in the name of God, i.e. spiritual abuse.Real or threatened, physical, mental, emotional, and verbal abuse is their power over members and often former members. Fear, guilt, shame, hatred, and later resentment and anger kept me with them selling Watchtowers on dirty street corners next to the bums, and from house to house.
Shunning is probably the ultimate rejection of me as a person and maybe the cruelest mental, emotional, and psychological form of abuse. The results of the shunning by Jehovah’s Witnesses done to me was substantial pain and suffering … but only as long as lowed it to continue.
Shunning is a Drug...
...and drug users need enablers. I've noticed a few things about abusers of people and things. A person who abuses other humans does it for a reason. It is the same as any addiction to a substance or behavior. The addict gets something out of it, a "reward." I have done research on the subject of addiction and have reached some interesting conclusions.Addicts need a drug , abusers need a victim. Shunners are playing a mind game and they need a playmate who will follow the rules. Shunning is their drug. Abusers need help to carry out their abuse. They need enablers (victims). Without their victims they can not continue to abuse. Watchtower rules for shunning must be followed by both shunner and VICTIM or shunning doesn't work! Shunning is a show. To best work it needs an arena to be played in, and an audience.
Recognizing My Responsibility
I have a duty to myself, who I love, and to my many loved ones and real friends to protect myself and them from abuse and abusers.
We are obligated to protect ourselves, even from parents. There is a limit on the extent to which we honor or obey them. To honor means to provide food, clothing, and shelter to them if asked, to avoid reprimands, be civil in conversation, and accommodate parents in requests made. To honor parents does not mean to make myself a target for their abuse of any kind. Emotional abuse hurts just as bad as physical abuse even though the scars are not on the outside.Shunning is one of the WT's main reinforcers. When JWs shun me, and I allow it, thereby showing respect for their rules, I only reinforce their bad behavior and give them permission to do it again next time. In effect, I am telling him (and myself) that I am deserving of that kind of treatment.
Partial shunning is also practiced by JWs. Married couples (one practicing Witness, one disfellowshipped /disassociated) are taught to practice shunning in the home. This practice is unacceptable by me and is clearly intended to split up families. How can JWs believe they are keeping all of the marriage vows while requiring one spouse to spiritually shun the other? How can one reduce a marriage to sex and business? How can a couple be happy just talking about the garden, weather and sports at ten?
Here is a thought I had one day. I need to look at the beliefs taught me (past and current, especially the ones used to indoctrinate me, since these probably make up my core beliefs) and view them as principles that I will either keep to run my life by, or as garbage, to be thrown out with the rest of the trash. I find the principles in the teachings. I write them on paper, one by one, then I test them, first by themselves, then by each other. In my case I tested them by the Watchtower's own standards, then to my personal standards, being careful to keep the two separate. I needed to do this until all, I mean ALL, of my beliefs are mine and I can clearly give my own reasons for accepting the theory. If I reject a concept, I also need to be able to intelligently explain why. On most issues I have had to read two books, one pro, the other con. If I can't debate both sides of an issue then I know I don't understand the issue. Dogmatism and forced uniformity only have one side.
I have a duty to myself to test and establish my own principles, that I can live with, then be true and loyal to those principles or change them. The only things in my life that are black and white are newspapers and old movies. As a Watchtower-liberated free-thinker, I am continually learning and forming new opinions on my own, and it feels good. On many subjects my opinion is "I don't know." On a few others it's "I don't care."
To let an abuser suffer the consequences for his behavior does not mean that we need to be abusive to them. I do think it means that I take a firm stand and let them know what my stand is. Watchtower doctrinal flip-flops bother me and my former JW friends who find me acceptable to them only when the issue is money tend to bore me. I do not think a puppet following the latest Watchtower policy is acceptable to me, even if I happen to like the new policy.
Loyalty and Love Confused
When getting someone out of the Watchtower organization becomes my life focus and an obsession I have found I can't be useful to myself or anyone else. When I rebuke the abusers and put them out of the picture I find I can now be free to help others who have been victimized by these people. The JWs who practice shunning me kept inserting themselves in my life then taking shots at me as long as I let them. I have never been directly hurt by the group leaders, but always by my own acquaintances and relatives, and always because I made myself available to them. Allowing myself to be victimized was a powerless situation and I needed some power. Defining my boundaries to Jehovah's Witnesses and rebuking them has been incredibly empowering.If my happiness is contingent on a special person leaving the Watchtower organization then I have put a pretty cheap price on my happiness. If I have to wait to have a good life until other people, places, or things change then I'm no better off than the members of the Watchtower and I could just as well be back under the "official" control and influence of the group.
For a period of time after leaving the Watchtower I was still loyal to the leaders and the local members. However, once I tested their doctrines with reliable sources and really looked at their older publications, I was freed both mentally and spiritually.
Remember too, I, as a former member, can talk to anybody. I can certainly talk to them. The current members are the ones being punished. THEY are the ones who can’t talk to me, or read anything critical of the WT, or even read a book written by a former member, by order of their leaders.
One Jehovah’s Witness I know has a daughter and a son. Both were raised as Witnesses. The daughter was baptized by the Witnesses. The son was not. As adolescents both the daughter and the son started to use tobacco. The daughter, because she was baptized, was disfellowshipped for using tobacco. She moved away, married, had a child, quit going to meetings, and continued to use tobacco. The father has not spoken to her or seen her for years. The father has not spoken to or seen his granddaughter, ever.
The son also quit attending JW group meetings, moved away, got married, had two children, and also continued to use tobacco. But the son, because he was not baptized, was not disfellowshipped. The father has an ongoing relationship with his son and these two grandchildren even though the son continues to use tobacco.
If the father is shunning the behavior (tobacco use), then he would have to shun them both. Since he continues a relationship with the son I’m inclined to think that the unforgivable sin is baptism by Jehovah’s Witnesses!
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Witnesses at Target
by Aunty inis this happening anywhere else?
i'm in southern california and the jw's are sitting outside target at least twice a week with a table set up.
okay, when i was pioneering, this was a big no-no.
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Dogpatch
I always did the stuff that no one else wanted to do, like large apartments that had evil landlords. :-))
Few would go with me except the die-hard pioneers.I remember blitzing Los Angeles airport with 600 magazines, passed out one by one, to people walking in the terminals. Two of us did it in 30 minutes.
I was so fanatical that when I went on hiking trips, I would hide "Truth" books in Yosemite camping areas, etc.
It was bliss to be ignorant and think that all this crap was really true! I used to take the subways alone often to East Brooklyn, sometimes late at night to be with the friends or elders meeting, and I would be the only white guy around. Don't think I would do that now! :-))
Randy WattersNet Soup!
http://www.freeminds.org -
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Catholic church and Watchtower
by Dogpatch insome of this sounds ominously familiar in the light of the watchtower's guilt in regards to tolerating pedophiles:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/28/national/28chur.html?todaysheadlines.
eugene kennedy, a former priest and the author of "unhealed wound: the church and sexuality," said the bishops and cardinals acted more like corporate executives than church leaders, covering up a scandal, threatening those who wanted to speak out, surrounding themselves with lawyers and public relations gurus expert in polishing images and obscuring embarrassing truths.. of course, cover-ups are not restricted to those who stand to gain a few million here and there.
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Dogpatch
Some of this sounds ominously familiar in the light of the Watchtower's guilt in regards to tolerating pedophiles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/28/national/28CHUR.html?todaysheadlinesEugene Kennedy, a former priest and the author of "Unhealed Wound: The Church and Sexuality," said the bishops and cardinals acted more like corporate executives than church leaders, covering up a scandal, threatening those who wanted to speak out, surrounding themselves with lawyers and public relations gurus expert in polishing images and obscuring embarrassing truths.
Of course, cover-ups are not restricted to those who stand to gain a few million here and there. The police have their blue wall of silence; doctors whisper about incompetent surgeons — not only to protect their colleagues but to protect their profession. Organizational theorists have often observed how people within institutions, whether out of self-deception or cynicism, swallow misdeeds so as not to taint the organization.
If anything, some contend, the church is even more susceptible to such thinking. "The temptation of all churches is to see the church as more important than its message, and anytime you have that, corruption can occur," Paul Wadell, an associate professor of religious studies at St. Norbert College in DePere, Wis., said. "There is a tendency to want to protect the institution at all cost; people become expendable."
Add to that, a particularly acute fear of scandal in the church. "The only possible but tragically wrong thing you could say is that they were trying to protect the faithful against scandal," against the notion that priests were flawed creatures, Ms. Kaveny said.
While fear of scandal would inevitably lead to secrecy, Catholicism has an especially intimate relationship with confidentiality beyond such self-interest. Since the 11th century, when public penance fully gave way to private confession, confidentiality has had a central role in church practice. Mr. Cavanaugh sees secrecy as a systemic problem in the church, but one that has a double edge. Alongside the desire to protect the institution, he said, there is also a heartfelt reluctance to "make a public example out of somebody's sinfulness."
Randy
Net Soup!
http://www.freeminds.org