People just don't stab another person to death without some sort of a reason. That reason, whatever it was, may or may not have been justified. How do we know but what it WAS justified? I'm not saying that killing is justified. I'm saying that the JW that was stabbed could have been in the wrong. Perhaps he displayed the high and mighty attitude that the brother I mentioned in the other thread expressed towards me. The brother was still fairly young, and he had "inherited" the responsibilities that came with being the Presiding Overseer, after the other brother had stepped down. Yes, the Watchtower Society merely passed the job on to the next most-qualified brother, thus making do with what they had to work with. What is so unfortunate about that is the fact that the brother was not really what you'd call a mature grown man, both because of his age and because he had little experience in such matters. The Watchtower Society used him because there was nobody else to do the job, and he had been showing a lot of progress.
Back in those days they were encouraging people to "go to where the need is greater," which in itself is quite telling. They appointed this brother to the position because of what was on his records - the things he was doing with regards to field service and being the Ministry School Overseer and giving the #1 talk in the School, as well as being a Book Study Conductor. The brother had demonstrated a *willingness*. They needed a new Presiding Overseer and he was the best that was available. And THAT is all it took for him to be appointed to the position. He was never screened to see if anyone had a complaint against him. Any blips in his personality remained unnoticed by those who appointed him. And yet if I had this to do all over again I'd have made sure to smack him with the words: "What do you mean, 'It's my turn next'"? and "What do you mean 'All we need is another nut'"? You see, there was a high and mighty attitude that he displayed that was never taken into consideration by those who appointed him (the Circuit Overseer recommended him and those in Brooklyn gave him the appointment). This individual clearly had an ego problem, and he may or may not have gotten over it to this day. I don't know, because I haven't been around him in decades.
So what I'm suggesting is, that if the person that was stabbed to death had a disposition comparable to what my acquaintance had then he very well might have enraged his killer and caused him to retaliate. If that's actually what happened then it was a high price to pay for having enjoyed such a high opinion of himself for a while. Maybe the Watchtower Society can learn something from this incident. Let's hope so. To this day I still harbor bad feelings towards no less than three individuals, all of which have displayed a high and mighty attitude towards me.
I think that this points to there being a major flaw in the fabric of the Watchtower Society. Namely, there are too many people who have been given authority who aren't qualified to handle it. There is the one scripture I remember having read that says something like "Some causes for stumbling are unpreventable." I guess that would be because elders are imperfect too, and as a result they might become guilty of causing someone to stumble. Perhaps that explains the failures of the individuals that I've mentioned in reference to my own experience. The Watchtower has had many opportunities to teach the elders how to deal with those they are supposed to be shepherding. If they faithfully did do so, it's then up to the elder's to learn and apply the information. So what went wrong in the situation that this thread is all about? Did the elder in Germany abuse his authority? In the mind of the killer the elder sure did something that was seriously wrong!