Posts by hillary

185

Long Intro From A Long Timer

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

i am a new to posting on this board though i have been actively reading your posts the past while and i thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that i have enjoyed thinking on.

i am still an active jw, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances.

i have served in a number of countries in europe as a pioneer and elder over the past three decades.

hillary_step

GOPHER

RE: Community Responsibility - Interesting thoughts but I would ignore the WTS interpretation of this issue and the NTW references which are often ‘bent’ to suit the issue.

Robert Thomas’s ‘Harmony Of The Scriptures’ has Matthew 7:18 matched with Luke 6:43-45, which reads - ’43. For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand, a bad tree that produces good fruit. 44. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. 45. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil: for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart’

I see no room for an organisational judgment or communal responsibility in the application of these verses. It seems to me that this was a rather iconoclastic thought from Jesus who began to remove the responsibility of action from nation to individual, even before the establishment of the Christian community.

We must all accept the responsibility of our own motives as it is on these that we will receive judgment. Remember Paul spent every Sabbath for the first 5 years after his conversion preaching in the Synagogues to the very people who had killed his Savior.

Revelation speaks of us all being judged ‘INDIVIDUALLY according to our deeds’. Those within the WTS who have caused harm will suffer the same judgment as those within any other group. Those who have done good will be rewarded wherever they chose to worship anything else surely, would reek of partiality. This judgment seems to me to rest on motive not doctrine, heart not head, after all we must become like children who’s grasp of deep doctrine might not be that well developed.

Sunday Step

185

Long Intro From A Long Timer

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

i am a new to posting on this board though i have been actively reading your posts the past while and i thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that i have enjoyed thinking on.

i am still an active jw, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances.

i have served in a number of countries in europe as a pioneer and elder over the past three decades.

hillary_step

MOMMIE DARK

Hello,

If you had taken the time to read the previous posts you would have read that my wife was a staunch supporter of the WTS. I needed to think of her well being as well as my own. i.e THINK FOR TWO. As in, I could not please just myself. Get It? That is why I have had to stay in so long. What I do understand Mommie Dark is that you react before you read.

Some of you seem to have set yourselves up as some sort of online Theo Jaracz. You use the very same tactics as the Organisation that you claim to have seen through and abhor. Instantaneous judgments, guilt by association, straining at words, missing the spirit and principle of the messages, collective bullying, selective quotations, a total intolerance of viewpoints that confound your own and above all an astonishing and arrogant confidence in your own point of view. All in all many of you seem to have become the kind of people the WTS made you. So much for your 'freedom'.

As Denis Healey, one of our politicians would say, 'I feel as if I have been savaged by a toothless sheep'.

Step - up in the early hours

185

Long Intro From A Long Timer

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

i am a new to posting on this board though i have been actively reading your posts the past while and i thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that i have enjoyed thinking on.

i am still an active jw, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances.

i have served in a number of countries in europe as a pioneer and elder over the past three decades.

hillary_step

GOPHER

Thank you for these points.

The WTS will never change. It was not myself that held out these hopes. In my original post I made it clear that the WTS would defend its borders at all costs. Any changes made would only be to stop its borders being stormed. So we have clear agreement on that between us.

As to this part of your message I am less sure.
.......Even though each person does not personally act evil, still they are part of the "tree" Jesus spoke about when he said, a good "tree" cannot produce bad "fruit", and vice-versa.

Jesus in Matt 7: 17, 18 seemed to be applying this passage to the wolves in sheeps clothing as individuals, as he goes on to say after discussing the good/bad fruits scenario 'this is how you will recognise these MEN'. I.e. Each tree was an individual person bearing
fruit.

The wheat and weeds are still growing together, these are individual Christians and hard to identify according to the parable. If Organisations, which are easily identified are included how would this level out? Just a thought.

I am off to bed! Step

185

Long Intro From A Long Timer

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

i am a new to posting on this board though i have been actively reading your posts the past while and i thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that i have enjoyed thinking on.

i am still an active jw, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances.

i have served in a number of countries in europe as a pioneer and elder over the past three decades.

hillary_step

BEROEA

Thank you for your introduction. I enjoyed reading your posts earlier on in the year. I also remember that you have a family and a love of the mountains as have I. Perhaps one day we will climb together. Have no fear Beroea, I will do what it takes to keep my family and my life intact. I have been to many chilly peaks before and survived!

My best to you - Step

8

Faith in spite of the WTBTS --- Hillary, et. al.

by LoneWolf in

jw
friends

to all ---about faith.. i posted this some months ago on another board.

the comments then were thoughtful and appreciated.

i'd like to know yours, too.. a brief background first: i first became active in service in december of 1946, and have been disfellowshipped for over 12 years now, not for gross wrongdoing, but because i asked too many questions and wouldn't quit.

hillary_step

LONEWOLF

A host of well thought our points. Thank you for sharing them with me, they have been useful.

step

185

Long Intro From A Long Timer

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

i am a new to posting on this board though i have been actively reading your posts the past while and i thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that i have enjoyed thinking on.

i am still an active jw, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances.

i have served in a number of countries in europe as a pioneer and elder over the past three decades.

hillary_step

WAITING

Thank you for your cheery welcome.

Step

185

Long Intro From A Long Timer

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

i am a new to posting on this board though i have been actively reading your posts the past while and i thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that i have enjoyed thinking on.

i am still an active jw, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances.

i have served in a number of countries in europe as a pioneer and elder over the past three decades.

hillary_step

GOPHER

I did not in any way mean to imply that you had judged me. My note was to three persons and general in nature.

I will HONESTLY answer your questions at a later time, I promise. This is my first post and I certainly set the cat among the pigeons and have spent far to long at my screen. Perhaps a paragraph in the note just written to Comf may help you to see why we are exiting on our own terms in our own time. If I have not responded to you in a cuople of days, please remind me.

Just as a thought, I do not hold to the WTS view of it being the sole road to life. The wheat and weeds are individuals, all will answer to Christ as individuals for what they have done. The idea of community responsibility is another Levitical anachronism that clouds the true picture of a beautiful individual friendship with God and Christ. How do you feel about this?

Have a great weekend -- Steep Stepper

185

Long Intro From A Long Timer

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

i am a new to posting on this board though i have been actively reading your posts the past while and i thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that i have enjoyed thinking on.

i am still an active jw, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances.

i have served in a number of countries in europe as a pioneer and elder over the past three decades.

hillary_step

Comf, I re-enter the fray but definitely conclusively.

So you first accuse me of being someone I am not. Note that there is no question mark after your statement.

........You're "Friend", aren't you.
COMF

I wrote :

........Needless to say, I have found in life that nothing is completely good nor completely bad.

Then you make a gigantic issue over the use of the word ‘nothing’ instead of ‘no person’ although it is quite clear reading the following paragraphs what I actually meant

......I didn't say serial killer. I said serial rape-murder. Note: "murder" - not "murderer

True you did not and I apologise for misquoting you.

Originally I wrote that I was still attached to the WTS and therefore by definition supporting its arrangement though well aware of its theological flaws. I also mentioned that as time progressed I my reasons as to why I have not as yet detached myself from the WTS would become apparent. I have since made them known.

......Note that you specifically address your support of "an arrangement."

As I have been more than open about my own circumstances, let me ask you about yours. Were you ever a JW? If you were did you suddenly wake up one day rub the sleep from your eyes and realise that the WTS was not all you had thought it to be or did you go through a process of gradual realisation? If you spent one month in the WTS having realised its errors you to share in its complicity by your own definition. I presume that you are married as a single person would not have the confidence and life experience to attack the motives of a married person who has to think for two people in these situations not just one. How did your wife react to your great awakening Comf?

Now to answer some specifics:

..........When someone dies because the WBTS claims to speak for God in denying lifesaving medical treatment, do you balance the death in your conscience by thinking, "Well, the organization lies about having God's direction in this matter, but they keep tidy gardens, so it's okay?"

No.

........When someone leaves the organization and thereby loses all contact with his parents, children and friends because the society says it must be so, do you excuse the destruction of this person's life and the ongoing torture he endures by telling yourself, "Yeah, but they encourage people to be honest?"

No.

........Since you chose not to qualify those flaws, and you also stated……

I cannot defend the indefensible, why would I want to qualify these doctrinal flaws? It is the people I have an attachment to not the doctrines. I had hoped that the sense of this would come through in my original posting but I obviously failed miserably.

Your speech, your rationalizing, your gentle, soothing sentence structure and acknowledgement of the pain of others, remind me of this scene. A facade of loving concern covering up a cold, inhuman indifference to the lives and sufferings of others, for the sake of your personal ends

This one really takes the cake. On a few written notes posted on a bulletin board you have such a piercing understanding of my nature and motives! You ought to hire yourself out as a long distance brain surgeon Comf. I can assure you at fifty-five years of age I have suffered, have seen suffering and had more than my fair share of personal tragedy in my life outsoide of any of the pressures that the WTS added. Cold-hearted indeed! A young man speaks.

........Some on this board may aggressively vocalise against the path that others walk and may do so from or selfless or selfish motives how can one tell?

Now I wonder where you learned to selectively quote with such alacrity! Why not include the rest of the thought?

.........Only if one can see the love behind it. Any actions that do not spring out of a genuine love for others has to be suspect.

A most judgmental and arrogant statement now comes from your keyboard which I think shows much more about you than it does about me.

........I'm sure they aren't of much benefit to you in trying to whitewash your lack of backbone, to excuse your complicity.

So Comf please allow me to beg out on any further exchanges. If you at present do not understand where I am coming from then I accept that and all your focused criticisms. I would ask that you try to be a little less judgmental and a little more understanding in dealing with those whose lives you have little, if any familiarity with.

Step

185

Long Intro From A Long Timer

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

i am a new to posting on this board though i have been actively reading your posts the past while and i thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that i have enjoyed thinking on.

i am still an active jw, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances.

i have served in a number of countries in europe as a pioneer and elder over the past three decades.

hillary_step

COMF

O.K. Lets call it a day. These reciprocative exchanges are of very little benefit and take up far too much time. Think what you wish of me and my motives for the time being. Time is a great teacher.

Now, I am of to take the cat to the vet, she seems to need me a lot more than you do!

Have a good weekend -- Step

We are such stuff as dreams are made of and our little lives are rounded with a sleep - A Willy The Shake approximation

185

Long Intro From A Long Timer

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

i am a new to posting on this board though i have been actively reading your posts the past while and i thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that i have enjoyed thinking on.

i am still an active jw, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances.

i have served in a number of countries in europe as a pioneer and elder over the past three decades.

hillary_step

FLOWERPETAL GOPHER & THINK

Thank you for your thoughts.

I read 'Crisis' many years ago and remember RF saying something to the effect that he felt that there were as many true Christian's within the WTS as in any other. I have always held to this view. As far as I can see our instruction from Christ was one so simple that little children could set the lead in it and that is to love God, our fellow man and ourselves. Doing this within the WTS has not been easy but it has also not been impossible. Would Mr Franz have stayed within the WTS had he not been removed from the GB, who knows. He may have felt it more important to stay and try to help change what is clearly an unchangeable system. All of us are are unique and have a unique set of circumstances to grapple with. It is very easy for others to condem the choices others make when they have not 'walked in their moccasins'. As previously mentioned some of the most Christian people I have met have been JW. there seems to be some sort of agreement on this board with this sentiment. In many ways it has been a frustrating couple of decades for me but I have learned a lot about myself and my own motives and I can now collect our lives together with my wife. I happen to believe that it is only on the basis of our individual motives that we can be judged by others or even by Christ. My faith in God and Christ is a independant thing that relies on no other person, organisation or indeed Bulletin Board. Some on this board may aggressively vocalise against the path that others walk and may do so from or selfless or selfish motives how can one tell? Only if one can see the love behind it. Any actions that do not spring out of a genuine love for others has to be suspect and actually is of little interest to me. I am not here to instruct others but to learn from others and I hope that we can all be friends in this strange world.

Stepping Out

hillary_step

Posts by hillary_step