MrMonroe

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Posts by MrMonroe

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  98

  JW directives you thought were downright stupid

  by fallen_princess in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i remember one time when i was about 17 years old, i wanted to arrange a costume party for the young brothers in the congo around my age.

  i suggested it to one of my friends and was told that the elders had advised against it because it could be construed as pagan and masks have their roots in demonism.

  of course, i was never shown any biblical proof of this but just that response took the wind out of my sails and i decided to just not go through with it.

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  MrMonroe

  Then there was the congregation that had a little musical ensemble playing the Kingdom Songs beside the stage. It was Brisbane, so in summer it was damn hot (if I might use the word "damn". Oh crap, I said "damn." Oh bugger, I said "crap.") One picky elder decided that since they were beside the stage, the male members of the band should wear jackets. Jehovah apparently doesn't like hearing music from people not wearing jackets.
• 
  98

  JW directives you thought were downright stupid

  by fallen_princess in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i remember one time when i was about 17 years old, i wanted to arrange a costume party for the young brothers in the congo around my age.

  i suggested it to one of my friends and was told that the elders had advised against it because it could be construed as pagan and masks have their roots in demonism.

  of course, i was never shown any biblical proof of this but just that response took the wind out of my sails and i decided to just not go through with it.

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  MrMonroe

  In one congregation I wouldn't be asked to give a prayer at a book study group unless I was wearing a jacket. I was an MS and went to a field service group one evening in summer. I walked in and they were all sitting there like headless chooks working out who was going to lead the group. A couple of them said, "Ah, here's Brother Monroe, he can do it!" ... and then someone else spoke up.

  "He can't do it, he's not wearing a jacket!" So he took the group, wearing his ochre-colored vinyl jacket straining at the buttons.

  I'd always thought I'd be disqualified from taking a field service group if I'd turned up without my pants, but a jacket? Until then I didn't realise how jackets trumped shirts in God's theocratic system.
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  243

  Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  jehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.

  immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.

  worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.

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  MrMonroe

  I can't work out whether Curtains is a bit slow on the uptake or deliberately trying to mislead people to try to discredit Unthank. Let me put this as plainly as possible. Steven Unthank has:

  • Written a number of press releases (and a very long-winded treatise);
  • Appeared before a government inquiry to make submissions; and
  • Succeeded in laying private criminal prosecutions as an individual against a number of WTS entities.

  The inquiry continues, but he has finished his involvement with that. The criminal charges are yet to be heard in court.
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  243

  Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  jehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.

  immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.

  worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.

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  MrMonroe

  Belbab, The link to the submission made by Steven Unthank is here. He appeared in flesh and blood at the inquiry's sitting in the Victorian town of Morwell on June 8. He spoke and the transcript of his submission are on a government website.

  The Herald Sun, published in Melbourne and one of Australia's biggest selling daily newspapers, publishes stories, not press releases. To find copies of stories printed in the Herald Sun, go to the newspaper's website here and type in "Unthank" in the search box at the top right.

  I used the term "apparently" in a sarcastic tone that I feared at the time would not be discerned by some people. You are clearly one of those people. Gary Botting, if the poster is the real Gary Botting, author of a couple of books on the religion, appears to be as incapable as you are at doing online research; if it's him, my level of respect for him has plummeted.

  You refer to the case as a house of cards. I have provided a link on a Victorian Justice Department website. Sorry there's no photo of the courthouse or the thumb print of the presiding magistrate. The case is listed for hearing as a criminal action on the day. Please don't insult my intelligence by continuing to suggest it's all a work of fiction, or some vast conspiracy.
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  243

  Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  jehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.

  immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.

  worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.

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  MrMonroe

  Steve2: Sorry if I was ambiguous. I completely agree that allegations of past sex abuse are irrelevant. I was replying to an earlier statement about TV docos.

  The case is a charge that those organisations failed to gain WWC checks when they were required by law to do so. Proving the case means providing evidence that adults normally, or commonly, work with children unsupervised. That, to me, appears to be the difficulty when the defendants will probably deny everything.

  Gary Botting I think you're an idiot. See the Latrobe Magistrates Court criminal list for September 13 here.

  Transcripts of the judicial inquiry into Protecting Victoria's Vulnerable Children, at which the fictional Steven "Who" apparently gave evidence a couple of months ago at Morwell, are also available online.
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  243

  Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  jehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.

  immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.

  worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.

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  MrMonroe

  More motives for non-compliance:

  1. In the event that someone failed a WWC check, would they have to report that to the elders, who would ensure they never are alone with a child?

  2. The Witnesses are God's people (!) They are doing a work ordained and commanded by God (!!) They do not need to be sullied by such a law that even hints that some members of the religion are untrustworthy.

  3. Being pressured by the government to comply with such an unnecessary that impugns their godly motives is further proof that they are being targeted by Satan and are therefore backed by God. If they become martyrs, that is even more proof of their godliness and a further proof that we are so close to the end.
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  34

  Oh the weirdness: Observations from a study

  by howdidtihappen in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i started studying jw with a work friend because she used to keep me at arms length and i knew it was because of her religion.

  she and her family are such lovely people so i thought maybe there was something to it, how bad can it be, etc.

  i was enticed by this girls friendship as she has been spending more time with me but continues to say "you're not one of us yet" which continually freaks me out.

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  MrMonroe

  Howdidithappen, you're a pretty cluey person finding your way to this website after just one meeting, and changing the pic on your avatar and all. Nice work.

  There are a lot of strange undercurrents that go on at meetings. There are many unwritten rules of conduct (or combat). It really is a very unusual place. It is so out of the ordinary that sincere converts quickly start adopting the lingo "in the truth", "brother", "that comment was so encouraging!" in order to fit in.
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  243

  Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  jehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.

  immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.

  worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.

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  MrMonroe

  I don't think Steve Unthank has a case because jehovahs witnesses do not engage in specific child related work according to the Act. they don't have separate sunday schools. Wherever children take part in religious activities adults are not excluded - the activitities apply to adults and children. If this goes to court Jehovahs witness lawyers will be able to refute his claims very successfully imo.

  Sorry, Curtains, you're wrong. The Sunday school defence is a distraction. As a former book study conductor I was often in a situation in congregations where I was out witnessing with a child who was not my own. Sometimes we would transfer from one part of the territory to another and a child would ride with me in my car on my own. Sometimes we would be working on our own in a block of flats, out of sight of the rest of the group. I don't think those situations are at all rare.

  I can also think of many situations at hall cleaning groups, when turnout was pathetic, that an adult was there pretty well on their own with a child, or alternatively there were so few adults around that a paedophile adult JW could easily coax a child to a toilet or back room or whatever.

  The issue here is not that all JW adults are prone to sex abuse. It would be a rarity. But the law is the law: for the sake of appearances ALL church ministers, Scout leaders, footy coaches, youth group workers etc take out WWC checks. It helps to ease the mind of parents, but it is also the law. A legal requirement.

  Sizemik, I'm not saying SU has to prove child abuse, or a risk of it. He has to prove that they regularly engage in unsupervised contact with children. I send my kids to a music teacher and I assume that the teacher has a WWC check. If I did ask and she didn't, I would go to the police, explain that my children are in her company for an hour every week and she has no WWC check. That would be easy to prove. It may be more difficult, however, for someone who is no longer in a congregation to present that evidence to a magistrate about their former congregation. Hopefully SU has that covered. You wouldn't want to see an opportunity like this to be missed.
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  243

  Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  jehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.

  immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.

  worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.

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  MrMonroe

  The evidence is available . . . he just needs the right people to testify and give evidence that children are at risk

  You mean current members of the congregation? I can see that happening!

  Sizemik, giving evidence in court requires evidence of an offence, not a general statement of opinion or the stories of sexual abuse in distant congregations a decade ago. The numerous docos available on YouTube are not evidence of an offence by the seven legal entities he has charged. A magistrate can't be expected to view a 30-minute television documentary and decide that an offence has thus been committed in the Traralgon congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses.

  He has to prove that a minister (or elders, as he has chosen to do) worked with unrelated children, and that this is a common event, and they lacked WWC checks. For that he will need (a) the names of elders, (b) the names of children he has worked with, (c) the dates they worked together and (d) an answer to the question, "Was this an uncommon, isolated event?" If the answer is no, then he can ask them, "Do you have a current WWC check?"

  If they don't, I would say the case is proven.
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  243

  Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  jehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.

  immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.

  worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.

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  MrMonroe

  He'd have to prove an offence. The WTS in Australia has previously claimed in the media the WWC law doesn't apply to them because there is no common ongoing adult-child contact. "We don't have Sunday schools." The onus of proof will be on him to show they are committing an offence by engaging in child-related work without having gained police checks.