lostwun here, i joined 2 months ago but am now just finding the courage after doing more research to formally introduce myself to the board and embrace my new beginnings as an ex-jw.
i am a second-generation jw.
i grew up with parents who are well known and very respected in many circuits.
"I feel like i received a virtual hug when i needed it the most"
MANY hugs and more to come. I just joined myself not long ago after lurking for many months on various "apostate sites". But I so far have found this to be a tight-knit and compassionate bunch of human beings who understand what each other has been through and are here to not only support each other, but to laugh with you, cry with you, and not let you go through this alone.
I too send you greetings and hugs. :)
so i ran into this brother whom ive known for a while and the conversation led into me being invited to come back to the kingdom hall.
we talked for about an hour during which time i explained to him 607 being the wrong date and a lot of other stuff including the child abuse cases in australia.
but what i wanted to relate was the last few minutes of our conversation.
First of all I wouldn't allow him to ramble on so long without 'overcoming his objections'. He covered so many subjects it's hard to know where to begin.
But just for starters, I would have stopped him a few times and asked such questions as these:
would you want your family to die with a FALSE hope based on following blind guides? ....guides who cannot seem to make up their mind about anything except that THEY are the only ones to be followed... on threat of d/f and losing your beloved family?
Do you really want your faith to not be founded on anything except the "good feeling" it brings you?
It's not without reason that Jesus warned against this. For example, he talked about those who accumulated teachers to tickle their ears. And when asked about the last days of this "wicked" system as you call it, his very FIRST sign was that others would try to mislead you and would put THEMSELVES as the spokesperson for Jesus. Does WT do this? And would YOU want your family to be caught in that position when he returned?
And then I would say: Let me ask YOU a question ....Would YOU personally cut off one of your beloved family if they decided NOT to follow WT teachings? The RC stated that one of the cruelest things a person could do to another human being is to SHUN them. This can cause untold psychological trauma and suicide. RC called WT a "captive organization" because of such policies. Do you think this policy could possibly "disrupt the peace" your family has?
has anyone here re-watched that last day?
the part where justice mcclellan is asking mr jackson if he feels that this royal commission is a sincere effort to make some good changes in policy...?.
and does mr jackson feel it would be worth it to put a collective effort, along with other organizations to compensate or find means of redress, for the victims of child sexual abuse?.
Angus took Jackson prisoner and held him hostage. And i can't help thinking he did it for all of us.
when angus turned his back, I thought to myself: AHA! it looks like that sucker is DELIBERATELY ignoring GJ! I wonder what he's up to? Looks like he's creating a moment of tension. And Jackson took the bait, stopped and got annoyed! I was amazed that Angus never once looked up at Jackson - just mumbled something: "yes yes continue"... still looking down and fumbling with some papers. But the best part was after Jackson shut up, the silence was deafening as Angus still ignored what Jackson had just said for a long time until Jackson finally broke the silence by asking if he should explain what he'd just said. Angus never looked up, just said something like "yeah, if you want to".
Angus OWNED jackson in that moment and I believe he did it for us. Jackson must've felt like he just got ate by a wolf and sh*t over a cliff! We owe him one!!
i am fuming at the moment and my wife has made me so angry.. i live in germany and an ex jw, a friend of mine is also ex jw but does not understand english so i was giving him a rundown on the friday session of the rc with gj.
my wife was in another part of the house but heard my phone ring and so she came to listen, i did not realize this, because when the phone rang i closed two doors between myself and my wife.
she opened the first door and started listening to the conversation.
Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don’t want to mend
their own ways, but each other's.
-- Piet Hein
so we've heard from three different governing body members this year regarding child sexual abuse.. the latest one on the rc admitted there's a sexual abuse problem within the cult, yet lett and morris swept the dirt under the carpet stating they have a great reputation as far as sex abuse is concerned, and pointed their fingers at "apostate lies".
.
i'm left totally confused at the contradiction of this "organization"..
lunacy?
insanity?
without a doubt.
I think Angus should've asked Jackson to explain the Good Samaritan parable.
You could replace the word "priest" with "elder" and "levite" with "ministerial servant" and it would make perfect sense to us... and Jackson would fit the part of the "law expert" who challenges Jesus with the question: "who really is my neighbor?"
Except that Jackson would totally miss the point of the parable. When Jesus asked the law expert at the end of the parable "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man" - Jackson wouldn't say "the one who had mercy on him". Jackson would say in his deep, rich brown voice: "Thank you for that question" and then start talking about something entirely unrelated, then get upset that Jesus isn't paying attention to his answer.
since geoffrey jackson's appearance before the australian royal commission on friday there has for some been an expressed feeling of anticlimax.
it is as though he was given too much latitude to preach, to claim ignorance and to skirt questions.
more to the point, as much as i myself thought i would never have expected to say this, gj actually came across as likeable and - don't throttle me please!
Steve
You expressed my thoughts very well. thank you.
You said "What the law cannot compel, public shaming can accomplish "
Yes -- the "analysis" is just about to 'hit the fan' and we don't even have to wait for the RC report - newspaper and other media reports have already been exposing JW leaders for the heartless, unconcerned bastards that they are. They will continue to put JWs in a bad light.
JWs have now become a theatrical spectacle to the world, only not in the way they would have hoped for or expected. And if some of them are as yet unaware of the royal commissions work, they soon will be made aware. This news will spread and pick up speed all over the world until there will be no way for them to escape or put a spin on it.
And I too appreciate the way the RC is going about Case 29. They don't want to have to force anyone to do the right thing, but by using "reason", they try and "guide" the thinking and conscience of policy makers/enforcers in the right direction.
My JW wife watched Jackson with me last night and agreed that the elders were inadequate to handle these matters and that ALL child abuse cases should be handed over to authorities (my first breakthrough w/ her). But then she kept saying, like Jackson did, that the authorities should just make reporting mandatory and that would take care of the problem. I told her that a teacher who FORCES a child to do the right thing usually doesn't get the results they hoped for -- they might get a half-hearted "i'm sorry" - but that's about it. And, I said, that's not what Jesus did either. He didn't force anyone. He gave parables to help people REASON on wrong and right. And then I asked her where do you think Geoffrey Jackson fits into the Good Samaritan parable? Does he go out of his way to help those who have been beaten up, robbed and left for dead on the side of the road? Or do you think that his policies actually re-traumatize the victim, leaving them feeling beat up and robbed again?
So I like the reasoning approach that the Commission is using and hopefully SOME JWs will see where Jackson and the other leaders' hearts are.
I hope the Commission's report words it in such a way so as to reach hearts.
within the first few minutes, mr. stewart asked geoffrey jackson if the members of the governing body consider themselves to be god's spokesperson on earth.. his response: "that would be presumptuous of us" (implying that they don't consider themselves to be god's sole channel of communication).. to me, that was the worst lie of about 26 lies he's told during this hearing.
however, mr. stewart missed an opportunity to call out mr. jackson on this bold-faced lie.
he should have asked him to explain why the watchtower magazine teaches otherwise.
"To be fair ...give the poor SOB's a break"
To be fair ...they took our families, dude.
mercy is for the merciful ...and all that...
a little taste for everyone who could not watch the hearing live .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvypugzk59o&feature=youtu.be.
the rest is coming soon!.
a little taste for everyone who could not watch the hearing live .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvypugzk59o&feature=youtu.be.
the rest is coming soon!.
you do a great service for our community and beyond!
but if I might make one teensy little suggestion to start this video with a theme song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP7lcbVvVzw
Who else thinks Jackson might be Alfred Hitchcock's illegitimate son?
