"god bless us one and all.".
if you don't believe in god anymore, that's cool too.
for those of that mind set.
"God bless us one and all."
If you don't believe in god anymore, that's cool too.
For those of that mind set. "Than just bless us one and all!"
Its a tough time of the year for those that are still "in"
And sometimes for those who are "out" too.
Enjoy the journey....
the wts has a tax free income of 2 bilion dollar now by selling the brooklyn hq (beside other recent money schemes).
were has the money gone?.
it must be somewere.. g..
My guess is that a big chunk is in the stock market, in the very system they hope will fall a part.
Either way they enough money to keep them going for awhile.
chapter 9.
“let’s us move to were the need is greater”.
i remember a “kingdom ministry” heading saying “only x number of months left.” left to what?
Chapter 9
“Let’s us move to were the need is greater”
I remember a “kingdom Ministry” heading saying “Only X number of months left.” Left to what? If you added the months to the date it worked out to October 1975. I wish I could find that KM. The society says they never pushed that date but that is simply not the case.
In the summer of 1967 my mother, sister and I took a trip to Salina Kansas. My mother’s old stomping grounds before the war. It’s funny my mother first break away from the farm was moving to Salina and it would turn out to me mine too. We were there for a month. I didn’t know it at the time but my mother’s plan was to have me move there and serve where the “need is greater.” She felt it was time for me to leave the nest.
This was a term that was used a lot back in the nineteen sixties and seventies. It meant that people who were bored, tired or just super zealous would connect the society, to find out where there was a need for more “brothers” and their families. These were places where the ratio of witnesses to normal people were well below the national average. These places were usually in the Midwest or Deep South. The society would send you a list of congregations. If you answered the call, you would quit your job sell your house and move to the other end of the country to help out a “weak” congregation.
This was used a status symbol too many times. “Brothers and sisters” would be quick to point out that they sold off everything and moved to an area that “needed help.” As if say look at me, we are so “spiritual” that we are willing to give up our comfortable lives and move to Timbuctoo to serve the Lord. A person couldn’t help but notice that many times these families were not necessary stronger and didn’t become pillars in their new congregations. Instead like most people they brought their problems with them. I love the line in the movie Doctor Zhivago. “Happy men don’t usually volunteer.”
Some made a life in their new locals, while others headed back home after a few years. Many never did fit in and felt out of place. Plus many of the locals didn’t like these strange new comers with their uppity attitudes and their “we are here to help you hicks out” attitude. Many of the locals didn’t like the idea that they “needed to be helped out” in the first place. In Kansas most of the pioneers there were from the Pacific Northwest or California.
Some of these “brothers’ had a little money saved up after they sold everything off. Others like myself, had to find employment immediately. They soon found out there was a reason many of these remote and rural areas didn’t have a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses in them. There was little or no work. The attitude was. “No worries Armageddon was coming soon and we’ll make do, besides Jehovah will provide for us since we are putting him first in our lives.” So we were willing to sacrifice our time and comforts for happier times in “the new system.”
Around nineteen ninety five when I was still a Jehovah’s Witnesses, something strange happened. I was a real estate agent in Portland Oregon. I met a real estate investor from California. He had made a fortune in the real estate market in the San Francisco bay area in the nineteen sixties and seventies. One day we were both in my car looking for his next investment property. I was very intrigued about his career in real estate. So I had to ask. “So Steve, what was your most interesting deal in real estate ever?” He got a slight smile on his face. “Do you mean strange or where I made the most money?” “I don’t know… Ok how about strangest I guess.” I said. “Well, in 1973 I bought this guy’s house in San Jose. What was strange was he wanted to sell his house to me but he didn’t want to move. He and his wife wanted to rent back his own house from me.” “Really…. why would he do that.” I asked. “Well” he said. “It turned out he was in some strange religion that believed the world was going to end in 1975! Can you believe that shit?” “A….yes…. I guess I can. Was he a Jehovah’s Witness?” I asked. “I think he was…..why?” I just had to say it. “Because I’m a Jehovah’s Witness too?” He got silent. “So how did it turn out with you and this guy?” I asked. “Not good.” He said. “When the end of the world didn’t come in 1975, real estate in the bay area started to go through the roof. I had to keep raising the rent on him. Finally he had to move out five years later because he couldn’t afford to live in his own house anymore. I sold the house four years after that and made over 500K on the deal. He was a real jerk.” He couldn’t help but rub it in about how stupid this guy was. I wondered to myself how many other witnesses did something like that. True story.
This was just one guy out of thousands who like myself bought into the 1975 program. It’s true to people outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses we must have looked like total nut jobs.
After the bubble burst in 1975 and god failed to make his presence known, the mass moving around the country pretty much ended. Somehow moving to Ruston Louisiana, Salina Kansas or Narragansett Rhode Island didn’t seem like such a great idea anymore, since no buddy really knew when Armageddon was going to happen now.
.
my mother had a strange relationship with all the men in her life including me.
before 1961 she loved my father in some strange way.
she really thought her new religion would get my father back on the right path, back on the straight and narrow.
Sorry, this is Chapter 8 part B not Chapter 3
my mother had a strange relationship with all the men in her life including me.
before 1961 she loved my father in some strange way.
she really thought her new religion would get my father back on the right path, back on the straight and narrow.
My mother had a strange relationship with all the men in her life including me. Before 1961 she loved my father in some strange way. She really thought her new religion would get my father back on the right path, back on the straight and narrow. Yet every congregation seem to have its problems and my father was quit to point them out to her.
So finally in 1960 they decided to go on a grand adventure and move to Long Island New York. There they thought they would find a new life. My father was going to start a pizza by the slice business with my uncle. We started attending the Babylon New York Kingdom hall. Well, things didn’t work out and 1961 we were heading back to southern California.
You know what they say. “Where ever you go that’s where you’ll be.”
My parents went back to there old congregation Glendora California in 1961. My mother had a strange feeling about the congregation. There was something going on there that just didn’t feel right. There was a huge exodus going on of people leaving the Kingdom hall too. So my parents (probably mostly my mother) decided to go to the Azusa Kingdom Hall instead. The funny thing is, we lived about a hundred yards from the Azusa's congregation’s territory line.
So she requested her publisher record cards. In those days you would have to go to the Bible Study overseer to get your publish record cards. These cards reported all your field service active and any other information a new congregation might need to know about you. They like to keep close tabs on everyone.
They don’t give this cards to the publishers themselves any more. Now, they mail them to your new congregation. The reason is people would get their cards and throw them away and stop being Jehovah’s witnesses. The society wants to know if you quit now a days. Why is that? The only reason I can think of is so they can punish you. They want to be able tell everyone that “brother or sister so in so is no longer a Jehovah’s witnesses.” This way they can make sure everyone knows when you leave. No fading allowed, let the shunning begin!
Something strange happened. Instead of getting their cards the “brothers” in charge said they wanted to meet with my parents. Back in the nineteen sixties there were three brothers in charge of the congregation. There was the overseer, the assistant overseer and the theocratic ministry overseer.
At the meeting the three brothers requested my parents to stay and not leave the Glendora congregation. In essence they needed to stop the exodus out of the Kingdom hall. Since my family was well known in the hall they choose us to make an example of. There really was no rule about going to a congregation outside your territory, so my parents held their ground.
My parents ended up writing a letter to the Brooklyn Bethel, the headquarters of the organization to complain about these overseers. My parents didn’t know it at the time but the letter that they wrote was not confidential. The society forwards all letters to your overseers or elders. So these overseers got really mad. There were more meetings and more yelling. A one point they called my father “a monkey on a string.” I’m not sure what that means. Whatever it meant, my dad didn’t like it and let them have it. I heard there was a lot of yelling and name calling that went on in those meetings.
All my parents wanted to do was go to a different kingdom all. It ended up with my mother being “publicly reproved” and my father was “disfellowshipped for slander and rebelliousness against the organization.” They said they would have disfellowshipped my mother too but she had a bad heart and the shock might kill her. They were right, it would have killed her.
I’m guessing my father could have done some activity that might have deserved this kind of punishment. So maybe on some level he did get justice. On the other hand my mother was the perfect JW follower.
This totally destroyed our family. My father blamed my mother and her religion for his public humiliation. My mother was in total shock and disbelief that there could be such an injustice in “the lord’s house.”
My father ran a crew of about thirty men on a construction site. One day he overheard one of men tell another. “You know Marty got kicked out of his church. What kind of terrible thing do you do to get out of a church, have sex with farm animals?” My father had a lot of pride, so this cut him to the core.
He stop going to most of the meetings. My mother was a diehard. She was never going to give up. She was more diligent than ever. Sure we got the looks at the kingdom hall and the whispering behind our backs. She never flinched.
We ended up going to the Azusa congregation anyway. Why not, we had paid the price for wanting to go there already. Six months of faithful meeting attendance in her new congregation and her “public reproof” was lifted.
My parents went to the circuit overseer to get justice. He was on his last trip through and didn’t want to get involved. The next circuit overseer wasn’t much better. Since these three “brothers” are appointed by the society and thus it is thought they were appointed god himself. They were untouchable.
So in 1964 my parents flew back New York City to the world headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses which is called Bethel. They wanted to plead their case to the big boys. They talked to Harley Miller in the service department. After hearing their story he set up a special committee to retry their case. Finally after for four years the matter was reopened. My parents were not just reinstated they were exonerated.
What happened to the three “brothers?” Nothing happened to them. Oh guess what? They all left the religion years later also.
According the society all elders and servants are appointed by god’s Holy Spirit. So I guess it was god who made the real mistake here not these guys. Whenever things like this happen in their organization of course the Witnesses will be the first to tell you “we are all imperfect.” Yet, god spirit appoints their leaders. Another catch 22 in action.
Bottom line even though my mother and I did nothing wrong we were still shunned by the Witnesses. So shunning is not just reserved for wrong doers. Anyone in good standing or not, can experience this unique Jehovah’s Witnesses punishment.
In high school I was shunned by my witness friends and dislike by fellow class mates too. A rock and a hard place. I was determined to show them all. I would became a super witness. I would pioneer and go to Bethel became a servant (they didn’t have elders back then) and show them all. Yes I would make my god and family proud one day.
i disassociated myself 3 years ago but have never told my mother, as she lives quite a distance from me in the uk.
i've have told her that i no longer go to meetings, neither does my son, who is 16.. i haven't seen her for 3 1/2 years.
i offered to come visit this week but she was incredibly offhand with me and said she couldn't meet with me today as she was on the ministry!!
Tell her that even though you may be a disappointment to her. What has her grandson done to her to be treated this way? Tell her, your son hasn't made a decision about being a JW let. But since she would rather spend time trying to bring strangers into the "tooth" then spent time with her own family. Your son is seeing what the witnesses are really all about! They like to use guilt.....use it on them.
wife read me the daily text this morning out of the blue this morning and a couple of sentences stuck out in my head.. all of jehovah’s promises are dynamic, not static, because he is constantly working toward their fulfillment.
(isa.
46:10; 55:11) once a person realizes this about jehovah’s word, what he reads in the bible can exert a powerful force in his life.. .
Maybe there is a "type and antitype" application here. Better do more research.
You are looking at a turd in a toilet and wondering what it could mean.
Maybe it's just a turd.
chapter 8. a monkey on a string .
my mother never really had much respect for my father.
according to her, my father was weak and “not a good spiritual head of the family.” she probably knew that deep down he was not buying the program.
Chapter 8
A monkey on a string
My mother never really had much respect for my father. According to her, my father was weak and “not a good spiritual head of the family.” She probably knew that deep down he was not buying the program. Whenever there was a problem in the family his favorite saying was “just go along for the sake of peace.” This is exactly what he was doing. Years later, I really disliked him. Not because he wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness anymore but because he knew it was all bull shit for years and never said a word to us kids about it. Yes, his just “give for the sake of peace” attitude affected me, my kids and their kids. He told me years later that I would have never listened to him anyway and he’s was probably right. However at least he could say he tried to warn us. No, He was more worried about his relationship with my mother than his relationship with us kids. He had turned over the raising of us kids to my mother. He was MIA. We were on our own. It didn’t really matter anyway. When she did die years later, she never really liked my father up to the very end. All those years of him kissing her ass, got him nothing. It reminds me of the saying “You are as much responsible for the evils you commit as the evils you permit.”
In nineteen fifty nine when I was ten years old my mother took me and my sister to Hawaii for the summer. I found out years later that she never told my father before she left. He came home from work one day and we were gone. She did this three or four times while we were growing up. She would just take off and not tell my father where she was going. However she would always come back before school started. I’m not quite sure what this was all about. Maybe she found out about one of his many infelicities. Maybe it was putting him on notice to shape up. I really don’t know the reason for the separations but when we came back he really appreciated her more than ever.
Maybe she was like her grandfather (not the one who sexual abused her) and just had a wandering soul. He would take off for months during the great depression and never tell anyone. Not even his wife. Sometimes he just wouldn’t come home from work. Instead he would hop a freight train out town. One day on one of his rare visits back home, the noon whistle blow. He came home for supper, as was the custom in many small Midwest towns back then. He told his wife “I’m not working for those guys anymore after today, they’re all a bunch of idiots.” After his meal he went back to work digging a well.
My great grandfather didn’t come home that evening and he didn’t hop a freight train out of town either. That afternoon he was at the bottom of a twenty foot well digging out the muck and smoking a cigarette. There was a small gas pump running on the top of the hole that was pumping out the water that was seeping in. One of the guys he was working for, did however turn out to be an idiot, because he accidently kick a can full of gas into the hole. No more freight trains for gramps. He was burned to a crisp. His wondering days were over.
1350 in attendance 5 kids baptised.
an astonishing growth of 0.3 percent.
the org charged $13,000 for the wonderful program!.
3% growth? Maybe not. How many got Dfed in that circuit in the same period time?
thus they preach against infant baptisms.
how could a baby know what religion they what to join?
you can still be shunned if you are not baptized.
Even though they preach against child baptism. They say, they want the person to make a conscience decision to join their faith. Thus they preach against infant baptisms. How could a baby know what religion they what to join? This is a very good point. However, it is not unusual for Jehovah’s Witnesses parents to encourage their of eight or nine years old children to get baptized. So I guess infants don’t know what they are doing when it comes to serious decisions but eight and nine year olds do. I got baptized at seventeen. This was unusual for someone who was almost born into the faith. No words were directly spoken about it of course but there was a lot of “what are you waiting for” remarks. The average age of children getting baptized back then if they were raised in the faith was twelve to thirteen.
For many years if you wanted to get baptized, you would just get in line and get dunked. Now a days they will set you down and ask you dozens of questions. These questions are to make sure that you are in agreement with the society policies and that you loyal to their organization and governing body. The governing body is a group of fifteen to twenty old guys who run the whole thing.
There is one very important question they should ask you but for some odd reason they don't. That question should be. “Are you aware that if you join this religion by getting baptized, if you ever change your mind at any time in the future and decide to leave it, you will be shunned? This means your friends, parents, children and relatives will have nothing to do with you for the rest of your life.”
So what is this shunning all about? This is the biggest tool The Watch Tower and Tract Society has to control its members.
The dictionary says shunning is to persistently avoid, ignore, or reject (someone or something) through antipathy or caution. To avoid, evade, steer clear of, keep one’s distance from, have NOTHING TO DO WITH.
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So, if you ever decide to leave this religion this is what is store for you.
Maybe it doesn’t matter if they ask this question because most eight and nine year olds would probably say “yes” anyway.
Wouldn’t it be funny if they said no? “Mom, Dad I changed my mind! I’m not getting baptized. Since there is a strong probably I might decide to be a homosexual in twenty years from now. I’ve decided not to get baptized after all. This way we can still be friends and you won’t have to shun me!”
This really isn’t that funny because if thousands of kids could see their lives down the road, many years later they would certainly never allowed themselves to get dunked.
I know it sounds strange but for some odd reason many unbaptized people are treated better then baptized people in the organization. A Jehovah’s Witnesses family could have two children. Let’s say they are the same age, twins. One child is baptized and one is not. They both end up doing an activity that is not approved of, by the Witnesses. If the baptized one is disfellowshipped, he will be shunned for sure. However the unbaptized one, can’t be disfellowshipped because he never got baptized. So he might not get completely shunned. So in reality by making the decision as a child to get baptized you are at a greater disadvantage then your unbaptized sibling. This brings us to our next question.
So you must be baptized first in order to be shunned by Jehovah’s Witnesses later? Well, not necessary. You can still be shunned if you are not baptized. You might be “marked.” This is usually done unofficially. The elders or an elder or just a group of “brothers and sisters” talk among themselves and determine someone in kingdom hall is bad associations. You might not even know that you are marked. Most the time this is done unofficially. Sometimes it is done officially. The elder will make an announcement to the whole congregation. “That a certain person is considered bad associations.” So you might know or you might not know that you are on their shit list. One way you will know is people will start acting very differently around you. Yes, the unofficial shun. I know all of this is all very confusing.
This happened to me in high school. I was shunned. Did I do something inappropriate? Nope, I was the perfect Jehovah’s Witness child. I was guilty by association. Who did I have contact with that was concerned bad associations? My parents…. Yep, good old mom and dad. This interesting story will be told in the next chapter.
So back to the many ways you can be shunned.
There are only four ways of leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses. So there are four ways that could lead to shunning. I say “could” because options three and four has some loopholes.
1. You are “disfellowshipped.” You commit some kind of sin in the eyes of church. For example you commit “Immorality” meaning you have sex before you are married or you are married and have sex with someone besides your spouse. There are other sins you could commit but these are by far the most popular. You meet with three elders in the local congregation. If they feel you are not repentant enough for your sins, the will expel you from the congregation. Sometimes even if you are repentant enough, they will still expel you anyway. They will do this to make an example of you to others. Or they just don’t like you. It’s a “good old boy country club” and sometimes favoritism comes into play. You could be disfellowedshipped in one Kingdom hall and just get a slap on the wrist in another for the same offence.
2. You “disassociate” yourself. You send a letter to the local congregation and resign your membership.
If you do the first or second option will be definitely be shunned. You can never again have ANY contact with any of your Jehovah’s Witnesses friends or family. You are dead to them.
3. So you don’t want to do option one or two. In recent years a new way to leave the Witnesses has become popular. It’s call “fading.” This is a tricky one. It’s done by people who don’t want to make a complete break from the occult. Usually because of family members, the thought of not ever talking with their parents, children, siblings and loved ones is more than they can bear. It works just like it sounds. You move away from them slowly. Many times this requires an actual move to a new town or state. You might even tell your family and friends that you are still an active witness but in reality you have moved on to a new life. Others have called this “a double life” This phrase has been coined to describe mostly younger ones, teenagers and young adults who have two different lives. These are kids who are trying to keep their parents happy and will pretend to be a good witness by going to the meetings and out in field service. However on the weekends they will “party down” and act like “worldly” people. Whether you are a “double lifer” or a “fader” the results can be disastrous if caught. You could end up in the “back room” with the three elders telling them your story. This rarely goes well.
4. The fourth and final option is death. For many who couldn’t make the choice from the first three options, have chosen this one. Yes, you can break free with suicide. There was a time when I even considered this option myself. I have known at least a half dozen people who felt this was their only option to leave. As I have said earlier, I personally have contributed to at least two people choosing this way out. Yes, even dead people can be shunned. Many witnesses have boycotted their family member’s funerals. So for them there can be no forgiveness even after your death. My mother wouldn’t let my father go to his out father’s funeral because it was inside a Catholic church. As Bob Dylan once said “Some of us are prisoners and some of us are guards.”
