So by this point in the conversation, I’m thinking that at any moment mum is going to leap up and throw herself under the nearest bus, or perhaps, throw ME under the nearest bus. But no, this did not happen. She said “You know somehow I knew you were going to say that it was the two witness thing, because Sister J (a very good family friend) had this thrown at her once before.”
My turn to be intrigued.
I asked her to explain. “Well before she was going to be married to Brother J, the elders asked her if she was scripturally free to marry. Sister J was shocked as it is well known that her previous husband from before she was a JW has since been married another two times (and divorced another two times). The elders asked Sister J if her ex had any kids with any of his other wives. When she replied ‘No’ the elder said ‘So there is no proof that he has had sex with either of them making you scripturally free to marry. Are there witnesses to them having sex?”
My turn for my jaw to hit the ground.
Sister J (always one to tell it like it is) says to the elder “Are you telling me that since my ex husband doesn’t have any kids that I might not be scripturally free to get married? Are you seriously suggesting that this man and his wives have never had sex?” The reply from the elder was “Well, there is no proof.” So of course Sister J and her about-to-be husband were gobsmacked, and were now thinking that maybe the brothers wouldn’t let them get married. So Sister J felt she had to write a letter to her ex husband and ask him if he had sex with either of his wives!
Mum went on to explain that the ex husband never replied so Sister J went back to the elder and said that she had contacted him and asked him, but had not received a reply so they were not sure what to do. The elder replied “Why did you do that? You didn’t have to do that.”
I kid you not. You cannot make this stuff up. I was shocked. I have seen some things when I was serving as an elder, but this kind of thing is just prying too far! And then for the elder to just fob it off? Man if I was Sister J, my foot would be setting up camp in his groin area.
So with that said, I said to mum that the more I read the scriptures on their own, the more I realise that it is up to us as individuals to render our account to Jehovah. Not for some congregational police force to investigate and pass judgement on. I pointed out that whenever the word ‘elder’ was used in the scriptures it had a small e at the front indicating that it was a level of maturity, not a rank. She agreed, again we are aware of these things as JWs, but it never occurs for us to question why they are used against us. The scriptures are blurred out by the rules and regulations.
The WTS preys on the vulnerable. Think about who makes up a large part of the numbers in a congregation. Single mums, poor people, and uneducated middle class. Easy prey. The others who might have full families in are generally second or third generation and are well set up financially. And of course these are often the ones who are the elders and wield control over the sheep.
Anyway, I digress! So after she had related the story of Sister J, and explaining that she is cognisant of the stupidity of the two witness rule, I said that after I stepped down I thought that maybe I had been too harsh, too critical, too quick to judge (I didn’t really think that, but I was segueing into what I wanted to say to her next). “But then” I said, “I heard about a sexual abuse case in America about a young lady called Candace Conti. Up until her case the WTS had managed to settle abuse claims out of court, but this lady took them on, and won. She got awarded $21,000,000. Do you know why the WTS lost the case Mum?” She didn’t of course so I explained “Because the first time the guy touched a girl, he denied it and because there weren’t two witnesses to it, he just lost his privileges. He then moved and some years later committed the sexual abuse against Candace Conti.”
Mum had a :-/ kind of look on her face. She knew I was not making this up. I said “After hearing this I felt like I had made the right decision to step down. The exact reason I chose to step down is the exact reason the WTS lost the case.” Mum gave a really honest reply: “That is awful. This is what happens when people start using a guidebook to tell them what to do instead of the scriptures or just plain common sense.” I asked “What would Jesus have done? Would he have asked the little girl if anyone else had seen the bad man touch her?” “No” she replied, “He would have picked up that little girl, held her in his arms and told her everything was gonna be okay.”
So you can imagine, at this point, my mind is going a million miles an hour. Here I am having a well reasoned ‘normal’ conversation with mum. My fear all along was that when the time came to share with her how I was really feeling she would turn on her heel and run for the hills. But no, here she was looking like a truck had run over her as she worked through the logic in her head. I was trying hard to not say anything that would be considered ‘apostate’ but rather show her the stupidity of the WTS rules and procedures, to use questioning and reasoning to help her draw her own conclusions.
And then we went deeper...