Posts by Salud

27

JW.com warning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by haujobbz in

jw
friends

.

just remember this website is for topics only jw related so there.. "resistance is futile"

Salud

Hey LB,

Does your wife know you are posting these pics and my wife wants to know where you get them?

Edited by - salud on 17 August 2002 18:3:14

32

we've just got back from out holidays after travelling with 2 young kids for 24+ hours and logged on to see the same old people complaining about the same old things with the same worn out arguments.. the topics seem to be along the lines of:posters should be allowed to say anything they want.we want absolute free speech and seem to be under the mistaken illusion that the usa has it.there is mass moderation happening on this forum and censorship is rife.

... and so on.. all of these claims are utter crap as far as i am concerned.. now, i am not going to put up with people trying to stir things up and interfere with the majority of posters who want to use this forum properly and see me and moderation as the main topic of conversation.. keep harping on and you will be deleted.

harsh?

Salud

Simon,

Hope you enjoyed your vacation and sorry you have to come back to this.

As with anything in society a balance must be found, hence a check on those balances is sometimes required. We appreciate the work you do and thank you for having this outlet for many.

Salud

18

Bright side of a BAD day

by Erica in

jw
friends

.

it started out having a bad day.... no babysitter had to miss work , friend came over so i went to get a haircut, she followed me there and took care of michael, on the way home, on the freeway, i was on the the third lane to the left and the car engine shuts off and i had to get three lanes over to the right, in major traffic, i barley made and the car dies.. i started to panick cause it's dark and i have michael and i'm on a freeway.... so i get michael and start walking and praying, and this man pulled over and i started to get even more nervous but i accepted the ride, he took me to a gas station and well his truck was really high , like three in a half feet, well i had forgotten about that so when i steped out of his truck i fell with michael in my arms he started screaming and i started to ball my head off.. okay here's my point like 3 people there helped me, the gas station let me use there phone and gave me something to drink, a couple wouldn't leave until they knew i was taken care of offered me money for a cab or tow truck, they waited like 15 minutes.. i thought of you all, who really didn't know me, but were there for me when i needed it the most, there are some really great people out there, and it doesn't matter what religion you belong to.

Salud

Sorry to hear about your day Erica. Glad things worked out though. It goes to show there are many nice worldy people who do not have wrong motives. Hopefully you have a better day today.

I believe we were in the same circuit at one time when you lived in Washington. I used to live in Oregon and served in the Spanish congregation's there. E-mail me if you have a chance.

Salud.

87

My Disfellowshipping

by silentlambs in

jw
friends

my disfellowshipping

as with anyone associated with jehovahs witnesses the worst possible news anyone can have is being df.

it means a loss of everyone and everything you have known all your life.

Salud

Way to go Bill!!

Thank you for your courage and determination.

And the judicial committee wheel of injustice continue rolling...

10

Did The Times Article Make Your Paper?

by Kenneson in

jw
friends

i thought it would be interesting to list all the papers that carried the new york times article.

yesterday, i noted the orange county register (california), someone else the santa barbara news-press (california) and still another the denver post (colorado).

today i came across it in the lexington herald (kentucky).

Salud

In Tampa, the St. Petersburg Times titled it "Jehovah's Witnesses struggle over charges".

Just as you opened the front page, there it was on page 3 under Church Scandals! You couldn't miss it, along with two other articles on the Catholic Church.

64

Bill Bowen Disfellowshipped

by silentlambs in

jw
friends

as of 8:30 pm this evening the appeal hearing decided to uphold the decision.

i spoke to them for over an hour and tried to reason with them as to the validity of their decision.

frankly, they were not interested.

Salud

Bill,

Hang in there. In my appeal meeting after trying to reason with them using the Bible and the 'Flock' book their response was that we have spent too much time on this and that they were done with the matter. How loving and understanding. It typifies the judicial mentality that exist in the organization.

Think of all the good you have done! You have many supporters. We stand beside you.

Salud and wife.

38

WHY ARE YOU HERE?

by jst2laws in

jw
friends

joy2bfree and i have so enjoyed meeting over 70 of the posters here on jwd in the last few months.

this has brought us even closer to many, yet the things i learned about each made me even more concerned about others here.

i hope each is getting what they need from this cyberpub we visit.

Salud

Js2L,

Right. When we went to England we first visited Cambridge University. Two students taking a survey asked what brought us from America to England. They wrote in their report with amuzed faces as a explained we came for a BBQ with a good friend we hadn't yet met.

How funny!! We laughed esp. with a good friend we hadn't yet met part. Count us in for next year!

Hang in there!!

38

WHY ARE YOU HERE?

by jst2laws in

jw
friends

joy2bfree and i have so enjoyed meeting over 70 of the posters here on jwd in the last few months.

this has brought us even closer to many, yet the things i learned about each made me even more concerned about others here.

i hope each is getting what they need from this cyberpub we visit.

Salud

Just2laws,

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. I would just like to add that the support we have recieved from others who share the same experiences is not like any other. Where else do you see people traveling accross the county, even crossing oceans just to have a couple of beers and a meal with ex-witnesses. Do you see ex-Catholics, ex-Protestants going to such extremes? NO!

There is something to be said of the people we are and what we wish to accomplish. The same determination that kept us in is now the driving force that gets us out. Now instead of serving an organization we are serving others in an unselfish way with a view to helping and supporting those who truly need it.

I would also like to add it was a priviledge and a pleasure to meet you and your family.

20

NY TIMES ARTICLE - Read it Here!

by Salud in

jw
friends

for those who can't wait till sunday...

ousted members contend jehovah's witnesses' abuse policy hides offenses

by laurie goodstein

Salud

For those who can't wait till Sunday...

Ousted Members Contend Jehovah's Witnesses' Abuse Policy Hides Offenses

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

illiam Bowen always considered himself a devout Jehovah's Witness. As a child, he felt it was his duty to go door to door passing out the church's magazine, The Watchtower. Later, as an elder in his Kentucky congregation, he said he saw it as his duty to inform church officials that a fellow elder had abused a child.

But when Mr. Bowen contacted the church's headquarters in Brooklyn, he says, he was rebuffed. Frustrated by the church's inaction and by its confidentiality provisions, which he said prevented him from sharing the information with others, Mr. Bowen resigned as an elder in December 2000. A year later, he started a group to monitor child sexual abuse in the church.

Late last month, Mr. Bowen, 44, was excommunicated from the church. Behind a locked door, with plastic bags taped over the windows to ward off onlookers, he said, three church elders meeting at the church's Kingdom Hall in Draffenville, Ky., found him guilty of "causing divisions."

The punishment was "disfellowshiping" complete shunning.

In the past three months, four other people have been expelled from the Jehovah's Witnesses after accusing it of covering up the sexual abuse of children by its members. For Mr. Bowen and other critics of church policies on sexual abuse, the expulsions are part of a concerted effort to keep such abuses quiet.

Expelled Witnesses say the church's own policies and culture conspire to conceal abuse. A panel of church elders, all men, meets in secret to decide each case, a procedure which critics say prevents members from knowing there is an abuser in their midst. To prove an accusation, a child must have a witness to the incident, a condition that is usually impossible to meet.

"This is evidence for the world to see how the Jehovah's Witnesses treat abuse survivors and those who try to protect them," said Mr. Bowen. "They silence them with the threat of disfellowshiping."

J. R. Brown, director of the public information office at church headquarters, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, in Brooklyn, said the church had exemplary policies for handling sexual abuse, which were based on biblical standards and had been widely published in church magazines.

"We're not trying to say we handled everybody in the right way and our elders are all-knowing, all perfect," said Mr. Brown, who declined as a matter of policy to comment on individual cases, including Mr. Bowen's. "But we say, if you take what our policy is for keeping our organization clean morally, it far outpaces anybody else's."

While the Roman Catholic Church has been engulfed in its own sexual abuse scandal, the same issue is beginning to plague the Jehovah's Witnesses, a denomination that claims one million members in the United States and six million worldwide.

But the shape of the scandal is far different than in the Catholic church, where most of the people accused of abuse are priests and a vast majority of the victims were boys and young men. In the Jehovah's Witnesses, where congregations are often collections of extended families and church elders are chosen from among the laypeople, some of those accused are elders, but most are congregation members. The victims who have stepped forward are mostly girls and young women, and many accusations involve incest.

The scope of abuse in the Jehovah's Witnesses is a matter of considerable debate. The church has recently been sued by eight plaintiffs in four lawsuits alleging abuse, one filed in July in Minnesota. Mr. Bowen says that his victims support group, "silentlambs," has collected reports from more than 5,000 Witnesses contending that the church mishandled child sexual abuse.

The church keeps a database of members and associates who have been accused or found guilty of child abuse. Mr. Bowen said church sources had told him the database contained the names of more than 23,000 people in the United States, Canada and Europe. The church says the number is "considerably lower," but will not say what it is.

The church has a firm framework for handling sexual abuse cases. Members who suspect abuse are advised to go first to the elders, who are considered spiritual and moral leaders to whom the members are to turn with their personal problems. Mr. Brown said that the church's legal department advised elders to follow the law in states that have mandatory reporting laws, and in cases in which children appear to be in danger.

The elders are the ones required to judge whether someone has committed a sin like child abuse. If the abuser confesses and is forgiven, the only notice given to the congregation is an announcement that the person has been disciplined. No reason is announced. However, the elders report the person's name to headquarters, where it goes into the database so that abuser is banned from serving in a position of authority.

"If a person can cry a good tune, there are virtually no repercussions and nobody besides the elders ever knows," said Jean Kraus, who said she went to elders in her Queens congregation years ago accusing her former husband of abusing their daughter. She said that he confessed, was reprimanded and was still an active Witness. "They told me that he wasn't a wicked man, that it was a weakness," she said.

The church spokesman, Mr. Brown, said: "We view such judicial hearings as an extension of our shepherding work as ministers. In other words, we're there to save a person's soul. In these cases we are not going to be vindictive because these are our brothers, and we would hope that they would change."

If the accused denies the allegation, the victim's testimony alone is not sufficient unless there is at least one other witness to the act. The church says its policy is based on a scriptural injunction in Deuteronomy 19:15 that says two or three witnesses are necessary to prove a man has sinned.

Heidi Meyer, a third-generation Jehovah's Witness in Annandale, Minn., said she went to her elders in 1994, when she was 15, to say that from the ages of 10 to 13 she had been repeatedly molested by a fellow Witness eight years her senior, the older brother of a friend. The only eyewitness was her brother, who had once seen the man grab her buttocks as she got out of a car.

The elders asked explicit questions that made her uncomfortable, she said. According to an internal Witness document "Pay Attention to Yourself and to All the Flock," the elders must determine in which category the accusation fits: if it was "uncleanness," a one-time touching above the waist; "loose conduct," touching below the waist or more than once above; or the most severe, "porneia," direct sexual stimulation or activity resulting in orgasm. Each offense carries different penalties, with the most severe for porneia.

The man she was accusing insisted that Ms. Meyer had misinterpreted what happened. The elders agreed.

"I was expecting spiritual guidance," Ms. Meyer said. "I was expecting them to genuinely, sincerely attempt to find justice and protect the rest of the congregation from this same thing happening. And none of that happened."

She, like several other alleged victims and their relatives, said in interviews that the elders warned her against reporting the abuse or talking about it with other members.

"They told me if I spoke about it with anybody, I needed to be careful because I could face a judicial committee for gossip or slander," she said. "If they felt I had committed that sin, I would be disfellowshiped."

Ms. Meyer says she learned only years later that Amber Long, another young woman in the congregation, had at age 12 gone to the elders with her parents to report that she had been molested by the same man. Ms. Long, who is now 23, said she and her parents received a letter from the Witnesses advising her to "leave it in Jehovah's hands."

"They said we shouldn't hold ill feelings about our brothers," Ms. Long said. "Since there weren't two eyewitnesses, they said there wasn't much they could do."

Neither Ms. Long nor Ms. Meyer is still active in the Jehovah's Witnesses. On July 2, the two women filed suit against the man they accuse of molesting them Derek Lindala, 30, of South Haven, Minn. the local congregation, and Jehovah's Witness headquarters. Mr. Lindala did not respond to a message left at his home seeking comment.

Barbara Anderson, of Tullahoma, Tenn., said that when she and her husband lived and worked at church headquarters in Brooklyn in the 1990's, she was asked to gather information about child abuse in the congregations. She said she handed over to church leaders dozens of letters complaining about how cases were handled. For her it was a revelation.

"Jehovah's Witnesses like to say that we have one of the most crime-free organizations," Mrs. Anderson said. "But all problems are taken to the elders, and the elders keep them quiet." She said that the documents prompted an internal debate among church leaders, and that when there was no action, she left headquarters disheartened in 1993, after 11 years of volunteering.

Carl A. Raschke, a professor of religious studies at the University of Denver who has written about the Jehovah's Witnesses, said the group was no different from many other insular religions that aspire to theological and moral purity.

"Groups that tend to be very tight-knit and in-grown historically have a higher incidence of sexual abuse and incest," Dr. Raschke said. "That's an ethnological fact. When a religion tries to be thoroughly holy or godly, it's not going to acknowledge that people aren't living up to the ideals of the faith."

On July 25, Mrs. Anderson was excommunicated. A week later her husband, Joe, who had earlier resigned as an elder after 42 years, was also expelled.

"It is inconceivable to think elders would investigate an allegation of murder to determine guilt or innocence, so why would we investigate an allegation of child abuse?" Mr. Anderson wrote in his resignation letter. "This is just not our field of expertise. We are ministers of God, not police."

Edited by - salud on 10 August 2002 20:14:42

Edited by - salud on 10 August 2002 20:31:19

93

NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by silentlambs in

jw
friends

we are going to have an extensive article in the new york times this sunday.

there is an early addition that comes out in most cities around on saturday.

i encourage one and all to get your copy and do not miss the important piece of history.

Salud

Thanks Hawk,

Just sent it to the St. Petersburg Times. BTW they are going to be doing two major articles on shunning and pedophiles in the Tampa/St. Pete area in a week or so. I had one of the reporters come to my house and interview my wife and I.