I don’t see much change in the df policy.
You don’t? Read the s-395 again.
Will a dfd still have to attend meetings for 6 months to be reinstated?
Absolutely not - read the s-395.
A summary of the most significant changes:
— multiple meetings with the “accused” are encouraged, even apparently expected, to try to “lead him to repentance”. In the past, the “accused” got exactly one meeting, one shot to convince the committee he was “repentant”. Fail to do so, certain DF.
— Elders “chase after” a DF person after only 3 months, checking to see if he can return. In the past, a return after 3 months was utterly scandalous. 6 months was the absolute bare minimum, typically only granted if the DF’ed person formerly had, or has current family members, of enormous importance. Waiting a year or longer was much more the norm.
— in the past, the DF’ed person had to write a formal letter, pleading for reinstatement and presenting a long list of how they were “repairing their relationship with Jehovah”. Now, elders chase after them, asking THEM if they want to return, every 3 months.
— Minors are virtually never going to be DF’ed anymore. If the parents have the “situation in hand” (an extraordinarily, and probably intentionally, vague term, almost to the point of meaninglessness), not only is the kid not DF’ed, there’s not even a judicial committee.
— Formerly, it was a prominent “virtue signal” for “exemplary” publishers and those with “privileges” to go out of their way to shun anyone DF’ed, particularly and specifically when other JWs were around. Now, such “privileged” folks are expected to publicly speak kind words to anyone DF’ed who shows up at a meeting, doing so repeatedly as the DF keeps coming.
It’s an enormous change, but (in my opinion) only a transitional phase. It’s as much as they could “get away with” springing on JWs all at once. More changes are coming (again, my opinion).
Sorry for derailing the thread, it just bugs me to see folks shrug and say “eh, it’s no big deal”. In the (previously) glacially slow to change world of JWs, it’s as big as it gets.
Answering the OP, I think it was very likely intended to “distract” the (few remaining) thinking JWs from considering how deep the other changes are.