You asked a good question. I think that by "talking" to an elder, it probably helps so many to see how much the elders will follow the doo-doo the WBTS prints, rather than the bible. I was one who did try to talk to an elder. I didn't even knowI was on my way out completely, till after I talked to an elder. the talk I had, and his "advise" made me realize that I was in a cult, that had nothing at all to do with Jesus or God at all. It was all about the men who make up the "society" and that was that.
Here is what lead up to my going to talk to an elder....
My feelings of guilt for the way I treated disfellowshipped people in the congregation started when I was about 16 years old. At a meeting one night, a sister that I used to go door-to-door with was sitting a couple of rows in front of me. She was sitting diagonally ( sp?) in front of me, and she was right beside her mother. I'll call her Amy. She was about 23 years old, or around that age. During the meeting, I noticed that she was crying silently. Not making any noise, but I could see her crying and she kept wiping the tears away that were strolling down her face. Finally, it was announced that she was disfellowshipped. She began to cry harder and her whole body was heaving to try to stifle her crying. Her mother would not turn around and look at her, or even put her arm around her or anything. She got no comfort at all. A lump began to form in my throat and I felt like I was going to cry too, just watching her pain. I've been told that when you are going to be df'd, you know about it ahead of time, so I don't know why she even attended the meeting. She was a very nice person, but she had some problems. Her family was very poor. She and her mom and other siblings lived in what was called "the projects" in the neighborhood. Nobody wanted to be paired with her out in service. i got "put" with her all the time, because people knew I wouldn't complain or say anything about it. That's how I got to know her and knew she had some problems. She always needed encouragement, which I really didn't know how to give her, because I was younger than her and couldn't find the right words to say, except for, "Don't worry. Everything will work itself out in time." She needed to talk to someone older for the right advice. She was having "guy problems", I guess you'd call it. Anyway...the meeting ended and I just stood with the crowd of us talking. I wasn't paying attention to what anyone was saying. I was watching Amy. She sat for awhile just crying, while her mother was talking to someone. Everybody was avoiding her, as the "social" thing that goes on after meetings which is supposedly "christian" fellowship went on. Of course, Amy was simply ignored by all of us "christians". Not one of us, including myself, went over to comfort her in any way at all. Even seeing her sitting there completely falling apart. As we were instructed to by the society,using the scripture 2 John 10, we were not even saying a greeting to her. I thought nobody was really paying attention to her but I was wrong. As soon as she stood up, a path was made for her to walk to the back of the hall and out the door. I watched people move before she even got to them, so I knew people were watching here out of the corner of their eyes. She left and that was that. she attended meetings regularly, but none of us could ask her how she doing, or if she needed any help, or just needed someone to talk to. I did talk to her briefly once, but I heard about it from a "brother" ( how I despise that word! ) after that. All the while, scriptures about Jesus telling us to forgive others for their sins, even if one sins 5 times in one day, kept going through my mind. When the RARE talks about Jesus were given, and talked about forgiveness of each others sins, I would cringe. and think to myself, "that isn't something we Jehovah's witnesses do."
Anyway....about 2 years went by. My step-mom was a smoker and was one the ones who were given 6 months to quit when the WBTS decided that they were going to add smoking to their lists of what sins were. She quit. Time went by and she fell off the wagon and caved into her addiction and started smoking again. She was disfellowshipped. I don't recall it being announced, so I either did not attend that meeting, or just blocked it out of my memory. Anyway, a short time later, at a meeting, I went into the ladies room. I was in the stall, when I heard two "sisters" ( I despise that word too! ) begin to talk about my mom, and trying to compare notes on what they had heard as to the reason she was disfellowshipped. What sin she had committed. I learned that it was going around that she cheated on my dad. I didn't want to come out of the stall. I was feeling so much anger that I began to fight tears that were welling up. I wanted to tell them off SO bad, but I didn't. I opened the door to the stall and walked out. The silence was deafening when the two "sisters" saw that it was me who was in the stall. They realized that I had heard everything they had said. I washed my hands and slammed the door on my way out of the ladies room. I went upstairs, grabbed my books and keys and left. There were other things going on in my life at that time that I couldn't cope with, and I decided to get away from everything, and everyone. I was 18 at the time, I moved to another state to live with my grandmother. I stayed there for about 8 months to try and make sense of my thoughts and to get them together. I had never told anyone the conversation that I had overheard about my mom. The whole disfellowshipping thing bothered me so much. I could see that it was an evil practice, like so many other practices in the Bible BEFORE God gave his Son's life for us. And it wasn't how Jesus told us to treat fellow sinners, once he was resurrected and given all authority over us. It ate and ate at me, and there was nowhere to dump it. I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone about it. When I returned from living with my grandmother for 8 months, I met with a friend ( zev ) from the hall again. (I hadn't been to any meetings since I returned, which had been about 6-8 weeks) I figured I would try to tell him what I was feeling. I couldn't find the right words , nor did I know how to bring the subject up. The time came that he said something about the hall, and instead of just calmly saying what I had to say, I just blurted out, "I'm NEVER going back there again!". I thought he would say, " Why not?", but he didn't. He was completely silent. Just blurting that out must have threw him, and he probably didn't know what to say. So...I knew I would have to go talk to an elder. I still needed to get everything I was feeling about disfellowshipping off my chest.
within a few weeks of my attempt to talk to my friend but to no avail, I called the kingdom hall one sunday after I knew the meeting was over. I said who I was and just asked if could set up an appointment to just talk to an elder about something that was bothering me. I asked if i could talk to a certain elder, because I felt comfortable with him, and nobody else. He was a very soft spoken older man. He was the one who asked me my baptismal test questions and I liked him. The day came to talk to him. I went to the hall. as far as I know, no other elders where in the hall. I thought I heard voices once or twice, but that could have been coming from outside. It was summer and the windows were open. When I got in, the elder greeted me and told me to have a seat. I guess he could tell that I was very nervous, because he told me not to be afraid to tell him anything. Then he proceeded to say this, " Whatever you have done, don't be afraid to tell me. We have had brothers and sisters here in the congregation confess to incest, and wife-swapping. So please just relax and don't be afraid." I was shocked, and it was then that I realized that he thought I was there to confess to sinning. He must have thought I had something juicy to confess too. Boy, was he in for a disappointment. :-) so I told him I wasn't there to confess to a sin. I told him that I could not see how disfellowshipping was biblical. I had a list of scriptures with me that were all how Jesus said we are all sinners and how he said we should treat each other. I had scriptures that told how we should forgive each other for our sins, and how older men/elders were supposed to help people who confess to sins. And that we were to confess our sins to God. As far as I knew, there is no scripture that says it's COMMANDED that we HAVE to confess our sins to elders, or anyone else. We can confess to people, elders or even close friends, along with God if we feel the need to. I also had scriptures that say that Jesus will be the judge of all of us, and that we can't read each others hearts. So nobody has the right to judge if one is repentent or not. He didn't let me get out 2 sentences once I started. I never got to discuss the bible, or scriptures or anything else. He took out the big blue book ( the aide to bible scriptures or something like that) and started flipping through it once he saw that I had scriptures writtne down. He right away stated the scripture in 2John about not even saying a greeting to a disfellwhipped person. I got the chance to say that that scripture was referring to the antichrist and that "this teaching" was referring to the teaching that Jesus was resurrected in the flesh after he was put to death anyway. I wanted to ask him how he relates that to disfellowshipped people. Did he view anyone disfellwshipped as the antichrist and a deciever, instead of a fellow sinner? Where does the Bible say to ignore fellow sinners for however long the elders tell you to before we have the OK from elders to show forgivenss to our fellow sinners? He ignored what I said about the 2John scripture and then he started to counsel me for independent thinking and said that I shouldn't be reading my bible alone. I could see that he wasn't going to let me talk at all, or show him why I thought the way I did. He never opened his bible, only the aid book published by the WBTS. As soon as he siad that if I spoke to a disfellwshipped person, it would made me a sharer of the person's "wicked deeds" and I would be disfellwshipped too, I thanked him and said that I had to leave. On the drive home I just couldn't get over what he said. What he was saying is that if I spoke to a df'd person, that I shared in that person's sin. Funny how I wouldn't know what sin the df'd person got df'd for, but yet I'd be found unrepentent of being a sharer of it! It made me see that everything was done by what the WBTS says. NOT by what the Bible says. I never went back to the hall, or attended another meeting since. That was 21 years ago. I found I could not live, nor try and worship God in a hypocritical and fake atmosphere like that. While we read in watchtowers how loving we were, we weren't allowed to show love at all except under conditions instucted by the "society". While we read how happy we were, I feel that I wasn't. I'm glad I went to talk to an elder that day. It opened my eyes to a lot. It still didn't ease the guilt of leaving right away though. that came a few years later, after I had children and was debating weather to go back again, or not. I began to think that hey, the elders are older and know more. My stomach would turn at the thought of it, but I wanted to do the right thing for my children. In the end, I decided on NOT going back after a strange dream I had. And that is when all the guilt of leaving disappeared. But that's another story. :-) No elders ever tried to contact me and as far as i know, I was never disfellwshipped or da'd. I just simply disappeared from the whole ugly scene.
I can see I got carried away here, Moxy. But it just thought I'd share my one experience of talking, or should I say "trying", to talk to an elder. Looking back, I wish I had gone to the police with what he said about the incest going on. Maybe the authorities would have done nothing, with no names. Maybe they could have got a search warrant to view the files at the KH though. I don't know. But I wish I would have said something.
peace,
somebody
