JW vs Norway, Feb 2025. Dagen article: Jehovah’s Witnesses Leaders
Continue to Lie
News
Jehovah’s Witnesses Leaders Continue to Lie
Rolf J. Furuli dr.art.
It is likely that Jehovah’s Witnesses would not have lost their
registration and state support if they had not lied in a letter to
the County Governor. In 2019, I was made aware that the County
Governor had asked Jehovah’s Witnesses some questions, and that the
Witnesses’ answers contained several lies. As an elder, I have
learned that I must always tell the truth, and if I see that
something is wrong, I should do something about it as quickly as
possible.
Therefore, I wrote a letter to the County Governor and pointed out
the lies, and others also wrote letters about this. The result was
that the County Governor conducted a thorough investigation of
Jehovah’s Witnesses, which led to their loss of registration and
state support. Jehovah’s Witnesses members do not lie, but the
leaders continue to lie.
A key issue in the case is whether Jehovah’s Witnesses’
treatment of those who disassociate themselves violates the law that
allows anyone to leave a religious organization without any form of
pressure. A tactic by the leaders over the past two years has been to
describe how disfellowshipped and disassociated individuals are
treated in a false manner in order to dispel the impression of
pressure.
The arrangement that has been strictly practiced in the 59 years I
have been a Witness is that disfellowshipped and disassociated
individuals are to be shunned and completely isolated. Only contact
that is absolutely necessary is acceptable, such as when working in
the same place or living in the same household, or when very special
circumstances arise such as in a family.
Last year there was a slight change. It was then allowed to invite
a disfellowshipped individual to a meeting and say a brief greeting
if he came to the meeting. However, other contact was still
prohibited.
The Elders’ Handbook states that if a Witness continues to have
contact with a disfellowshipped individual after being repeatedly
asked to stop contact, that individual will be disfellowshipped.
On February 17, 2022, the JV sent a letter to the State
Administrator complaining about the decision to lose the state
subsidy, and they wrote the following about the treatment of
disfellowshipped individuals:
“On the other hand, someone who voluntarily chooses to renounce
their spiritual status as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses by formally
withdrawing will be respected for their decision, and it is up to
each individual associated with the congregation to use their
personal religious conscience to decide whether they want to limit or
completely avoid having contact with that person.”
The last part of the quote is untrue. Disfellowshipped individuals
should be shunned and completely isolated, and it is not up to the
individual Witness to decide how much contact he or she will have
with disfellowshipped individuals.
On January 31 of this year, Dagen ran an article about a married
couple who had left the JV, and the branch office was asked for a
comment. Jørgen Pedersen wrote:
“Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that each congregation member,
based on his or her personal conscience, should decide for himself or
herself whether to limit or stop social contact with former
congregation members in light of the Bible’s command at 1
Corinthians 5:11-13 to ‘stop mixing in company’ with such a
person. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not force congregation members to do
so. The elders in the congregation do not control the personal lives
of congregation members, nor do they exercise control over the faith
of individual Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
That each Witness can decide how much or little contact he or she
will have with a disfellowshipped person is not true, and that the
elders do not control the members’ contact with disfellowshipped
persons is also false.
In the trial in the district court in January 2024, Kåre
Sæterhaug expressed the same thing as the two quotes above say, and
he did the same in the Court of Appeal. Thus, he lied in court. The
purpose of this was clearly to shift the responsibility for the
treatment of disfellowshipped and disassociated individuals away from
the governing body and elders and onto the shoulders of the members.
If it is the members who decide how much or little contact they will
have with disfellowshipped individuals, the JV organization cannot be
accused of pressuring its members not to disfellowship. The irony of
this situation is that ordinary members have never learned and have
no idea that it is they who can decide how much or little contact
they will have with disfellowshipped and disassociated individuals.
They have learned that all contact with them, except in the cases
mentioned, is forbidden.
There is an easy way for the leaders of the JV to show that what I
have written above is not true: They can point to a dated letter, an
article in the Watchtower, or a meeting record (with date) that has
lifted the requirement for total isolation of disfellowshipped and
disassociated individuals and that each member can decide how much or
little contact he or she should have with excluded and disaffected
people.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/1ivsu7h/jw_vs_norway_feb_2025_dagen_article_jehovahs/
