Posts by TMS

20

Ironically "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison is playing right now...

by noonehome in

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TMS

noonhome,

You seem similar to a sensitive, articulate JWs I have known. What would complicate your life is to marry within the cult, adding unnecessary pain and heartbreak to your life if you eventually need to break totally free from your inherited belief system.

Your mother and some of your close friends in the religion seem to be way above the curve in terms of humanity and tolerance. Unfortunately, there are some real assholes among Jehovah's Witnesses, especially in the leadership, local, travelling and corporate. A few more of those sprinkled in your life, might have made your eventual decision easier.

tms

BTW, my son wore out my George Harrison 3 record set, playing it on his bedroom record player when he was in high school. He is now 41 and just now getting his post-JW life together.

9

Sex as God, gross and gift

by Most Noble in

worship is giving our money, body, and life to a person or thing as our highest commitment or functional god.

practically, this means that sex is a worship act and beds are really altars.. religious belief systems have always held widely divergent views regarding sexuality.

the three most prominent views are sex as god, gross, or gift.

TMS

This article should have been credited to Mark Driscoll of the Washington Post.

tms

15

COs and other org heavies - Interest in secular entertainment?

by A question in

jw
friends

in any conversations and dealings you had with organization 'heavies' or their wives, such as cos, dos, missionaries, and so forth, did they ever have a lot of interest in any kind of secular entertainment (movies, tv shows, fiction books, and so forth)?

or did they always discuss only 'spiritual interests'?.

TMS

Ok. . I will bite. As a young pioneer in the 60's I did share my tastes in music and film with some of the Circuit Overseer couples(Eventually, I learned to keep my tastes in music and film to myself). I loaned the Beatles Revolver album to a C.O's wife. She loved it, but her husband couldn't get past the hair. He was a Nat King Cole fan.

Circuit Overseer Tom Moore asked me to if I had seen any good movies. Since I was a Sidney Poitier fan at the time, I mentioned A Slender Thread, To Sir With Love and In The Heat of the Night. He said it all sounded too West Side Story to him. I don't know what he was looking for, but at least he valued my opinion and was not judgmental.

Circuit Overseer Don Farmer's wife(I forget her first name) found out I was a Beatles fan. She asked if I had seen his rendition of Mary Had A Little Lamb on a national tv program. I told her my wife and I didn't have tv(we were poor pioneers), and that ended the discussion.

In the late 80's, early 90's we had a book study in our home. My wife would put on videos after the study as sort of background music, Paul Simon's Graceland concert in Lagos, Nigeria, Bob Dylan's 30 years with Columbia concert and the Neville Brothers. I'm certain other elders heard about our musical tastes, but none ever confronted us.

tms

17

does anyone dream they are on the ministry?

by pajaha in

or maybe that should be "nightmare" - not dream.. it happens less and less, but still does now and again after 10 years.

it's always associated with a great feeling of dread and going from door to door knowing you do not believe what you are saying (i should point out that, while i was in it, i pretty much did believe it).. i guess it shows how big a part of our lives it once was - a bit like you often dream of being in school or of long-departed relatives..

TMS

When I retired in 2004, I found myself reliving my entire life in dreams, sometimes handling situations better than in real life. In the dreams I was aware of my new enlightened, post-JW posture and incorporated it into JW dream situations or hassles in the entry level job I held for 30 years because of being a JW. What I found disturbing is that, even after waking up in a dream, knowing the situation was bogus, I frequently couldn't prevent myself from going back into that same dream.

It's taken me about a decade for the less-than-pleasant JW and work dreams to subside. Now, I find myself only going back into them if I do too much late night reading on JWN.

tms

74

Living Through the Brief Liberalization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Never Recovering

by TMS in

jw
friends

with the book crisis of conscience detailing the turbulence at bethel during the early to mid 70's, the transformation from autocratic rule to governance by committee or a body of men, many of us can speak to how that felt among the rank and file of the local congregations during those years.

we learned new concepts based in large part to research done for the aid to bible understanding volume, then we were asked or coerced into unlearning those principles, going back to the old ways.

some of us never readjusted, finding ourselves very different from our more hardline compadres.. the inertia for the changes that eventually were initiated in the congregations came from the discovery that the greek words episkopos and presbyteros were used biblically to refer to all qualified men in a congregation, not just one.

TMS

"My father wandered into this cult in the early 70s. Being a baby then I never knew there was a time when JWs were more liberal. I found this thread fascinating and am sad the freedom didn't last."

JimmyPage,

One of the points I didn't make quite well enough is that some of us bought into the relaxed control, enjoying the freedom of simply "doing the right thing." I, for one, gladly relinquished some of my so-called authority, to share it with a body of men. It seemed equitable, biblical. I also bought into the notion that traveling overseers were men just like me, equals. I never recovered from that notion, because the original ideas were taught scripturally and never unlearned. That caused some organizational problems down the line, but I always felt on firm ground.

Now, of course, as an agnostic, non-religious person, all of this discussion seems irrelevant, but it is part of my/our history nonetheless, and we can't totally disconnect.

tms

74

Living Through the Brief Liberalization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Never Recovering

by TMS in

jw
friends

with the book crisis of conscience detailing the turbulence at bethel during the early to mid 70's, the transformation from autocratic rule to governance by committee or a body of men, many of us can speak to how that felt among the rank and file of the local congregations during those years.

we learned new concepts based in large part to research done for the aid to bible understanding volume, then we were asked or coerced into unlearning those principles, going back to the old ways.

some of us never readjusted, finding ourselves very different from our more hardline compadres.. the inertia for the changes that eventually were initiated in the congregations came from the discovery that the greek words episkopos and presbyteros were used biblically to refer to all qualified men in a congregation, not just one.

TMS

" I'm an outsider here, but I recall Blondie's regret when the informal gatherings, picnics and so on ended. It is during informal gatherings that people bond, become a community."

jgnat,

When some of the multi-congregational parties experienced problems, the Watchtower essentially shut down all congregation parties. The host could be liable for overdrinking, fornication, loose conduct or any number of assorted consequences. Witnesses still socialized but in small, private cliques, leaving out the poor, the unpopular, the elderly and the unattached.

tms

74

Living Through the Brief Liberalization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Never Recovering

by TMS in

jw
friends

with the book crisis of conscience detailing the turbulence at bethel during the early to mid 70's, the transformation from autocratic rule to governance by committee or a body of men, many of us can speak to how that felt among the rank and file of the local congregations during those years.

we learned new concepts based in large part to research done for the aid to bible understanding volume, then we were asked or coerced into unlearning those principles, going back to the old ways.

some of us never readjusted, finding ourselves very different from our more hardline compadres.. the inertia for the changes that eventually were initiated in the congregations came from the discovery that the greek words episkopos and presbyteros were used biblically to refer to all qualified men in a congregation, not just one.

TMS

"Meetings seemed more relaxed in the 70s with mini-dramas in the service meeting and a lot of initiative by local brothers. Public talks had audience participation as well."

cofty,

Straying from the outline duriing a public talk became almost the unforgivable sin. In certain congregations anal elders would hold an outline in front on them, following along with your talk just like they do at district conventions. Of course, one can still soften or emphasize a point without using different words. . lol. But, whether you're George Romney or a JW speaker the real gaffes come in the sort of off-the-cuff attempts at humor.

74

Living Through the Brief Liberalization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Never Recovering

by TMS in

jw
friends

with the book crisis of conscience detailing the turbulence at bethel during the early to mid 70's, the transformation from autocratic rule to governance by committee or a body of men, many of us can speak to how that felt among the rank and file of the local congregations during those years.

we learned new concepts based in large part to research done for the aid to bible understanding volume, then we were asked or coerced into unlearning those principles, going back to the old ways.

some of us never readjusted, finding ourselves very different from our more hardline compadres.. the inertia for the changes that eventually were initiated in the congregations came from the discovery that the greek words episkopos and presbyteros were used biblically to refer to all qualified men in a congregation, not just one.

TMS

"Good memory TMS, it was brief oh so brief and then the jihadists took control again. I remember that summer Assembly in 1980 when the 'apostate talks' rained down on us, I literally felt sick."

designs,

I recall in 1980 or 81 the circuit overseer seemed eager to chit chat with us after our elders meeting. He usually left fairly quickly to type things up. It was obvious he wanted to give us the society's spin on the so-called apostacy, rebellion. He talked at length about what happened at Bethel with Ray Franz, almost nothing he said being accurate. He presented Franz as getting a high head, promoting a "secondary heavenly calling" and a lot of other nonsense. Something he said always stuck with me. He described the governing body as having a contentious give-and-take about doctrinal matters. He could sense that statement bothered me, shattering my fantasy. He said well, "on that level" they do argue back and forth about doctrine.

tms

74

Living Through the Brief Liberalization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Never Recovering

by TMS in

jw
friends

with the book crisis of conscience detailing the turbulence at bethel during the early to mid 70's, the transformation from autocratic rule to governance by committee or a body of men, many of us can speak to how that felt among the rank and file of the local congregations during those years.

we learned new concepts based in large part to research done for the aid to bible understanding volume, then we were asked or coerced into unlearning those principles, going back to the old ways.

some of us never readjusted, finding ourselves very different from our more hardline compadres.. the inertia for the changes that eventually were initiated in the congregations came from the discovery that the greek words episkopos and presbyteros were used biblically to refer to all qualified men in a congregation, not just one.

TMS

JeffT,

As we know the Watchtower was on thin biblical ice, enforcing any directives on hair length or facial hair and standards varied according to ethnicity and geography. It was noted, for example, that elders in Alaska wore beards in the early 70's while that was a no-no in the continental U.S. Mustaches were tolerated on hispanic and afro-american brothers, but not on caucasians. With Jesus, the apostles and first century Christians all having long hair, it became an issue of local sensibility.

As to dress, I recall a brother from Bethel who is now on one of the organizational committees visited us as a District Overseer. He met with the elders, speaking from an outline he said was a Society manuscript. It suggested the elders drive through their area on a Sunday morning, noting how people going to church dressed in their community. A young elder raised his hand and was recognized: "Since when do we allow Christendom to dictate our standards?" The Bethel brother's face turned beet red and he shut the meeting down abruptly. Going beyond the "things written" is always difficult to enforce.

tms

74

Living Through the Brief Liberalization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Never Recovering

by TMS in

jw
friends

with the book crisis of conscience detailing the turbulence at bethel during the early to mid 70's, the transformation from autocratic rule to governance by committee or a body of men, many of us can speak to how that felt among the rank and file of the local congregations during those years.

we learned new concepts based in large part to research done for the aid to bible understanding volume, then we were asked or coerced into unlearning those principles, going back to the old ways.

some of us never readjusted, finding ourselves very different from our more hardline compadres.. the inertia for the changes that eventually were initiated in the congregations came from the discovery that the greek words episkopos and presbyteros were used biblically to refer to all qualified men in a congregation, not just one.

TMS

"That's very interesting. Do you feel that the expectations surrounding 1975 had anything to do with this?" paul from cleveland

I never saw anything done by the organization that indicated an awareness of anything drastic happening in 1975. All of the paranoia was on the local level; pioneering, sold homes, maxed out credit cards, even a Kingdom Hall refinancing with an ascending, exhorbitant interest rate after a few initial years of low interest. With the WTBS it was business as usual, buying properties, planning for growth, etc. The restructuring into committees was sort of thrust upon them by their own changing understanding or doctrine. Even at that, it met resistance by Knorr and F. Franz.

tms