Thank you for sharing this! Succinct and valuable. And brave of you.
>>3.) the family/guardian has every right to go to authorities with no repurcussion.
We had a discussion about this once. A letter to the body of elders made the point that 'the family should not be discouraged from contacting the authorities'. The wording of this was picked apart by some (including me) because it sounded like a back-handed way of saying, "don't encourage the family to go to the authorities." I imagined a conversation like this:
Mother of victim: "Brother Elder, I think we should contact the police. Don't you?"
Elder: "Well Sister, I won't discourage you from doing that, but we haven't handled it congregationally yet. It's your decision, but we do have some ground to cover here."
In the mind of a bOrg drone, 'I won't discourage you, but' is almost equivalent to saying, "No".
Did you get the impression that this was the intent of the "don't discourage" comment, or are we inferring bad intent where none exists?
Thanks again for your insights!
Dave