I'm curious about this, because it was fairly apparent that some newly baptized people didn't have a good grasp of a lot of the doctrinal points of JWs.  Mind you, doctrinal points vascillate quite a lot, so that's no surprise really, but you would think that the basics would be covered prior to allowing people to get baptized, wouldn't you?

For instance, my brother-in-law's girlfriend didn't understand the ramifications of the blood doctrine when she got baptized (they wanted to get married in the KH, and unless she was baptized they wouldn't be allowed to do so).  My husband admitted to not understanding many doctrines prior to baptism as well.  So did both of my brothers-in-law.

How is it that a religion that claims to pride itself on "teaching people The Truth™" would go ahead and baptize people who do not understand what it is exactly that they are getting into?  How is it that a religion that prides itself on providing Accurate Knowledge™ to people would permit anyone to get baptized who could not explain the basic tenets of their faith?  If a person knowingly submits to baptism without understanding what they are committing to or the basis for the doctrines that they will be expected to teach others, are their baptisms valid?  Worse than that, to get baptized knowing that you don't understand the doctrines and beliefs - isn't that dishonest?? isn't it fraudulent?

How often does this happen?  Do you have any examples similar to the ones I mentioned?

Curious to hear what others are thinking about this subject.

Love, Scully

I think the only questions that really need answering are the ones the elders ask themselves:

• Will this person cause us any trouble?
• Will they do as we say?
• Will they go selling distributing our literature?
• Will they contribute money to the preaching work?
• Will they be a means of ensnaring others (like their family)?

If the answer to one or more of these questions is "yes" then that's probably enough. You can be as ropey as you want on the doctrine - who cares, it will all have changed next assembly anyway !

Island Woman:

Well, the thing is this:  The JWs make a BIG DEAL out of their baptismal procedure being so much superior to that of other churches.  They require that you study with one of their ministers for a minimum of six months to a year in order to have a basic understanding of the doctrines.  They make you go through a process of answering 120+ questions in order to "qualify" for baptism.  This is done under the auspices of the elders of the congregation.  The impression one gets is that this is a "test" of sorts that one can "pass" and therefore qualify for baptism, or "fail" and have to go back to the books and try again at a later time.

If it's just a show, or a matter of going through the motions, without actually knowing what they are agreeing to, it could be a case of a person's baptism being invalid (best case scenario if they want out later), or it's just one more example of blatant hypocrisy in the organization.

Seriously, if they are baptizing 6 and 8 year olds, do those BABIES really have the kind of understanding of doctrine to teach other people The Truth™?  Are they capable of making what is clearly an ADULT decision?

Love, Scully

 

I can answer this question. If a person couldn't understand what happens at death or what god's name is, they USUALLY didn't get baptized. However, almost every person I went over questions, could not, per the Society, correctly idenify the "faithful and discreet slave". Yet any that did not understand this basic tenet of belief were still allowed baptism. I remember going over questions with a person that got nearly every one wrong.The other elders said she did alright with them and must have been nervous or intimidated by me. She subsequently got baptized and quickly left the "truth" 3 months later. 

 

When I was a teenager, a girl I grew up with in the cong was going through the questions for baptism. She told me that she had got a few wrong, but the elder who was going through the last set of questions with her, told her that it wasn't a knowledge test, it was more to see what her heart condition was. So she was allowed to get baptised.

 

Some elders don't even ask the questions.  One of the elders scheduled to go through the questions with my husband said, "Oh, I know you know this stuff.  Why don't we watch the football game on TV instead."

So he never had to answer 1/3 of the questions.  Duh!

Blondie

Minimus,

Incompetent, immoral elders, I'd be ashamed to know them.

IW

interesting you mention about the questions. i have 2 experiences with that.

(sorry about the split)

2 experiences are. my wife before she was baptised had trouble making a reply on a few questions.

the "brothers" overseeing this just gave here some paragraphs from the society writings to help answer.they asked her how she would respond after reading the words in the paragraph, and just left it at that. kinda letting her take it at face value.

the 2nd experiance: my father studied for 4 years. he finally gave up trying to please them. interesting note: my father went through the questions for baptism  8-9 different occasions. my father was not able to answer the questions because he has a hard time reasoning,remembering,comprehending. he has had 3 strokes. my father would try to prepare for the questions because he wanted to dedicate his life and live forevere, he prepared by studying 8 hours a day, everyday. just to try to remember about 5 questions and answers at a time.no exagerration.

it was very painful to see how they treated him. no matter how hard he tried, a man with mountanous disabilities was never good enough. he got so depressed and tried to kill himself, thinking that God could not love him, because he could not live up to there legalistic ways of doing things. no, God could not look over his learning disability. now he takes his life day by day it has only been 6 mos since he has been to the hall. amazingly his depression is gone. and un fortunatly there is no words i can express. that would tell just how frustrating that time was.

IW:

Part of the problem, from my perspective at least, is that there is no system of checks and balances in place.  There are no tests for elders or ministerial servants for competency.  There are no audits of who is doing what, who is teaching what, what the Bible "students" are actually learning compared to what the WTS's actual doctrine du jour is.  The ministry that JWs do is passed off as being a kind of "professional" way of doing things.  There are "schools" for speaking from the platform, "schools" for elders training, "schools" for pioneers, "schools" for missionary training, and people "study" to 'come into The Truth™', you write a test every couple of months called the Written Review.  But the effectiveness of all these programs seems questionable, because there is no verification process, and particularly when you have poorly taught students "qualifying" for baptism, who then go out and poorly teach other students, ad infinitum.

The notion of teaching and training is a good one, but without a system whereby the effectiveness of these programs is tested (and really it is the responsibility of the corporation to initiate a program of this nature, not the employees) you have people going willy-nilly and doing whatever they want, simply because they have nobody checking up on them.  That seems to be exactly what is happening in the organization.

Love, Scully