by Elsewhere 46 Replies latest jw friends
Can't have it both ways. Can't jump on the elders if they let them get baptized and then jump on the elders if they don't.
I would rather they err on the side of caution and not let them get baptized. In the end God and Jesus decide who lives anyway. This way this person isn't at risk of being DF'd and making it even more difficult for their family to help them.
Blondie
I know our nephew who is pretty smart considering his disability thinks that he is bad or evil because they won't let him be dunked.
Not that I want him to be a JW like the rest of the family but sheesh! It just seems a little cruel. They keep telling him he is not ready and he is now 19 and has studied his whole life.
Is he capable of comprehending and seeking a personal relationship with God, one that is not dependent upon his parents? Is he able to stand before a judicial body, accountable for any wrongdoing he may commit? If not, then such child is evidently not in position to be baptized but would continue under family merit in God‘s eyes, counted by him as "holy" in that sense.
There is just so much wrong with that quote, I don't know where to begin.
If a person fails to get baptized who is eligible to in the eyes of J, then he doesn't survive the big A, right? Sitting on the fence and all that. Now we are having elders judge whether a person is eligible for baptism. What if they're wrong? How do they really know someone is under the "family merit in God's eyes"?
I guess their answer is J will inspire the elders to do the right thing. Now my question is, why doesn't he inspire them to do the right thing all the time, instead of picking and choosing?
Perhaps my question would be better here. I ask this qestion for several reasons. In 1986 I was in an accident. In a coma for 3 months, sent to a Rehabilitation hospital for the next 21 months. After attempting suicide 3 times I began a study with the JWs, while still in the psychiatric ward of the hospital. I did improve to the point of discharge, specifically so I could get baptized at an international assymbly. While at the assymbly I did have an seizure, I got lost and wodered around for about 8 hours before I realized where I was at. I attempted to go in field service, but, after falling down a flight of stairs I was told that God didn't expect me to do more than I was capable of. We qualified for a government program and got a home in another city. These brothers did not know me or anything about my handicaps. My wife inherited a large sum of money from her fathers estate. She did not want to come home. I had lost all ability to care for myself, I lost my wife, I lost my children and I lost the frinds in the congregation. No one would go with me or invite me to with them in service, if I went, I went alone. My wife was disfellowshipped, but, she was reinstated in a matter of months. Oh yeah, I was very angery and let everyone know about it. My family, my own mother would have nothing to do with me nor my brother or sisters. I just quit going. After about y months an elder and a ministerial servant came to my home. I was told to be at the next meeting or I would be disfellowshipped. He did not say why. I believed the only reason he wanted me there is to tell the intire congregation, what need did I have there? It is now 21 years since I left, I've been trying to go back for 10 years now, but, I've encountered nothing but hate. I look at this and I have to admit my Neuro Sugeon and Neuro Psych. Have a valid point, this proves beyond a doubt, I AM disabled, Clinically Stupid, lacking any sense...
I remember one brother who was seriously 5 beers short of a 6 pack. I had no idea how he was allowed to be baptized. Well since he really was a loon, he would go into these tirades, cursing up a storm. He was df'd. Probably had no idea what or why. Then he was reinstated..........
I know our nephew who is pretty smart considering his disability thinks that he is bad or evil because they won't let him be dunked.
How very different from other Christians who see the sacrament of baptism as a welcome into God's inclusive family.
A while ago, someone asked me what was the one outstanding thing that finally made me see the light. I think it is this concept that anyone is unworthy of baptism. To turn it onto its head, it is the concept that anyone at all, by their own efforts, can make themselves "worthy". In fact, the whole concept encapsulated in the book "Keep yourselves in God's Love".
I got about three quarters into that book before I finally balked, and although the book itself wasn't the precipitating cause; I just knew that its whole fundamental premise was so very wrong.
How could any human being make themselves worthy, by their own deeds? God, if he exists, is God. He is divine. He is the ultimate in all love and perfection. Such a being could not possibly react in all the petty, small-minded ways of spite and vengeance that the WT, and indeed much of the Old Testament, would have us believe. Jesus in the New Testament makes it very clear that his teaching supersedes those attitudes. Yes, we are called to repent of our sins, but it is God who in his mercy gives us his grace or, in WT words, his undeserved kindness and loves us.
To me, a religion that by its own admission resists baptising someone because they don't wash their car often enough, or because they don't wear the right clothes, or, as above, most horrifically of all, because of a disability, has explicitly condemned itself.
I think that is so whether or not one believes in any God or none. To exclude a human being because of a disability is very, very shocking.
Well, that's my view anyway. Sorry if that offends anyone, but it just made things even clearer for me.
The elders in our old congregation agreed with my comment that there was no place for my son in the congregation. He was 7 had aspergers and worried about strange and unlikely events. He is a delightful boy and yet as far as they were concerned god didn't want him and their meetings couldn't accommodate him. It is a harsh religion that is all about the task, if you are not fit enough to do the work then they will not invest time on you. So he would not be seen as a baptismal candidate.
However I have heard of someone with severe depression who was df'd and someone else whose mind was screwed through drug addiction in his youth who had major psychotic episodes but never was df'd. It seems it is all about elders and what they personally think is acceptable. This is why there is no consistency and no god in he process.
