by truthseeker1969 2 Replies latest jw friends
Since the society believes that you are no longer a witness and that you can not carry your blood card or identity card, shouldn't your baptism be annulled automatically since you are not one of them.
Since your baptism vows recognise you as "one of Jehovahs Witnesses' then when leaving it is voided and baptism would be needed again.
I assume they would deny this since it is yet another way of controlling you from coming back a free agent and starting again.
Announcing you as "No longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses" was a legal move. Otherwise, they'd still say "so-and-so has been disfellowshipped" or "has disassociated themselves".
When you're DF'ed, I was under the impression that you can still carry your "No Blood" thingy...that you're being punished until you've repented enough in the elders' eyes to be let back in. So, in my view, re-baptism wouldn't have been necessary back when they were still announcing that you were disfellowshipped because you're still recognized as a JW, just being punished. That's what I always thought.
Disassociation, however, was a different matter. When it was announced that someone DA'ed, then they were no longer viewed as a JW...and so the reasoning in the OP stands for that case.
But now that they just say "no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses"...well, that kind of puts a new slant on things and, in that case, yeah a re-baptism should be required.
Though, who in their right mind would make that mistake twice???
Of course, it was many years ago when I was active, but there was a policy for re-baptism. It was rare but did occur when Oal officials determined that s.o got baptised without knowing what he or she was really doing, that is, had not dedicated himself/herself to Jehovah. I'm not saying that this would apply in the case propsed in this thread, but perhaps s.o. who is more up on/current with Oal policy could contribute that.
Just my outdated thoughts.
