From Simony to Paedophilia

by Stephanus 5 Replies latest jw friends

  • Stephanus
    Stephanus

    I remember a few years ago a Watchtower article on simony, the buying or selling of privileges in a church setting. The wording struck me at the time. There was one of those "true Christians should" statements that proliferate in the WT: something along the lines of "True Christians should not be giving money in exchange for positions within congregations" or some such (I may have to dig through my old issues of the 'Tower to find it). Whenever an article says something like that, I notice. In this case I took it as 'Tower-speak for "There are people bribing elders, COs, etc. to give them positions of prominence within the congregations and we want it to stop, but we're not coming straight out and saying it because we're not going to admit such an embarassing problem exists in Jehovah's Clean Organisation".

    Can anyone point to any similar articles over the last few years where a problem rife in the Org has been discreetly hidden behind this "true Christians should/shouldn't" Newspeak?

    How likely are we to see an article in the near future addressing the paedophilia issue by saying "True Christians shoud avoid acts of paedophilia if at all possible" or some such meally-mouthed non-statement.

  • Stephanus
    Stephanus

    No takers?

  • LDH
    LDH

    Stephanus, you bring out a good point.

    So much of what the WBTS writes and says is 'Read between the lines, people.'

    And yet the average JDub would construe that 'true Christians' phrase as though it's something we DON'T do, which sets us apart from 'false religion.'

    I'm sure I could find some other examples, if I hadn't thrown all that $*#&$ away.

  • logical
    logical

    Do they HAVE to call it Simony?

  • Stephanus
    Stephanus

    It's named Simony after the guy in Acts who tried to pay the Apostles for the power to confer the gift of the Holy Spirit

  • Stephanus
    Stephanus

    Actually that whole Simony article was really making it clear that it is tempting for "Christians" to take that route, meaning, I guess, that it was rife in the JWs. So, why? Is there a sort of adoration of position in the JWs whereby people would be quite willing to buy the CO/DO a new car to become an elder (after all, that was the going price for promotion under Norr, was it not?)? Do people suck up to elders by inviting the elders over for dinner but don't extend the same kindness to R&F doing it hard?

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