WTS advocates resisting rape to the point of death?

by M.J. 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  FaithfulDoubter

  In defense of us men folk, not all of us think like that!

  When I was very young, someone I knew was DF'd because she was raped and became pregnant. She went to a man's house thinking there was going to be a party, but was decieved. Because she 'put herself into that situation', she was disfellowshipped.

  Years later, when I found out about her circumstance, I kept on asking the person that told me (a long time JW), why they would disfellowship someone for being raped. It didn't make any sense to my young brain. (I was probably about 12 at the time.) They told me that Jehovah needed to insure there wasn't any reproach on his organization. That really didn't sit well with me, but when I pressured further I was warned I was going against Jehovah's will and that he would make everything right.

  It's a sad thing that when a girl is raped, she has to sit through a JC to find out if it was 'consensual' or not, especially when the police are already pressing charges, and they have to go through the agony of a court trial and testifying. The whole thing makes my blood boil.... There are also instances of other sexual abuse I know of that happened to people I am close to, it really makes me wonder how widespread these issues are.
• 

  candysearching

  Hey, FaithfulDoubter, what is a JC?
• 

  rebel8

  judicial committee
• 

  FaithfulDoubter

  JC is short for Judicial Committee. The Jehovah's Witnesses have their own 'court system', where a person is tried based on a panel of 3 or more elders (supposedly older mature men) in the congregation. They are not allowed to bring in a recording device, or have someone to help defend them against charges. The purpose of the JC is to determine first guilt or innocence, and then repentence of any sins that may have been committed. JCs can be held for all manner of reasons from fornication, to smoking, to apostasy. I'm sure there are other threads on here that better describe it, but the google search thing just gives me wierd links here.
• 

  candysearching

  Thanks
• 

  calico

  If you resist and are killed, wouldn't that be suicide? Or, what if you kill your attacker? Will you be disfellowshipped? Seems like in the WTS opinion it is better to die than be raped!
• 

  GoingGoingGone

  When I was very young, someone I knew was DF'd because she was raped and became pregnant. She went to a man's house thinking there was going to be a party, but was decieved. Because she 'put herself into that situation', she was disfellowshipped.

  When I was young, I was at the summer convention and overheard a conversation between two women. They were talking about a young woman they knew who had been raped and had become pregnant. Instead of having any compassion for the ordeal this woman had been through, they proceeded to go on and on about how this woman was out at 2 am, and with such behavior, what could she expect?

  They also discussed whether or not she had screamed, how much and how loud, etc. I was not very old, but I was shocked at the callous attitude of these women. Didn't realize then, but the attitude comes from the top.

  GGG
• 

  blondie

  (Deuteronomy 22:22-29) 22 "In case a man is found lying down with a woman owned by an owner, both of them must then die together, the man lying down with the woman and the woman. So you must clear away what is bad out of Israel. 23 "In case there happened to be a virgin girl engaged to a man, and a man actually found her in the city and lay down with her, 24 YOU must also bring them both out to the gate of that city and pelt them with stones, and they must die, the girl for the reason that she did not scream in the city, and the man for the reason that he humiliated the wife of his fellowman. So you must clear away what is evil from your midst. 25 "If, however, it is in the field that the man found the girl who was engaged, and the man grabbed hold of her and lay down with her, the man who lay down with her must also die by himself, 26 and to the girl you must do nothing. The girl has no sin deserving of death, because just as when a man rises up against his fellowman and indeed murders him, even a soul, so it is with this case. 27 For it was in the field that he found her. The girl who was engaged screamed, but there was no one to rescue her. 28 "In case a man finds a girl, a virgin who has not been engaged, and he actually seizes her and lies down with her, and they have been found out, 29 the man who lay down with her must also give the girl’s father fifty silver shekels, and she will become his wife due to the fact that he humiliated her. He will not be allowed to divorce her all his days.

  In applying the Mosaic law to Christian women who are raped, the WTS is not consistent. Notice in verse 28 that a woman who is single (not engaged) does not have to scream to escape execution. Instead she is given to the man who raped her who pays her father 50 silver shekels.

  If the WTS were to be consistent, then single JW women who are raped would not have to scream but would have to be forced to marry the man who raped them.

  Blondie
• 

  calico

  Now there is a loving arrangement!
• 

  Spectre

  I think that you are all forgetting the important issue here. We should all completely adhere to and obey everything that a bunch of guys wrote 3000 years ago. If it worked for a bunch of guys living in tents in the wilderness, surely it will work for us today.

  Blondie, I never thought of that before though of the reasoning for screaming back then was just so that someone(the fathers) elses property is protected, rather than protecting the girl from being raped.

  So what if a young boy was raped?