I know we had a thread a while back on all the reasons for getting DFd, but it just occurred to me that not each case is the same at all. In addition to the usual adultry/fornication stuff, I have seen some pretty wild scenarios when I had to be on the committee or around it as an elder. I will give you a couple to start this off, hoping that some of you also know of something similar. The theme that I think may develop is that disfelloshipping seemed (at least in my eyes) to be quite selective - the old "depends on who you are and who you know".
Case 1: For many years when I was a teenager we had a rather strange family as regular publishers. They were an older married couple and their middle aged single (never married) daughter. Our watchtower study servant had lost his wife to heart disease a few years before we started going. WTOverseer and the daughter began to "see" one another. It was quite the scandal - but, the courtship was kept very proper. I think the scandal was because everybody liked WTO and his dead wife and did not want to see this pair together. Maybe the may-december thing has something to do with it.
Anyway, after a few years WTO developed some serious health problems and had to go into permanent care. So that was the end of the romance. About a year later came the stunning friday night letter that the entire family of three was DFd for conduct unbecoming a christian. You can imagine the speculation - the gasps and murmers when they read the letter were shocking.
Years later, after becoming an elder, I got to see the file. (Yes, I too was curious). Here was the reason: DEMONISM!!! It turned out that they had been going to a sort of native-american "healer" who gave them herbal teas, tree bark smoke sauna, said chants, etc. They attempted to sell somebody else in the cong on the benefits of this, who complained. The committee (this was pre-elders) had complained to them about it and they refused to stop going. They quit the meetings, and a month or two later got the DF.
I have often wondered about the circumstances of this case - especially since they were practically shunned because of the daughter way before the witch-doctor thing got found out.
Case 2: In a little town in western Okla. we had a witness husband whose nonJW wife divorced him for being a Scrooge level miser. He was a fairly well-off wheat farmer, but held on to money like it was the great depression. The PO wanted badly to disfellowship the guy - there is just no other way to put it. He actually hated this old farmer. There were only two servants here - the special pioneer PO and me. So, we had to get another servant to make a committee. The problem was that the farmer didn't do the divorce - the wife did. So, the PO gets ahold of the divorce court proceedings and comes across where the woman accused him of slapping her around. Called a committee as soon as the circuit overseer comes around. CO gets me off to the side (I am 20 years old and have never seen a judicial committee before). He asks me if I think that PO is a little prejudiced. Well, I said (so to speak) - No SH***T, Sherlock! We got it stopped by finding the fine print where she also accused the farmer's 90 year old 90 pound mother of physical abuse on her as well. This blew the lid off, as it was obvious this farm wife could chop some wood and still whoop all three of our phony committee asses right after. The Special Pioneer PO got called away by the society soon after and they left me as temporary PO for the summer until they got a new young and reasonable Special Pioneer to come in. We immediately went out and tried to extend the hand of friendship to make up for the wrongs.
I think all it would have taken in the above case would have been one more local servant who didn't like the farmer and he would have been gone for good. I could not have stopped it as a 20 year old kid.
Anybody else know of something similar?
James