Could a Baptism be Null and Void based on Circumstances?

by Good Girl or Bad Girl? 30 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  juni

  and tell any significant others not to either or no nookie

  BLONDIE!!!!

  Calm down girl. I've never heard you talk like this. For goodness sake.

  Juni hee hee!!
• 

  looking_glass

  Courts generally view religion as a private club that you are a member to. You are subject to the club rules. Only if the club violates state or federal law will the courts get involved. If you look at lawsuits against the WTBTS you will see w/ regard to df or da'ing a person, changes were due to "right to privacy" issues which were deemed a violation of certain rights of individuals under state law and that is why they no longer state specifically why someone was df'd or da'd and most likely why they are again starting to change their policies. However, every state has different laws. If you can find a local rule or state law that allows you to maintain your own files and that someone or something cannot maintain a file on you without your written permission, they can keep your pub card and there is nothing you can do about. You can ask for a copy of it, but again that does you little good.
• 

  Dune

  Might want to try what i'm doing.

  I'm going to switch congregations (giving them a few months notice).

  Then i'm going to either fade in that congregation or switch again so they'll lose track of me, lol.
• 

  Good Girl or Bad Girl?

  Dune, are you going to switch congregations in your area or actually move away?

  What would happen if you switched to a different congregation in a nearby city, and then never go to the meetings there, never forge a relationship of any kind with the elders, etc. After ignoring their phone calls and visits for a while would they leave you alone? Or would they sic your old elders on you? What would happen if you switch and then switch and then switch (I have maybe 10 congregations all within the same city). Would they get sick of the hassle? Especially since they usually ask the reason why you are switching and if I repeatedly say it's because I have issues with people in the congregation they might think I'm not sheeplike enough to worry about too much...I'm thinking aloud here...

  I just have a really great job right now and I want to stay in the area for a few more years if at all possible...but as it is I'm in my mother's congregation (I have my own apartment in a different town than where she lives, but it's the same congregation's territory) so she knows every time I miss a meeting and it adversely affects our relationship. I'd rather she didn't know and then maybe she could believe in her la-la-land brain that I'm going somewhere else because she wouldn't know for sure and then we could have a (relatively) happy mother-daughter relationship going again.

  Thanks, Everybody.
• 

  blondie

  Just a note, even if you switch but maintain contact with JW family (they have your address and phone number), there is nothing stopping your family from contacting the congregation in the area you have moved to and informing them of your location requesting that you be called on. My experience with most elders is that they rarely call on the people in their congregationi already.

  I have seen this experienced by some who fade.

  Blondie
• 

  zagor

  Of course, they wouldn't take it any other way but as DA, I mean what do you think really, they'd conclude you are looking for an easy way out using "twisted reasoning" (never mind you've learned it from them in a first place)
  as the saying goes "Never play leap frog with a unicorn"

  to you young lurking j-dubs I'd say look for any excuse in a book to postpone baptism until you have control over your own life.

  One good I've heard few years ago was from this young lad who said "Look brothers Jesus was about 30 when he was baptized, right? Right. And he was a perfect man, how can you expect someone as imperfect as I am to get baptized any sooner"
  Surprisingly it worked. lmao.
• 

  Frog

  hey there GG/BG...I've been personally giving this allot of though of late, and I've decided that I'm going to write to the society & ask for my dedication to be annulled. a good friend of mine recommened i do it, and i think it's definitely worth a shot.

  i believe that if you were a minor then you should have a very good case. you will want to state that you never really understood what it meant to make a dedication to JH in your heart and in prayre, and that this was never really explained to you. i've heard that if you've since pioneered since after turning adult age that then the society had rejected requests to annul on the basis that they state that registering as a pioneer showed your adult committment, so you will also want to find your way around that claim if you fall into that category.

  good luck, it's worth a try. perhaps have a solicitor send it in on your behalf, but don't antagonise them too much as it might get their back up. unfortunately you have to play their game in these things...x
• 

  diamondblue1974

  Wouldnt the request for an annulment be taken as a disassociation though?
• 

  Frog

  that's true DB, I think that it would only be wise to take this step if you're already been diss'd.
• 

  loveis

  *** w60 3/1 pp. 159-160 Questions from Readers ***

  Questions

  from Readers

  •

  What should a congregation committee do in the case of one who has committed acts deserving being put on probation or disfellowshiped and who now claims that in the light of what The Watchtower, August 1, 1958, had to say about valid and invalid baptisms, his baptism was not a valid one?

  We well know that Christendom professes to be Jehovah’s organization and in the new covenant with him. It has never renounced that relationship, although it is a false claim and pretense. Yet because of the appearance that Christendom puts on before the world and the demands that it makes according to its boastful claims, Jehovah God will judge Christendom just the same as if she were in actual covenant relationship with him. She will be judged unfaithful and punished accordingly because she has acted hypocritically and brought reproach upon his name.

  Likewise, if an individual who has made a profession of dedication to God through Christ and after the baptismal talk submits to water baptism and then continues to associate with the congregation, even though spasmodically, claiming to be a dedicated, baptized member of the congregation and never renouncing that relationship with the congregation, then that individual has to be judged by the congregation according to the appearance of things that is being offered by this person.

  The congregation credits the individual with honesty and with having intelligently entered into a full membership in the congregation by virtue of dedication and baptism. The congregation is not God, who is able to read the heart, nor does it have supernatural gifts as did Peter and other apostles so as to know whether the individual is earnest and sincere and is not dishonest and hypocritical. If the individual permits himself to be accepted by the congregation upon the basis of the congregation’s own understanding and view of the matter, then this individual subjects himself to be judged and dealt with according to the standards that the congregation owns up to as found in the Word of God.

  If, after the individual commits a wrong that deserves disfellowshiping, the individual first then disclaims having actually been what he has all along pretended to be and what he has let the congregation think he is, then he certainly is trying to take advantage of the congregation and is trying to crawl out from underneath responsibility and due consequences for his acts. He cannot now properly claim that he was not really dedicated and that his baptism was all a mistake and that in reality he never was a member of the congregation and of the New World society and so cannot be chastened by or expelled from it.

  This particularly follows in the case of such a one’s making a confession. If inside himself he did not count himself a member of the congregation, then why make a confession to the congregation in the first place? An undedicated, unbaptized person is not obliged to confess all his sins and wickedness that he committed before dedication to the congregation and ask their forgiveness. All that is necessary is that he clean up his life, then make a dedication and act in harmony with that dedication and present himself for baptism.

  But whether confessing or not, when a person is found guilty of misconduct he must be dealt with according to the appearance he gave those of the New World society and must therefore be put on probation or disfellowshiped as the situation may call for. If after he has been reinstated he still is convinced that he had not made a dedication before his baptism and it therefore was invalid, he should, if he has not already done so, make an intelligent, binding dedication to God now that he has repented and proved his repentance by works befitting such and then he should be baptized. We cannot trifle with Jehovah God. This is a serious matter and should be treated seriously.