How Jehovah's Witnesses are told to treat disfellowshipped Relatives.

by jwfacts 35 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  wednesday

  I was attending on a irrg basis about 5 yrs ago, much longer since I was attending on a regualr basis. I am neither DA or DF but now my family have recently started treating me as a DA person. An elder told me that many jws feel that inactive jws can be viewed as DA persons. I was stunned but he said it was allowable . They just make the rules up as they go. Some of the local jws speak to me if they see me on the streets/ in stores etc, some don't. Usually it is about like it was before, the ones that spoke to me before still speak, the ones that didnt speak, still don't. our family has been marked for a long time, viewed as weak and not good association,etc, and wow, they wonder why I don't want to attend meetings.

  I
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  jwfacts

  VM44, great reasoning.

  Blondie, your incredible presence here makes me feel you are an apostate, but Jehovah's Spirit can't seem to feel so since it has not tracked you down yet.

  Puck, Organised to do Jehovah’s Will (2005) p.154 says the announcment is to be restricted to; “[Name of person] is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” This is purely due to the WTS trying to avoid legal liability. When early Christians were publicly reproved the congregation was to know why. Paul openly told the congregation of the wrong conduct of Peter, Hymenaeus, Alexander and Diotrephes.
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  blondie

  Jehovah's Spirit can't seem to feel so since it has not tracked you down yet.

  jwfacts, I hope you're just joking that the holy spirit has anything to do with the WTS activities.

  Remember I'm just a woman and of no account.

  Blondie
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  greendawn

  This may also depend on the cultural background most parents may shun their ex dub children in the Anglo-Saxon English speaking world but perhaps those from other backgrounds eg Latin American or Southern European have too strong family bonds to accept the such dictates from the FDS.
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  nicolaou

  Blondie - "Remember I'm just a woman and of no account."

  Bullshit.
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  jwfacts

  Blondie I am only joking. I was told by my study conductor and also my mother that Jehovah always finds the wrongdoers, but he may allow up to 5 years to pass. So when I left bethel 10 years ago to test if God was looking after the organisation. I started doing things that I could be d/f for to see if I would get caught. 10 years later I still was not caught. It was not until I had a website, had given my book to a number of people and spoken to quite a few friends about how it was a cult that the elders even woke up.

  Greendawn, you are probably correct. Filipinos do not practice shunning very strictly, as all my Filo relatives in law still speak to me. It used to surprise me that a disfellowshipped Filo friend would attend meetings, funerals or be at his families house and talk to me and no one seemed to care. He was treated as an outcast, but not totally shunned.
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  supersonic

  One experience i have had with my disfellowshipped uncle was a couple of years ago. It was my nana and grandas 40th wedding anniverary party, there were lots of people there, no others from the congregation though just family, it was my aunty who organized it all and my grandparents never new anything about it. My dad sat down had a drink with him for 10 mins i think and that was about it.

  A week later somehow someone in the congregation who has a disfellowshipped brother went to the elders and grassed my dad and granda up (both elders). An elders meeting was arranged and both were counciled, i feel unfairly as neither new he would be there, they were told they should have walked out.

  Neither my dad or granda seen him regularly anyway but both are very wary now about what they do, he wasn't invited to my auntys wedding incase of further stumbling. I havn't seen him for ages but i still see his kids (my cousins regularly), hes spoke to on the phone by my nana and granda and is spoke to briefly when he drops the kids off. My dad always goes to see him when its his anniversary.

  Its a shame because hes such a nice man, it was sad seeing him cry when he found out about the wedding he had missed.
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  Fleur

  My family seems to want to elevate shunning to an art form.

  Not only am I not invited to the usual family weddings etc. but my name was actually omitted on the family group invite to a large family reunion, which really ticked my mother off since a lot of the kids aren't baptized witnesses in our extended family and are a 'wild' bunch where as my life is anything but wild.

  My cousins who were closer than my sisters have actually done things like walk past me without saying a word when I was standing next to a critically ill parent's bed in the ICU ward. When I left the room, distraught at the snub especially under the circumstances, they rushed up to my 'worldly' husband to introduce themselves. He wanted to smack them both.

  When my grandmother died, whom I was closest to of all the grandkids, I was informed in detail and at length that I would be totally ignored at her Jw funeral. I chose not to go because I refused to honor their meaningless infomercial with my presence especially if they were going to grind salt into my raw wounds by publicly shunning me; hundreds of people all at once. No thank you.

  I could go on. Tell me how many examples you need...I can tell you stories about my sister the proper elders wife who dropped my child like a rock even though she's never been baptized because I refused to let her come and get the kid and ignore me while doing so, so she could take her off and instruct her in the ways of Jehovah brainwash her.

  Tell me how many you need. I've got more.

  essie
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  AlanF

  Good points about legal liability and DF'ing announcements, jwfacts and blondie. Since the early Christians most certainly announced the shunned person's sin, and the JWs claim that everything they do is of necessity modeled after the early Christians, the Society's new policy about announcing DF'ings is a repudiation of early Christian practice. This another proof that JW leaders know perfectly well that their God is not behind them, for if he were, would he not protect them from all legal repercussions due to following his will? And if he saw fit to allow them to "suffer for righteousness' sake", should they not welcome it? Clearly, they have no real faith in their God.

  AlanF
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  mama1119

  When I was disfellowshipped, and pregnant, my parents refused to shun me, I was always welcome in their home and in public with them, if you can believe that!! Well, that didnt sit well with the elders, if you can imagne...they met with my parents and one of them gave an example of his brother who was disfellowshipped and he said, proudly" I have no spoken to my brother in 40 years".....isnt that sick.... He was so proud of himself, what kind of brotherly love is that??? My Dad also got counseled for sharing a bible with me at meeting because I was holding my daigher on my lap and couldnt turn to the scripture myself, and we were counseled for laughing together....none pf my family are JW's anymore, thanks guys!!!!!!