About half the DF's go back? Really?

by AuldSoul 35 Replies latest jw friends

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  AuldSoul

  J.R. Brown said about half the DF's go back. I know of some who did. I know some who went back and promptly faded, some who went back and were "BT" JWs (Barely There), a few who went back and quickly got DF'd again usually before they even got privileges back.

  But the one that takes the cake (in my opinion) is the former PO of my parent's congregation who had been giving DC parts for years getting disfellowshipped a couple of months after giving the rousing talk, "Abhor What Is Wicked, Cling to What Is Good." Only after his reinstatement did I discover that was his third DF. He is now a Ministerial Servant and Regular Pioneer.

  Half come back? Of those, how many are DF'd again or become inactive or irregular? The other half didn't come back, they are gone for good. No more pretense for them. And the DA's rarely go back either.

  I wonder what the rank and file JW would think if they knew what the statisticians in New York knew. I wonder how we can get that information.

  Respectfully,
  AuldSoul
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  serendipity

  I wonder what the rank and file JW would think if they knew what the statisticians in New York knew

  When I was a judgmental JW (and before my own df'ing) I would have thought that the honest-hearted ones who love Jehovah come back and the rest don't. The % wouldn't have surprised me.
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  purplesofa

  I was DF for nine years and went back.
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  candidlynuts

  i wonder if women or men are more likely to try to get reinstated?

  3/4 of the men i know of came back after dumping the wife of their youth and marrying young girls and swiftly moved back up the food chain.

  i know a couple of men that were df'd for smoking and never did try to get reinstated although their wives do drag them to meetings on occasion.

  the women i knew that had been df'd... about 3/4 didnt try to get reinstated.. some started new lives and never came back. some did get reinstated after a long time of trying. it seems as if they were df'd longer than men but that might just be my perception.

  soooo in my experience (very limited, i was only a member of 2 congregations in 35 yrs).. women were more likely to move on without trying to get reinstated. usually because they were treated unfairly by judicial commitees. (if gossip can be relied on lol)
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  fjtoth

  I think Brown is exaggerating a great deal when he asserts that half go back. In the New York City congregations where I attended for 30 years, about 15 were disfellowshipped and only about 3 or 4 made an effort to get back in. In the vicinity where I live now, I know of 8 who were disfellowshipped and only 2 went back.
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  Purza

  When I was 19 I got DF'd. I realized I had nothing outside -- no friends, no family, nada! I was back within a year.

  When I was in my 30s I faded. Successfully. Which made me not want to go back.

  I would venture to say that most people go back because they want their friends and family back. I can tell you when I was reinstated nothing was ever the same with my friends. It was weird. A few said they "couldn't trust me anymore". So in essence I was still alone.

  Purza
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  looking_glass

  well i suppose it is like those who leave their native country but ultimately return. according to stats, the Irish are one of the few groups that when they left Ireland during the potato famine for the states, they did not return home. the reason they speculate is because they knew that they had nothing to return back to. until df'd/da'd jws realize that leaving is better then returning, they will continue to return in large numbers. but when all your family are still jws and you have no friends outside of the religion, the thought of making new friends and not talking to your family for the rest of your life, is harder then returning to the religion.
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  Athanasius

  
  Can't say what its like in the congregations right now, but in the 70s and early 80s when I served as an elder about 50% of those DFd applied for and were re-instated. Women were more likely to return than men. In fact there were only two men who got canned during this time who were re-instated. Apparently these two guys weren't really "repentant" because after associating for a while one guy left his wife for another woman and got canned a second time. As far as I know he is still out. I don't know the details about the second guy, but he too was DFd a second time. However, he was eventually re-instated. I think he is an elder now.

  Do they still use the term "re-instated?"
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  crazyblondeb

  I went back 2 years after I was df'd. Only cause I missed my sisters and brother that I had raised. I was also a single mom with a baby. But after a couple months,it's like a light bulb went off during a meeting. I looked around, then looked at my baby girl. There was no way I was going to raise her in that hell-hole. I never went back.
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  Confession

  I agree with your conclusions, AS. A fair percentage work toward reinstatement. Among other things, this (I believe) demonstrates how powerfully indoctrinated JWs are. They often cannot imagine life cut off from their family and community--and are full of the fear of Armageddon.

  But...many, many do not stay. I am an example of this. DFd in May of 2004. Awoke from my cultish sleep in September of 2004, but played their little game to be reinstated in March of 2005. My last meeting was in late May of 2005, and my daughter and I moved 2300 miles away one month later.

  I can think of so many examples of others who did this, either "falling away" or being DFd again upon reinstatement. As elders we recognized that it was so common, it almost got to the point of laying down bets as to who would stick around and who wouldn't. (Almost but not quite.)