The Curse of the Living Death

by Gill 8 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Gill

  Christ said, when faced with the woman about to be stoned over alleged adultery, 'Let he who is without sin, throw the first stone!'

  Of course there wasn't anyone with out sin and the woman left with her life.

  Shunning is 'the living death' for JWs.

  Therefore, if they catch a woman, or a woman/man confesses to adultery, why do they then shun them and give them the 'living death'.

  My mother was telling me about a young woman who had committed adultery in her cong. and had just married the man she'd had the affair with. She was disgusted that they were allowed to sit together at the KH now and equally disgusted that she now attended all the meetings when she didn't before. 'Who does she think she is?' in her words!

  To me, my mother comes out with much blunt JW thought and belief. I asked her if she was a Paulist or a Christian and gave the above example of what Christ said. She did not like it. She threw a strop and stomped off!

  Shunning is evil just because it is! But if you claim to be a Christian....why do it?
• 

  MidwichCuckoo

  Come oooooon - given the choice I reckon dubs would prefer stoning those they condemn.

  I can just see Jesus in same scenario at KH, '''Let he who is without sin, cast.........'' (Jesus words muffled by thunderous chucking of stones)
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  greendawn

  I can understand why they would shun certain serious sinners (eg destroyed a family, committed major frauds against the already poor, rapists) but even then the shunning doesn't have to be absolute and in the early Church it was not for them it was a case of not having meals or close association with the serious transgressors. But the JWs shun people for trivial things and also for unbiblical things they have no sense of balance or a more differentiated, graded, way of doing things. It's all too amorphous and primitive.
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  choosing life

  What would your mother like them to do? They already corrected the situation by legalizing their marriage. Now they are attending the meetings like the elders undoubtably told her she had to do to get reinstated. In other words, they are following all the rules of the religion she belongs to. Now she doesn't want them to sit together?

  When Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the man she had now was not her husband, he didn't refuse to speak to her or even give her moral council. Rather, this was the first person that he told directly that he was the messiah. I bet your mother wouldn't have liked that either.
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  under_believer

  Anybody want to comment on whether that passage is apocryphal, as the Society indicates in the NWT?
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  Gill

  Good point under_believer - It would certainly suit the Society to be able to say that it wasn't 'really' relevant!

  Choosing Life - My mother is never 'satisfied' with any DF'D person attending the meetings regularly and then being reinstated. She's definately a 'Stoner'!

  Greendawn - Saying something against the Watchtower Society = Death, Therefore = DF ing. All that just for disagreeing with a point of view.

  MC - Jesus would have stood no chance with the WTBTS!
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  fullofdoubtnow

  In my experience, it was a trait of a lot of jws never to totally trust someone who had been df'd then reinstated. You mum sounds like she fits in that category Gill.

  I never really understood why some jws were like that, you'd think they'd be happy to see someone correct their errors and return.
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  Gill

  Linda - It's the trait of these same type of JW to never look at their own faults and only take relish in the 'sins' and 'faults' of others.

  The Bible is a brilliant book for beating people to death with, if that's what you choose to do with it.
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  fullofdoubtnow

  The Bible is a brilliant book for beating people to death with, if that's what you choose to do with it.

  You're not kidding Gill. My boyfriend remembers the "scriptural hammerring" he took when he refused to be appointed as an elder, and resigned instead. They used the watchtower as back - up as well, of course. He resigned on a matter of principle, which didn't go down well, and was accused of trying to cause divisions in the congregation. It wasn't true, but he was being virtually shunned while he was still going to meetings. He left a few months after that.