by FreedomFrog 9 Replies latest jw friends
The assignment says I need to locate relevant statistics about my research topic. My topic is about Jehovah's Witnesses as a controlling group and what the group can do to families.
I'm not sure what kinds of charts I can use. I was thinking about something with the families being destroyed over this...but I can't find anything that can be strong evidence. Can any of you think of material I can use...and where can I find the statistics for my chart?
Thanks,
Froggy
Could you chart the number of Witnesses who are DF'd each year? I believe that there are some solid stats as to the number. Then you chart that with the "average" family number and calculate how many real people are affected by the "shunning". Now is you show 10,000 are DF'd each year and the average family, including extended is say seven, that would show that 70,000 folks in just the immediate family are affected each year by shunning. You get the picture. You can also include those who DA themselves. You could then back this up with quotes from the WT about how folks ONLY came back to "Jehovah" due to the hard line their family took in shunning them. That is certainly showing a control feature of the group.
Actually, that is a great idea. I'll see what I can come up with. Do you have any suggestions on how I can find the average disfellowshipped?
In the meantime, I'll try to google it.
Thanks!!!
Froggy
hmmm, I've searched under "disfellowshipped", "disfellowshipped per year", "statistics disfellowshipped"... I can't seem to find information.
Am I searching wrong?
The sanction is based on I Corinthians 5, which directs Witnesses to "remove the wicked from among yourselves" and is necessary, said Witnesses national spokesman J.R. Brown, to preserve the religion's "moral integrity and cleanliness" in a corrupt world soon to be destroyed by God Jehovah.
* * *
Jehovah's Witness elders -- all are men -- are the equivalent of ministers in other religions. Though unpaid, they take on responsibilities such as teaching Bible lessons and passing on denomination policy. They also investigate Witnesses accused of committing crimes against other Witnesses. In some of these cases, the police are never called.
Among the elders' primary tasks is serving on small judicial committees that hear confessions and decide whether an offense is worthy of excommunication.
Excommunications are announced to the congregation, but elders never say why a person was expelled. Witnesses can only guess from a long list of offenses that range from smoking cigarettes to manslaughter. Homosexuality, fornication, drunkenness, slander, fraud, gambling, apostasy, fits of anger and violence, and adultery are others.
The excommunication announcement tells members to begin shunning that person. If they don't, they, too, risk being disfellowshipped. Fear of being disfellowshipped is gripping for many Witnesses. Because they believe that only Witnesses will be saved from death, many don't associate with non-Witnesses.
Being disfellowshipped, then, means losing your circle of friends, not to mention family members who remain in the faith.
Elders disfellowship 50,000 to 60,000 Witnesses around the world each year, Brown said.
"It's not an unusual occurence, as far as we're concerned," he said.
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/08/22/Floridian/Spiritual_shunning.shtml
''What she [ Barbara Anderson ] alleges is not true at all,'' said J.R. Brown, a spokesman for the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York Inc., the incorporated name of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Brown said he had been talking to Dateline about the show's story for a year but said he and other organization leaders did not know which members television producers had interviewed. ''We have no idea what she told Dateline,'' Brown said of Anderson . The consequences of excommunication are severe for a reason, Brown said. It is hoped that the harsh isolation that disfellowshipped members feel will draw them back to the organization. Other members of the faith are not allowed to speak to disfellowshipped members. They can't greet them in a store or share a meal with them. Live-in family members can speak to the person but never about spiritual issues. ''Our statistics bear out that you have many people every year be reinstated,'' Brown said. Brown said Jehovah's Witnesses have a strict policy about child sexual abuse. If parents come to congregation leaders with concerns that their child is being abused, the leaders follow state law, he said. If state law requires parents to report the abuse, congregation leaders tell them that. People in the organization who are accused of sex abuse are subject to a hearing like the one Anderson attended yesterday, Brown said. They are automatically removed from leadership positions and can't go door-to-door without other members' being present. Anderson said she knew of pedophiles in four Middle Tennessee congregations who had confessed to elders and who had not been disciplined. She said those elders did not go to authorities with what they knew. There was no way yesterday to corroborate the accusations that Anderson made. Brown said they were false. A call to the local district attorney at his home yesterday did not yield a return call." (Tennessean Nashville News, Saturday, May 11, 2002 )
Oh THANK YOU...thank you....thank you...
You are my new favorite person...
Well, I better get busy on my charts. I'm trying to get all of my assignments finished before tonight because I'm taking my son to a football game.
Thanks again confused!
Froggy
I found another one that may help. I think I better get out my calculator...hehehe
http://www.freeminds.org/history/growth.htm
I have noticed that it's hard to get a straight out hard figure. The Society has all kinds of figures such as how many are P's, Aux. P's, baptized, and such...but nothing for the disfellowshipped. I'm having a feeling that the hard numbers will be impossible to find out..or at the least very difficult because the organization doesn't want others in the world to find out. My thinking is they are hiding this information pretty good because many can create charts on how many people are affected.
It would be interesting to see how many peoples lives are severly damaged by this group. I do wonder if that information happened to get out, if the governments would then step in. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't a religion anymore...it's more of a controlling group, one that damages so many peoples lives.
True, but Brown said that "Elders disfellowship 50,000 to 60,000 a year". That gives you plenty to prove your point with numbers. After all he is the official WT spokesman! This assignment will at least inform your professor of this group and at a cocktail party he/she may bring up your stat to someone. Good work and good luck.
Oh THANK YOU...thank you....thank you...
You are my new favorite person...
Thanks - I need to be someone's favorite person right now!
Let us know how the assignment turns out.
