Baptisms being "annulled" - has anyone heard of this?

by misguided 12 Replies latest jw friends

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  misguided

  Last weekend was a long weekend in BC, so I decided to try to get my family together for a camping trip. I'm df''d so my parents can have no contact with me so refused my invitation. My youngest brother was never baptized. This weekend he violently (when drunk and stoned) shoved his wife around, stating, among other things, that his wife needs an attitude adjustment. When I call to let my mother know he's abusing his wife, my mother's reaction is one of - what did she do to upset him? When I got angry at him for him doing it, he goes into a rage (similar to the one my father, who was an elder, would go into when we were growing up) and starts verbally bashing me, calling me, among other things, a slut, psychopath, and even took the opportunity to bash my apostate status, and bash the "truths" I'd shared with him of what I'd learned on the internet as being lies. He obviously still believes "the lie". After this weekend I realized I am better off to write this crazy family off. My family is seriously messed up. My mother's the queen of cognitive dissonance. They make me crazy!

  My sister was baptised, once df''d, reinstated and (as she puffs on a cigarrette) says she's had her baptism "annulled" (for lack of a better word) due to her not knowing what she was really doing because she was young (14) when she got baptized? Has anyone ever heard of this?? So she claims she can't be df''d for smoking. Is this true? Has anyone heard of this before?
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  steve2

  When I call to let my mother know he's abusing his wife, my mother's reaction is one of - what did she do to upset him?

  Why are you calling your mother about your brother's behavior for? Point scoring? To compel her to listen to you? To see if she'll end up shunning him the way she shuns you?

  Seems to me you need to be confronting your brother, not running to your mother with stories.
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  misguided

  To compel her to listen to you?

  Maybe...I hadn't thought of that. I think it more has to do with the dynamics of our family. He talks down about me to them, something I can't refute, due to the fact they won't talk to me. Possibly I called in that moment just to say what I had to say first before he went home with his story (that he didn't do it.)
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  DJK

  I must agree that you need to talk to your brother about anger managment classes before he does something he will regret.

  I have never heard of JWs anulling baptisms.
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  horrible life

  My brother is "perfect" in my parents eyes. If this had happened, I too, would have picked up the phone to tell my parents. Just to try to bring him down a notch.

  Hey, I will never be raised up in points, so may as well bring him down. Brings us "closer" together in the point system. It's a dog eat dog world.

  If you do ditch the family, your sister in law, still needs your help though. You can't leave her in that situation. And if you can get it "annulled" I'm going first. Everyone, get out of my way, I'm coming through..................................................
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  Euphemism

  There've been threads here about nullification before. My wife and I, when we knew a judicial committee was being formed, wrote a letter saying that our baptisms should be nullified. (We were both baptized young.) The elders held on to the letter for a couple of months until the CO came, then announced us as DA'ed.

  The only case where I've heard of the WT actually annulling a baptism is when the guy had been working in a military laundry at the time of his baptism. The WT ruled that his baptism was invalid because he was "non-neutral."
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  ColdRedRain

  Actually, there have been many baptisms that have been annulled, and that's why the WT has changed their announcements from "X is Disfellowshipped/Disassociated" to "X is no longer a Jehovah's Witness". You can get your baptism annulled, but it takes lots of lawyers to back it up. In the end, save your money. Fade. And by the way, tell your mom that if she has a better and logical explanation for what you've discovered about the "truth", then should stop calling you a liar. Later -CRR.
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  theinfamousone

  ill start by saying i am very sorry for this very hard situation you found yourself in!!!! the man needs help...

  but to answer your true question, i have heard of it happening before... i have also seen someone get baptised twice because he thought his first time was not sincere enough,... weird, but they do it... i sometimes think of doing it myself, and then realize, its not worth it!

  the infamous one
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  Paralipomenon

  I've heard of baptisms being annulled by claiming you never got baptized. Generally they can't prove you did, since there is no legal signing and you can word a letter to them stating that they can't announce you "are no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses" since you claim to never have been one in the first place.
  
  But yes, I've heard that once legal action is threatened, the elders realize that they are personally accountable and the WTS legal department won't help them, they back off quickly.
  
  The Holy Spirit also directs the organization to cover it's ass!
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  Odrade

  I suppose an argument could be made for annulling your baptism if you were baptized as a minor, then annul it immediately upon becoming a legal adult, with the argument that children cannot enter into their own binding contracts. But at most it would be a stall tactic, because baptism is a religious commitment, not a legal or business contract. Perhaps some people get away with it, since the elders are not law-trained.