In my over 30 years as a JW, I honestly can't recall ever hearing about anyone who was being officially "marked" pursuant to the Society's "marking" policy based on 2 Thess 3:14.
Did you?
In fact, I havn't read anything about their strange "marking" policy in years. This makes me wonder if the Society still has confidence in it and still officially endorses it?
One suspects they are hesitant to bring up the "marking" policy anymore because a little research reveals there are problems in reconciling 2 Thess 3:14 with their disfellowshipping and shunning policy that is shoddily cobbled together from 1 Cor 5, 2 Thess 3:6, 2 John 9-11 etc. Better to stay hush, hush and let the marking policy die a quiet death. Better to just let the elders handle all wrongdoing and either reprove or disfellowship.
Surely some 'new light' on all this is long overdue by the Society.
Yadda
Is the "marking" policy of the Society defunct or still officially used?
by yaddayadda 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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yaddayadda
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oompa
The last I recall the Marking of others is strictly a personal decision. You make the call, you do the avoid.
hate magic markers......oompa
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AllTimeJeff
Bad news. Marking still exists. There is a semi recent Questions from Readers and it is in the new "Organized" book. It won't die a silent death. It is useful in shaming people who are trying to think and act for themselves to get back into the herd.
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flipper
Last I knew my older brother, older sister and two young adult daughters are still marking me just for not going to meetings. Go figure. But my witness parents of 55 years in the org. love me ! Go figure again. Glad I'm mentally stable
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stillajwexelder
I know of one in 28 years of being in the truth - so very rare
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tula
can someone explain...how does marking differ from shunning?
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jws
My brother and I were "marked" back in the late 80's. I'm trying to remember how it all went. Even back then, it wasn't real clear to me.
Basically, they gave a talk listing various questionable practices: going to rock concerts, lifting weights, worldly dress, drinking, and a few other things I can't recall. Then they read a scripture and said that according to it, people who did such things were to be marked. I might have a tape and transcript of it someplace...
My brother and I were not specifically mentioned. So, if you only knew us from our behavior at the hall and didn't know how we spent the rest of our lives, maybe you wouldn't know this was about us and wouldn't mark us. And, if you weren't really paying attention too close, you might think it was just some standard talk warning people about bad influences. You could easily have missed the "start marking these guys" message hidden in the talk. Like I say, it was a bit vague. However, if you were paying attenion and did know us, listed together, all of the "offenses" could only point to us.
I don't recall any specific restrictions against us. Just that several people either gave us the cold shoulder or were very brief with us. It was, as I recall, entirely up to their disgression whether or not to mark us. Of course, our good friends stood by us. The ones that we weren't close to didn't. Oh well.
Otherwise, life went on. I could still answer at meetings, still go out in service, etc. Since we always had our "worldly" friends, work life, and work friends, it didn't make much difference to me whether these people were giving us the cold shoulder or not. Didn't really get along that well with them anyway.
To me, it's one of those catch-22 situations for rehabilitation. Well, the "good kids" won't hang around with me, so I guess I'll have to hang out with the "bad kids". Their influence rubs off on me, which means fewer "good kids" talk to me, which means I spend more time with bad kids, and on and on, until I completely turn my back on trying to be a "good kid".
I assume, since it's the individual who marks you, it's up to the individual to decide when to stop marking you. If they could see that I've changed, they could "unmark" me. But, how could they see I've changed if they don't talk to me?
I was later put on "private reproof" for something else entirely. That was a dream! Nobody knows, and I'm not allowed to answer, read, or say prayers at meetings!!! As if I wanted to in the first place...
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SirNose586
I'm not sure what happened to the "unapproved associate" status. I think that was discontinued via lawsuit....
I've never heard of someone being "marked" in my whole dub life....
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5go
It may be officialy defunked but in my congregation they still do an unoffical version. Which I am currently benefitting from of course.
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jws
I'm not sure what happened to the "unapproved associate" status. I think that was discontinued via lawsuit....
I have a friend who is that (or at least I think that's the name they used for it). He was originally disfellowshipped. Then, they eventually decided that people like him (who weren't baptised) couldn't be disfellowshipped. So, his "crime" was still out there, so people were to be weary of him, but he wasn't disfellowshipped.
Suddenly, his sister, who had avoided him all the time he was disfellowshipped started trying to talk to him. I think at first he told her where to go. They've since come to peace with each other.
I've never heard of someone being "marked" in my whole dub life....
Like I said, in my case, it wasn't announced. They just had a talk saying "mark people who do things like this...". It was up to you to to go figure out whether anybody you knew was doing those things and up to you to decide whether they were a danger to you and whether to mark them or not.
If your eyes often glossed over and you daydreamed like I used to, you could have easily missed the whole point of the talk. Or simply not have known who they're talking about.