Hi iknowall558
This elder is an appalling person and these podcasts show him in a very bad light. His unwillingness to admit where he got his info from speaks volumes and the only conclusion anyone can reach is that he was lying to your mum and making things up to portray you and Matt in as bad a light as possible. In fact, his whole reason was to make sure she sticks to the rules and shuns you. The rules come first - every time.
Reading that part about the conversation repeated on the platform by your brother-in-law was awful. How you didn't walk up and give the lad a good slap around the face after that I just don't know. What a wicked thing for someone to do to another, all for disagreeing with the Society!
It goes to show just who their god really is doesn't it? Its not Jehovah its not Jesus, its the Organization. They worship that organization so much that they're willing to lie, slander, gossip, use false arguments, create strife and divisions and inflict deep emotional pain to keep its reputation intact.
I've faced similiar and know what you're all going through. My son was baptized at 18. He "came out" 3 years later but wasn't disassociated or disfellowshipped. He decided to leave quietly, stopped attending meetings and dropped off the JW radar. After 6 months (I suspect at the request of the CO) the elders decided they couldn't just let him leave and tried to contact him, not with the motive of trying to bring him back, but with a view to disassociate him because of, and I quote, "our paramount concern is the reputation of the congregation". My son tried everything to avoid the elders at this point. He didn't answer the phone, or the door to them and managed to avoid them for a few weeks more. But they didn't give up, eventually they caught up with him and asked him that loaded question "do you still want to be known as a Jehovahs Witness?" Of course he said no. From that point on he was formally disassociated.
When I confronted the elder responsible and asked him why he had to pursue my son even after he'd left the congregation, I was told it was to keep the paperwork tidy. I was supposed to shun him, his grandparents were told to shun him and all the friends he grew up with now refused to even look at him, all to keep the paperwork tidy???? It was only after a conversation with my son that I was told the main reason was concern for their reputation, not him.
Whatever the reason, both were poor excuses.
The elders are all the same Lorraine, pathetic sad individuals who deserve our pity. May the Lord forgive them because I still have difficulty.