Teejay,
Elders are the grease that moves the org. As Danny said below, if all of the elders who have what remained of a good conscience decided to leave, the org. would fold tomorrow.
Elders are
part of the grease that moves the organization. What if all of the publishers fell out of their seats laughing when told to shun someone? What if publishers stopped going out in field service? What if they stopped buying literature?
Elders are responsible for setting the tone of the entire cong. They 'teach': (public talks, what they consider "special needs" & assembly parts, etc.).
Elders may see themselves as responsible for setting the tone of the congregation, but I think the publishers also have a large share in this. I’m thinking of different congregations I visited while I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some were conservative, some were liberal, some were warm and friendly, others were more reserved. From what I observed, this seemed primarily determined by the demographics of the area, not by the elders alone.
As for the teaching of elders, public talks were composed around prefabricated outlines. The bulk of material for other meetings was Society literature. Special needs talks may have focused on a particular aspect of Society dogma, but the information was not new—it was only repeated.
For me, the Circuit Overseer’s visit was a break from the monotony of our regular speakers and meant the possibility of a slide show on Sunday.
The District Overseer? A name on a convention program. The Society could have hired a worldly professional speaker, and I wouldn’t have known the difference.
Depending on the elder and his current agenda, he can box a 'rebellious' person or even family into a corner and more or less FORCE them to comply with the rules. In the judicial process, their power over people (and the likelihood of permanent harm) is clearest.
What does the elder use to force people to comply? Isn’t it usually the threat of disfellowshipping? Can an elder mete out the punishment of disfellowshipping alone? Doesn’t it take an entire congregation to make the punishment sting?
Think about a judge in a courtroom. A judge does not write the law; a judge listens to evidence and determines whether a person is guilty of breaking established law. Neither does a judge personally punish those who are found guilty of breaking the law; that is left to law enforcement officials.
If we are going to try to assign culpability fairly, I think it should be divided between those who write the laws, those who judge, those who enforce the decision by shunning, and those who support and advocate the law as something good.
Said simply, no publisher can influence as many people or as strongly as the average elder. Those who try to deny this simple fact is either delusional or worse.
I question your assumption. I’ve already mentioned those in the congregation who I felt had the largest influence over me. The opinions of the pioneer brother who studied with my parents held more weight in our family than that of the elders. The withering looks of several sisters in our congregation kept even elders in line at get-togethers.
If the beliefs themselves strongly influence people, I’d think that the person who is most effective in spreading and reinforcing the beliefs has the greatest influence. That is why I went back to the issues of recruitment and how my beliefs were reinforced.
I understand the hazards of subjective evidence. To settle the question, we’d need to do a study or survey to find out what or who has the greatest influence on Jehovah’s Witnesses. The beliefs themselves? Fear of elders? Fear of shunning? Peer pressure? I don’t know what is true for most; I only know what was true in the case of myself and my family.
Both. Yet, have you never known of publishers who found it within their conscience to, let's say, allow their kid to go to college (despite all of the words in all of the Watchtowers) but were coerced to comply only because of the lead the elders took in causing tons of grief for the kid and his family? And I'd prefer anyone not say that in this case it was the parent's "trained conscience" that molded his/her behavior. That is a lie. Neither is it true to call it "peer pressure" because one's peers are under the same exact pressure to comply.
I have not personally known anyone who was coerced by elders to refrain from attending college.
I went to college myself as a baptized Jehovah's Witness, and the elders did not say a word to me, even though this was back in the days when college was frowned upon. My father was the one who threatened me. “If you go to college, don’t ever come home.” Friends in the congregation talked to me. “Be careful. Keep going to meetings.”
When I moved to the college dormitory, I did attend meetings at first. The elders at the new congregation said nothing. No one ever inquired about my courses, even though I took a risqué course for a Jehovah's Witness—“Ideas and Modern Man,” full of worldly philosophy and including a comparison of various creation myths. A pioneer couple picked me up for meetings, and they once chided me when I began talking about dinosaurs and glaciers. Besides my father, that is the only form of reproof I received.
How much harm could a belt inflict on its own without someone wielding it?
And how much harm could a person inflict if he flailed his arms in the air at someone? Laws, judges, law enforcers, and those who subject themselves to law are all interdependent.
The rules are there, sure, but elders always have the option of turning a blind eye and letting people live as they see fit, regardless of what a magazine says. If he makes that a habit, however, he won't hold his position long and he knows it. He'd rather keep his position with its perks than do the right thing. This brings us right back to the influence he wields to make sure that a)the cong is ship-shape, and b) he keeps his position.
You presume to know the motives of most elders—position and perks. I refrain from making this presumption.
Elders decided what articles were written; wrote the articles; emphasized the main points of the articles you read; in various ways punnished those who didn't comply. The influence of elders was all around you... you were just never aware of it.
My comments were made in response to a paragraph in which you mentioned
local elders. The elders who decided what articles were written and wrote them had a large influence on my life. Yes, elders emphasized main points in articles I read. Elders judged those who didn’t comply; all of us who shunned participated in punishing. Yes, the influence of elders was all around me. I am simply trying to rate that influence in comparison with other factors.
Trust me.
LOL!
Same here. I can't say whether there are men out there who came to the same understanding as, let's say, Bill did of the Wt's pedo policy. Of the thousands that are out there, tho, I'd guess there were SOME who remain elders. If I'm right, what would be their reasoning for staying in such a corrupt organization? Whatever the reason, that man would be under a serious moral obligation to do everything he possibly could to right every wrong he encountered from that point on whatever it was. Do some do that? Who knows.
I don’t know either. This is why I hesitate to assign a larger share of culpability to elders as a group without knowing individual circumstances.
Without knowing why a man continues to be an elder, I will not judge him just because he is an elder.Same here. Please don't attempt to change the focus and nature of this debate in mid-stream. No one here is "judging" anyone. I'm not and no one is saying you are, either.
I could have phrased my sentence more clearly: “Without knowing why a man continues to be an elder, I will not judge him as more culpable just because he is an elder.”
In a nutshell, we're simply discussing whether in the congregation elders bear more accountability for the harms that come to people than publishers. I think the argument that the accountability factor is equal is false, if not outright disingenuous.
I haven’t seen anyone argue that accountability is equal. Like Amnesian, I’m looking for the truth between the poles of Elders 100% accountable – Publishers 0% accountable. I am uncertain about your assessment that the difference between publishers and elders (I’m thinking of local ones) is huge. Individual circumstances and motives vary so much that I think it’s dangerous to even try to make group generalizations about culpability.
While the questions are interesting, I feel the exercise is rather pointless. Suppose that everyone in this thread comes to agreement in assigning percentages of culpability. What then?
I am more interested in what causes the harm and how to stop it. I think the beliefs themselves are more powerful than any individuals, no matter what their rank in the Watchtower hierarchy.
Ginny
