by HappyGuy 19 Replies latest jw friends
Oz, great example. he is labelled an Japotate for buying the Datsun
Jehovah's Dubyas often say "but Catholics also have excommunication". Excommunication means you can't take communion in the Catholic Church, that's all, not that you can't communicate.
The practice of requiring an entire group not to speak to somebody is a retarded form of social torture. Completely medieval.
Oz, I completely agree with you, and wanted to post the same thoughts (though not in such eloquence ).
Reading Bible examples of excomunication shows to me that is exactly what the Bible is saying to do too. Every Christian has his own conscience, and I don't need a church to enforce the shunning, the person HappyGuy described would have been shunned by me anyway, religion or not.
Edited to add: to reach a proper conclusion regarding my choice of shunning someone would need a proper flow of information too, meaning when asked, elders (or priests, or whatever) should tell me openly what was his fault. A generic "X Y is no longer a J W" will not do it.
just because a person isnt disfellowshipped doesnt mean that people have to mix with him. - i do know what you mean about the shunning, but the point is disfellowsipping takes away our personal freedom, - there is no free will witnesses are drones who arent givenenough credit to judge whats right and wrong on their own merits. - most 'worldly' people would keep away from a scum like that.
Oz makes a pretty good point, but there is still one problem with religious disfellowshipping, even if it only involved membership and not shunning.
Disfellowshipping by the organization takes yet another independent thought process away from the members. Members aren't allowed to train and trust their own conscience and thinking ability when it comes to association: the borg does that thinking for them. So even if there was reform and a JW was allowed to talk with a DFd person, the fact remains that the person was DFd by the religion, not by the decision of individual members.
True freedom would allow a person to join or leave as they see fit with no repurcussions whatsoever. There is no freedom there.
I think what is particularly problematic about disfellowshipping is that the congregation are told nothing more than that a particular person is no longer a JW. They are told not to ask questions about the offence as the person was not disfellowshiped for wrongdoing they were df'd because they were not repentant. Gossip is discouraged and if JCs are held correctly no one other than those directly involved would ever know anything. In addition if an axe weilding, drug dealing, sexual predator elder with murderous tendancies was sorry then it would be kept secret.
This makes Df'ng a blunt tool. Sometimes as in the case of Paulapollos the congregation is deliberately misled into thinking the DF'g was a result of something other than the original offence. So very often even if someone was DF'd for a serious offence how can the congregation protect itself? If you aren't involved directly how will you know someone is a paedophile, drug dealer, or whatever? A few years back a brother sat at the back along side my young family at every meeting, months later I finally discovered he was being investigated for abusing his step daughter. No one took the time to warn me it's all secret. He was finally DF'd but if the 2 witness rule was not met he may only have been reproved and I would still have been none the wiser.
Because of the whole secrecy thing DFing does not protect the congregation at all. Also because of the wide range of offences smoking, buying a lottery ticket, celebrating wordly holidays, immorality, drunkeness, drug dealing, questioning the organisation etc there is no real way to determine who is a more immediate threat and who isn't.
Everyone is lumped together and if someone is reinstated no one questions the past letting potential wolves start again in fresh congregations.
The best way to protect the congregation is to skip the kangaroo court and seek remedy through the legal system, if someone is in prison and convicted in court then that is better protection. There is no secrecy since everyone knows what they did wrong and even if they are released later people know and can make their own judgements.
Pretty much what Teel and Creativhoney pointed out: to me the fairest thing to do in a TOTALLY PROVEN case of such evil behaviour would be to inform the congregation by means of a detailed public announcement (preferably more than once to make sure as many as possible would know about it) and then let each one decide how to treat that person at their own risk.
Disfellowshipping still shouldn't be allowed, it's bullshit. Call the police, let them deal with it, and let the JW gossip chain take over so parents know to protect their kids, but the fake doctrine still isn't the way to go. If people (his family) don't want to speak anymore, that's fine. But they should not be forced to not talk to him.
I tend to agree with Oz.
I am df'ed and I feel, rightfully so. I am living with someone to whom I am not married. I knew when I did it that I would be df'ed. Personally, I don't think what I'm doing is right, I don't feel good about it.
But I also feel I was left with little choice. I left an abusive JW husband, which left me with NOOOOOO support from the Org. My ex chased me around the country, I moved 3 times trying to get away from him. I eventually met someone who really cared. After trying to help me (he was giving me alot of financial support), and finding it impossible because of the Org, we finally just moved in together. At last, I felt SAFE and I am eternally grateful to him.
I am shortening the story alot. If you have any questions, I have no problem answering them.
I'm just saying that I feel I was left with no other choice than to be df'ed in order to have peace in my life. If there were a provision to peacefully leave an abusive mate in the Org, it would be great, but it seems like the staus quo is "Shut up and take it until the paradise gets here and then everything will be okay." Well, I'd be dead by now, if I had to wait for that to happen.
I don't regret it, tho. This whole experience opened my eyes to alot of things about the org. Things I had tried for years not to see.
Hope this makes sense.
The problem with DF'ing is the enforcement of complete shunning; and the lack of any explanation why. I've been around some churches where an announcement might be made that "person x is no longer a member of our fellowship because he's a pedophile." Whether or not anybody wants to hang out with him is still their business, but they've been warned not to leave him alone with their children.
And yes, in that case they would call the cops and let them take it from there.
I tend to also agree that the disfellowshipping announcement should state the reason. But if not, at least with no shunning or threat of being disfellowshipped for talking to the person, the real reasons could be sought out.
But in the case of the witnesses, they can never afford to do away with the shunning. For to do so would uncover the extent of 'apostacy' and doubts over many things. That just would not do would it?!
Palmtree: I was D/F after two years of seperation. It took that long to feel ok about myself and my new course. 12 months of that were also spent fighting off a new friends advances. When i committed adultery it was to end my marriage, to free my ex to move on. It was symbolic of the end of the marriage, that i would never return to her. The act i must admit, destroyed me. I had a nervous collapse that took a long time to recover from. I knew the D/f was going to happen and it did within a week of telling my ex. I felt at the time and still do, that i broke the rules and should be removed. I knew the 'rules' when i got baptized. What gets me mad was that because of the shunning, NOBODY was 'allowed' to get to know the anguish that i went through, nor why i actually did the deed. And that 10 years later, NOBODY knows why i wont go back. The guilt you feel will fade if you allow yourself to see that where you are now is a far better place. When i let go of the christain concept of marriage and sex i could not feel guilty about being a human either.
oz
