by minimus 28 Replies latest jw friends
The Governing Body constantly tries to impose its will on Jehovah's Witnesses. They really don't want you to do anything but Society approved things. Everything is "bad".
WE can see this quite clearly at this point. But I wonder, while you were a Witness, did you think that you were being controlled or did you simply feel safe within the confines of the Organization?
I felt protected until I was speaking with a long time pre witness friend about a song that I didn't want to listen to on the radio. "She interrupted my reasoning and said, "I know, JEHOVAH doesn't want you to hear it." It really set me back because it made me think about how it was the WT that had condemned it. Never liked the twinge it gave me. W.Once
I felt completely controlled, couldn't listen to the music I wanted, couldn't watch what I wanted on TV, couldn't go out to a bar or club like I wanted. Couldn't even have fun with the husband like I wanted. I felt like every aspect of my life was controlled and I had no free will to do anything that *I* wanted to do.
Controlled? In a sense I suppose. Because your days were controlled. Meetings, field service, book study nights, school and service meetings on nights, sunday meeting and field service. Saturday morning field service. Assemblies, circuit, district special day.
If you were a servant, ministerial or elder, more meetings. Quick build work, Snow removal assignment duty, Halloween egg throwing watchman duty.
Mini, to a great extent life was not your own. However, the carrot kept me doing it.
Blueblades
I felt controlled to the point where I couldn't even take a dump without the WT organization telling me which direction I was supposed to wipe.
I do know some Witnesses that feel very protected by following "The Slave". They do not feel controlled.
I think I probably felt it but didn't notice it. Thank God for education, though. When I learned what a "high control" religious group was in a sociology class, I got a tiny clue. It wasn't the first or last step to getting out (still looking forward to that final step) but it was an important one.
"Some witnesses feel very protected following the slave." That's because, as we use to believe that the slave was and still is appointed by Jesus since the year 1919. We believed that we would be protected from the great tribulation and the coming war of armaggedon. Many of us have come to learn otherwise.
Blueblades
Even if it was true that the FDS was real and Jesus really chose them, the WTS is careful not to promise protection during the GT in print. Their representatives say it in talks but it isn't in writing. There is no promise of protection for individuals, ONLY for WT INC.
If not the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger, the hounders would control me. Time for field circus. Time for boasting sessions. They wanted to control what kind of music I could listen to, and individuals in the congregation wanted me to be even stricter than the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger was. Including the scumbag that dragged me into the cancer in the first place--he wanted me to work for him, live as a tenant in a place he was managing or as his roommate, and be totally dependent on him. And that was beyond what the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger put out.
Actually, I thought it would have been better without the extra rules. If it didn't appear in a washtowel rag or the Kingdumb Misery, or was not a direct order found in the Bible, I did not want to hear it. So what if my listening to Journey would stumble one person in the congregation? Someone else would be stumbled by Genesis. Another person would be stumbled with my listening to Air Supply or Yanni. Pretty soon, there would be 225 135 songs I could listen to--even with nothing in a washtowel or Kingdumb Misery or in the Bible about it.
