by B_Deserter 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
The Witnesses refer to each other as "brother" or "sister." This is supposedly because they are a "spiritual family" and this is supposed to encourage that feeling.
But how often did you refer to your biological brothers and sisters by their title? When I was playing in the yard with my little brother I wasn't yelling "Catch the ball, Brother _______!" I call my siblings by their first name.
It's biblical.
IMO it is extreemly cringey though.
If I had a brother that treated me the way some of them did, I would be asking where my parent(s) had gone wrong.
LOL! Very true...one of my many questions through the years!
I think it's a way of assigning titles...it gives new ones something to aspire to!
I always hated it when I was out in public and some over-zealous JW would see me and call me "BROTHER _____" in front of everybody.
Just realised I used their use of brother and sister against them the other day. An elderly female JW aunt of mine was rushing around sorting the flowers out for the memorial this week. I asked her why none of her younger "sisters" could help her. Just got an old fashioned look of course. Sarcasm is so rarely appreciated.
..... Actually this does happen in my family (and others in my area both JW and 'Worldly') ......
We use both 'brother, sister as well as 'Bubba and Sissy'
I think it might be limited to families in the South and religious folks similar to the Amish.
I was always being counselled by my fellow elders for using first names instead of Brother Surname.
We are not a cult! But insist on the creepy Brother and Sister talk... LOL ya right!
I am an officer in my union and have been a member for 10 years. They use the term "brother" and "sister" and I refuse to do it. They use it for the same reasons jws do, to build a false sense of family. When I work for a member on a particularly knotty problem with administration, I feel a closeness build...but not through the artificial use of terminology.
I found that many jws did not know the first names of people at the KH, especially children.
So it doesn't have to be a cult, unless you think unions are cults...you might.
I was always being counselled by my fellow elders for using first names instead of Brother Surname.
I got this alot from one particular PO who was always negative & critical. I liked to mix it up by sometimes calling on them by their actual first name. To me always saying Brother or Sister and then their last name sounded cultish. According to the WTS the PO was right, so I had to say Brother or Sister the vast majority of the time.
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