Dear IKA... may you have peace!
May I respond? Thank you! I must respectfully agree with dear OTWO as anything else would simply be replicating THEIR unkind, unloving, hateful, and hypocritical conduct and actions. Do that while decrying them, however, would be pretty much the same kind of hypocrisy they're dishing out, wouldn't it? People the world over often wonder: what does God want us to do? Besides listen to and exercise faith in His Son, He told us, by means of His Prophets. One such Prophet, Isaiah, who received such from God's Word, my Lord, the Holy Spirit and Holy One of Israel, JAHESHUA MISCHAJAH, recorded for us... literally... some of what God wants us to do and your question is answered in what he recorded. I am directed to quote that for you, below. It's written at Isaiah 58:1-12, and I have chosen to use the Message Bible (the greatest of love and peace to you, dear Sylvia!) to do so because I believe you will understand it from that context much better:
"Tell my people what's wrong with their lives,
face my family Jacob with their sins!
They're busy, busy, busy at worship,
and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people—
law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?'
and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
'Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'
"Well, here's why:
"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.The kind of fasting you do
won't get your prayers off the ground.Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?
"This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.Thenwhen you pray, God will answer.
You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'
"Ifyou get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again."
The point is made in verse 7 where it states, "being available to your own families." That same verse is rendered the following ways in the following (and most other, particularly the older) Bible versions:
"... that you should not hide yourself from your own flesh..." (NWT)
"... not to turn away from your own flesh and blood..." (NIV)
The more modern versions make it appear as if this verse applies only when your relatives ask/need something from you (which is not the case here), or with whom you have fairly good relations; that in such instances, you should always make yourself available to them. I have learned from my Lord that that interpretation is an error and such limitation is inaccurate.
To be pleasing to the Most Holy One of Israel, one must NOT put such limitations on His "fast" but instead do what LOVE would do. And love... bears ALL things. So, it is not limited to only those relatives with whom you get along with... or who are asking something of you. Rather, it includes YOUR expression of love... REGARDLESS and, at times, IN SPITE of what such ones are demonstrating to YOU.
Thus, in this thing, although your chagrin is understandable, you might want to ask yourself: it is truly valid? Is it without hypocrisy? Will you truly teaching YOUR children the "right" way to be? Or will you simply be mirroring the conduct... and hypocrisy... of your BIL? Let me put it this way: will your children TRULY see any difference between what you want to do... and what HE wants to do? Children can smell hypocrisy, dear IKA, from a mile away. Indeed, from 10 miles away, if not more!
It's one thing to leave the WTBTS, decry their false teachings and hypocrisy, and still have some "baggage." It's another thing altogether, however, to "open" that baggage and toss all of its stench back upon them... as they did/do on you... and call "foul" on them for doing so.
I hope this helps and, again, I bid you peace.
A slave of Christ,
SA
