Re: Teaching Bible Students about "The Faithful Slave"

by dontplaceliterature 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  dontplaceliterature

  I've been reading Hassan's book this week (finally got my hard copy), and have been taking notes! I came accross something today that I'm sure someone else on this site has uncovered before. Just in case, I thought I might point it out as I'm sure it bears repeating.

  In Chapter Six of Combatting Cult Mind Control it's pointed out that one of the ways you can recognize a cult is by their doctrine. Each group has the right to believe whatever they'd like and teach those beliefs. However, if certain aspects of the belief system are intentionally concealed from the recruitee, then the group could be a destructive cult.

  Obviously, we all know that many of the controversial beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses are de-emphisized or avoided when making the typical call in The Ministry. However, most of them become known to the recruitee during the course of the Bible Study Program (i.e. Christmas, Blood, Neutrality).

  There is one belief that is never mentioned AT ALL in What Does The Bible Really Teach?. You will not find a single mention of the words "Faithful Slave" or "Governing Body" or "The Society" or the idea of submitting to such a group anywhere within that publication. In fact, on page 183 in paragraph 24 the book specifically states that when you get baptized, you are making a dedication to Jehovah, "not to men" or "an organization". However, you will find that the questions asked to baptismal candidates on page 215 of the Organized To Accomplish Our Ministry book tell a different story.

  What makes this so bad, is that it is the primary doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses. Without the belief in "The Faithful & Discreet Slave", The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society would cease to exist.

  This doctrine is only taught to someone who has become at least a regular attender at the meetings, or has progressed through The Bible Teach book and moved into the second study publication, Keep Yourselves In God's Love.

  It has been my experience that by the time a person finishes What Does The Bible Really Teach, they have already progressed to the point of desire for baptism, and studying the Keep Yourslves In God's Love book becomes a formality, if it is even studied at all.

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  I'm sure that after I finish the book, I will post some comments and notes I have on the forum for discussion. However, I would like to take the time to give it a quick plug:

  If you are an active Jehovah's Witness and have not yet read this book, you owe it to yourself to pick it up at a Library (if you can find it), order it online, or buy the audio version online. The book is very powerful in dispelling the myth that Jehovah's Witnesses are a unique or special group of people. The writer of the book had no idea who Jehovah's Witnesses were when he wrote it. While he points out a number of characteristics of Destructive Mind Control Cults that do not fit the Jehovah's Witnesses entirely, you will be blown away by the number of characteristics that do. In fact, I would swear on my life that he wrote certain sections of this book specifically about Jehovah's Witnesses if I didn't know any better.

  I can totally understand why an active JW would avoid having apostate literature around, but this isn't. SO GO GET A COPY AND READ IT PRONTO!
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  leavingwt

  Thank you for highlighting this point from Chapter 6.

  You're right, this book is a must-read.
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  Witness My Fury

  It's a great book. But if the reader isn't already searching researching or doubting then the info will not really register in their brains as being relavent to JWs. One of my relatives read my copy and couldnt see the connection
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  pulled1919outmyass

  Great Point about the FDS. I've been meaning to go back through the Bible teach book but just cant get motivated. Combatting Cult Mind Control is my favorite book. I'd say that book along with a little help from youtube and google freed my mind to learn "The Truth".
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  leavingwt

  FYI

  Further discussion of this book, and how it relates to the WT experience can be found on the JWR thread below. It's many pages long, with the discussion throughout.

  http://www.jehovahswitnessrecovery.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=737

  To purchase a used copy of the book, online, for less than ten bucks, see the Amazon page below.

  http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0892813113/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1308085699&sr=8-1&condition=used

  The author's newly redesigned website:

  http://freedomofmind.com/

  B.I.T.E. Model: http://freedomofmind.com/bite/

  If you'd like to know what Hassan looks like, what he sounds like and how to pronounce his name, here is a YouTube vidoe of one of his lectures.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-oF-Z_I7U
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  WontLeave

  When I joined, I hadn't studied the "second book", but I liked most of what the "Bible Teach" book said. We did a few pages and my study conductor bailed, saying I knew more about the Bible than he did, so he felt uncomfortable doing it. The BOE let him off the hook and I guess someone else was supposed to pick it up, but nobody ever did. I hadn't heard the blatant worship directed at the Society, the "organization", the Governing Body, the literature, or the elders. It wasn't until I started spending a lot of time preaching I discovered some of the more bizarre thought and words of "good" JWs.

  I was never big on meeting attendance, either. They'd come to me about "do not forsake the gathering of yourselves together", but I was at a meeting when they did it, so the point was moot at the moment, since I obviously hadn't. It seems, these people don't understand "do not forsake" doesn't mean "do it all the time". I found the meetings boring and totally lacking in substance, so I might have missed a lot of wacky things they were saying in comments and talks.

  I never made a big deal to my studies about the old men in NY. The way I saw it, they were in charge of the magazines and the magazines are riddled with mistakes, twisting of Scripture to fit arbitrary doctrine, and written for morons. I never read them and never tried to give them to people in the field. So, I pretty much wrote off the old men along with their silly magazines. When I realized how much importance JWs put in those rags and the befuddled old geezers in Brooklyn whom they are written to please, I was disgusted.

  The elders started demanding I use the Watchtower and I refused. I said I didn't read them and I wasn't comfortable trying to get other people to read them. I was happy with using the Bible and would continue with that, along with any literature I'd read and agreed with. But I wasn't about to read every magazine, in hopes of finding one that wasn't blasphemous and retarded. When I was told by a particularly Pharisaical elder "The Watchtower is our main source of information!" I was pissed. I told him the Bible should be our main source. He said the Watchtower is "Bible-based", so it was the same thing. I said I'd skip the middle-man and work directly from the Scriptures. He was livid, but I didn't care.

  I started hearing more and more about the "faithful slave" and how we're supposed to have faith in them. I remarked on several occasion that violated so many Bible warnings and commands that I wouldn't even consider it as an option. Once, a pioneer "sister" asked me what sort of things I pray for and I told her "understanding". She was visibly shocked and replied "But that's the faithful and discreet slave's job". I was awestruck and couldn't even respond to such a vile and stupid remark. Nothing that came to mind didn't involve slapping or berating her for that foul comment, so I just sat and stared at her, incredulously.
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  jay88

  But I wasn't about to read every magazine, in hopes of finding one that wasn't blasphemous and retarded.

  ha,
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  sd-7

  There's actually a section of the Ministry School book that talks about this and gives directions on how to tell Bible students about the slave class. I think I did a thread on it awhile ago.
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  No Room For George

  Funny how lmited the information is on this subject when it comes to sharing it with so called students. What's even more telling, at least to me is, there's hardly any information on this subject for baptized JWs. The CD Rom, the Insight Book, and the various WT articles that touch on this subject, to a shoddy job at explaining why this subject is more than simply a parable for illustration purposes. I don't know what their reasons are for not explaining this more fully, although I'm guessing, 1.) Its unexplainable, or 2.) They don't want JWs dwelling on the subject too long because some astute JWs might just realize its for lack of a better word, bullshit.
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  breakfast of champions

  Good call, DPL! Have not yet read 'Combatting' but I've read enough here and elsewhere to get the idea (I will eventually read the book). I think your post hits the nail on the head.
  I was actually going over my memory of doing my baptismal questions a few weeks ago, and kind of recovered a forgotten memory.
  I was basically a 'born in' witness. And yet I remember the very elder who went over one set of the questions REPEATEDLY trying to get me to say that the F&DS is in essence the Society. I wouldn't admit it! Not out of any protest, I simply had no idea (at least at 17 hrs old) that this was a matter of doctrine! Despite my lack of 'understanding', he let me pass and get baptized...