I've just finished reading CoC and it's truely a thought provoking book that's given me much to think about.
One thing that has struck me is the way RF was disfellowshipped and how he tried to reason with the elders on the JC. A key point of reasoning was that how the elders could define the disassocated one he ate with as "the antichrist" or one practicing the things described in 1 Cor 9. Apparently the elders either remain silent on the matter or said it was not for them to judge.
I thought the reasoning was really sound but I have been doing some checking on the definition of apostacy and the antichrist according to the society and it seems pretty clear to me that anyone guilt of apostacy becomes part of the antichrist. Characteristics of apostacy as defined in the it-1 book are described as follows:
Among the varied causes of apostasy set forth in apostolic warnings were: lack of faith (Heb 3:12), lack of endurance in the face of persecution (Heb 10:32-39), abandonment of right moral standards (2Pe 2:15-22), the heeding of the “counterfeit words” of false teachers and “misleading inspired utterances” (2Pe 2:1-3; 1Ti 4:1-3; 2Ti 2:16-19; compare Pr 11:9), and trying “to be declared righteous by means of law” (Ga 5:2-4). While still making profession of faith in God’s Word, apostates may forsake his service by treating lightly the preaching and teaching work that he assigned to followers of Jesus Christ. (Lu 6:46; Mt 24:14; 28:19, 20) They may also claim to serve God but reject his representatives, his visible organization, and then turn to ‘beating’ their former associates to hinder their work. (Jude 8, 11; Nu 16:19-21; Mt 24:45-51) Apostates often seek to make others their followers. (Ac 20:30; 2Pe 2:1, 3)
It then goes right on to say:
Such ones willfully abandoning the Christian congregation thereby become part of the “antichrist.” (1Jo 2:18, 19)
So that firmly lumps the two together thus any similar reasoning to that offered by RF can be easily rebuffed, especially since the 1 Jo 2:18 & 19 link the antichrist with those that "went out from us".
Clearly the John scripture was there all the time so I am wondering if application of aposates and the antichrist has changed over the years or if it's just that the elders in RF's case were a bit slow to use the scriptures? I appreciate that the whole perspective of the antichrist, apostacy and so on will be different amongst people rigidly following the society's line as opposed to those seeking to follow a less judgemental path but since it's not actually that difficult to be branded an apostate it would be really interesting to know if there are any strategies for questioning things and expressing doubts that reduce the risk?