How does divorce work inside christian churches?
Does adultry count if only one of the marriage mates is a cheater? Yes. How do we know? Because Jesus verbally set the standard. A divorce can take place if EITHER mate commits adultry. The innocent mate gets to walk away. They are free.
Watchtower/ JW.bOrg committed the following abuses/blasphemies:
• were members of the United Nations from 1992 (actually applied in 1991 and were accepted into membership in 92) until 2001, when a Guardian newspaper article exposed them. They quickly (matter of days) quit being members under the Watchtower name at the time (apparently they are members currently under different corporate names). According to their own teachings, the U.N. is a filthy "wild beast", and one of the powers under Satan's control. Plus, neutrality.
• made false predictions as to the end time, and quickly blamed the low-ranking membership for 'getting overly zealous and running ahead'. No. It was their (watchtower's) chanting, mantras, speeches, and examples that all pointed to: 1874, 1914, 1925, 1975, "before the end of the 20th century" (1914 old Awake! masthead was prime example, until Oct 1995 change) and so on. They are false prophets.
• they replaced "holy spirit"/ghost with "god's spirit-directed organization on earth today" as part of the baptismal vows. In "worldly"-speak: they inserted themselves into the "trinity" itself.
• they lie, sanction lying (only for the leadership and their butt-monkeys, not regular rank & file members) under the banner of "theocratic warfare". Theocratic warfare also means they can lie under oath in courts of law. They can stand at attention in court while their lawyers make false assertions about the "heirarchy" inside the "church" itself, stating that there is "clergy-laity priviledge" for confessions of serious (criminal) wrongdoing (Gordon Leighton trail being prime example). They destroyed documents before the trial of Mark Sewell, a former elder who molested and raped multiple congregants.
• they change teachings on the fly. Anyone who has the "wrong" bible will get more than a mere raised eyebrow.
• They literally changed the bible to suit their teachings and to make it so it supports their current dogmas. They removed the first 12 verses of John chapter 8 because it was too inconvenient to have Jesus display blanket forgiveness in such a way. The editors of the new silver bible are not theologians, nor are they trained in ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek. Otherwise they would not have inserted the word "jehovah", sprinkling it all higgledy-piggledy, whenever the whim struck them to replace the word "lord" in the NT/greek scriptures.
• 1914 means nothing. Look for it in the bible. And yet if you say that out loud within earshot/hearing of any elder/male leader, you will likely find yourself going into a backroom of a kingdom hall and face some stern questioning.
• you cannot state out loud that the governing body (the seven leaders in Brooklyn, New York USA) are not god's spokespersons on earth today. If they are, then they can prove it: they seem to love using the Old Testament to draw their current rules (Deut. 19:15 is were they get their 2 witness rule that protects pedos and rapists in the congregations):
-------
1 Kings 18: 22-24
22 Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. 23 Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. 24 Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God.”
Then all the people said, “What you say is good.”
-------
Let the governing body PROVE they are god's prophets/spokespersons on earth today, just like Elijah proved he was, and Baal worshippers were not.
-----------------------------------
Anyhoo, the Watchtower / Jw-Borg are a bunch of abusive, lying cheaters. They'll lie down with any corporation, government or organization in order to get their way. And they will lie to those ones, too, just like they lie to their baptized followers.
So, shunning is only a one way street? Yes. Is it a punishment or teaching tool? It's an abusers weapon of choice, in order to keep fear as a stranglehold on their locked-in followers. But guess what? We're not locked in if THEY (watchtower/JW-Borg) lie and cheat on us!
• They lie. Repeatedly.
• They also obfuscate the true-truth about what the organization is all about. Most people don't find out about the GovBody men until baptism or afterwards.
• They cheat. They were a "friend of the court" during the Jimmy Swaggart IRS trial, because the decision in favor of Swaggart would also favor them. They had ZERO qualms about yoking themselves to that con-artist Televangleist.
• They were members of the United Nations, an organization that they (watchtower) vilified as being part of Satan's organization.
• They do NOT follow the teachings of Jesus. Proof? Who did Jesus shun? Did he teach shunning? Paul and the old testament characters get more name droppings in articles than Jesus ever does, except perhaps at memorial time of year. That's when they troop out the Kenny Loggins "jesus" drawings/photos.
No person is free to walk away from the JW-Borg with his/her dignity intact. That is a tactic of an abuser/abusive life-mate/marriage partner. Just one more log put into a bonfire pile of things stacked against this false religion.
