by Jrjw 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
flowers from her garden ..these are of gods creation.. ...Yes?
I recall shoes being spoken against when the fashion turned toward the 'Nike' type footwear. So many parents had to spend up big just to satisfy the requirement for males in the family to wear black leather shoes. All the while sisters are wearing sandals. and some in the summer skimpy tops.
Neat blue dog - at the time the national average was 10 hours a month. I have no idea what it is now. Less I would imagine.
I got sick and tired of CO's coming and instituting their own rules for what was acceptable. No facial hair, can't watch football, pioneers should have four-door car, haircut style, jewelry..
Bethel would not allow men to wear a necklace. Funny, after I left WTF, every single former Bethelite male I ran into was sporting a necklace of some sort.
One congregation where I served as MS, the elders all decided (or went along with one of the outspoken ones) that in our announcements, we could not say that someone "passed away". We were basically given scripts to read for introducing speakers. And a bunch of other bullshit.
I was in one congregation in which the elders decided to "lift the tone" of things by insisting that men wear jackets at all times while engaging in field service. This in a location in which summertime temperatures frequently exceed 30 degrees Celsius; and in which the community in general would regard you as being barking mad if you did not remove your coat!
In another circuit during the late 1980s, all those desiring to get "get appointed" were required to not just make the "national average", but to exceed it. Would-be Ministerial Servants had to report at least 12 hours a month, while servants who hoped appointment as Elder had to report at least 15 hours a month. All congregations in that circuit were spilling over with publishers, and we were covering the territory in less than a month. In fact, during the Circuit Overseer's visit, coverage was more like once a week. People were (not surprisingly) heartily sick of us always being at their doors. By the time I left, the list of "Do Not Calls" almost exceeded the number of homes it was okay to call at! Also, the official stance of the WTS that you "worked a territory to life, NOT to death" proved to be quite untrue. Nontheless, the iron-clad rule remained, "Thou shalt report 12 hours a month". Not written anywhere in the Bible, though. (Certainly nowhere that I could see, anyway!)
CO’s for the most part have been full of their self-righteous highfalutin PERSONAL OPINIONS on a variety of matters.
They were often drunk with power and had a self-aggrandizing attitude.
I say good riddance to them. I am glad that they are terminated and shown the door, at the age of 70.
It really demonstrates how much their beloved JW branch headquarters cares about their sacrifice and opinions after all.
For sisters, it was all about the skirts. Way back when, one sister told me that one of the elders had them come up to the stage after the meeting. Why? He had them get on their knees to see if the skirt touched the floor.
Denim skirts came into fashion for awhile. They were comfortable and easy to wear. Didn't have to dry clean them either. Next thing you know, NO DENIM skirts. They were "too casual" to wear to the meetings.
After years of the WT worrying over skirts being too short at the knees, they attacked the long skirts. My sister was told that hers was too long and had her shorten it. (she regrets that to this day)
Have a below the knee skirt? You might have the dangerous slit up the back (or side) of it that might show too much thigh. Sisters pinned it lower down or like I did, made sure your slip was lower.
There is also the crazy people in the hall that wanted their own rules followed. One sister had a small hair clip with a dragonfly that slightly bobbled when she moved her head. She was counseled that it was too distracting. (brought up by a crazy old lady)
Of course there was the infamous mirror covering that went on at conventions years ago. You don't see it now but they covered them up to keep sisters and brothers from standing in front them, fixing their hair or makeup. Turns out my sister and another one, marched up to the convention leaders and said how are we supposed to know if a baby has barfed on our clothes, or if there is food stuck in our teeth? Etc. Down went the coverings. Ridiculous isn't it?
Caught up in the rules and
doctrinal falsification the forgotten fact is that our humane core is lost. The end product is persons who see everyone's faults except own ones.
At my hall the brothers couldn't have "privileges" if they didn't have a suit jacket on. So in boiling hot temperatures where the hall was not ventilated (mostly because the elderly still thought it was "cold" lol), you just had to put up with almost fainting.
Mind you, it came in handy because I hated microphone duties, so often "forgot" to bring my jacket :)
"Sorry sir, I left my PE kit at home"
In a congregation here one sister was told she could not be a householder for a talk one evening because she was wearing footless tights and even though she had a long skirt on, they looked too much like pants. They asked her to go home and change. She did because her dad was an elder and she didn't want to cause trouble.
It was a CO that informed me that young ones, having followed all the rules all their lives, being ridiculed at school for not eating birthday cake and refusing to colour in eggs at Easter etc etc. Having always identified themselves as one of the JWs were in fact actually unbelievers until such time as they get baptised. For this reason a baptised person should not consider such ones as potential marriage mates. What he actually said was "he should not have put his eyes on an unbaptized person. End of story."
This issue came up because In our congregation at the time, the elders reversed their decision to allow a young lady to get baptised, the night before it was due to happen because her parents feared she would run away and marry the young brother she had been seeing.
The young couple had not planned to marry so soon but on the back of this ridiculous situation they did just that. They got married (eloped) with much cloak and dagger as her family threatened to lock her up so she couldn't make her wedding, moved away and the CO of their new congregation allowed her to get baptised when he heard the story.
Thankfully they left the religion not long after.
Bullying is something the WBT$ teaches more than love.
It's little wonder there are so many little Hitlers running the place.
