by Zoos 29 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Well Zoos being a JWS myself for over 20 years, I have to say I've never heard of one single instance. There were a lot of adultery, fornication stuff happening but pedophilia not really.
I don't think its a rampant problem within the JWS, its just that the WTS has been deliberately hiding and covering up events when they did happen from within the organization and out of it as well.
Fink, I don't think it's as rampant as some here would have you think, either. My point is that it is such a taboo subject that I was never informed about what had come to pass with my own daughter. So, really, who knows how rampant it is, if they keep it from the parents? Actually, I think my wife was filled in, but she's already "damaged goods."
To add insult to my injury, when my daughter got involved with the son of an elder in later years, she was the one held "responsible," as though the boy couldn't have done anything wrong. She let herself get DF'd and never looked back.
They have been able to hide child molestation because everybody is agreeable to it or kept in the dark about it.
stillin -- the males having their wrists slapped or skating was all I heard from a couple of older/life-long JW women in the 1980s. As brainwashed as these lifers were it sickened them. I heard the same in the 90s from female lock-steppers. What a pig publishing co.
@ Fink & stillin...
Rampant?
Maybe not.
Pervasive, institutionalized, and endemic enough that the WTS is reacting to the current wave of fallout with increasingly impractical, deluded, and desperate-looking efforts to keep the R&F from figuring that out, though?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
Thanks, blondie. I knew of the policy regarding criminal law when I was in during the 70s and 80s. I knew one bro who was ex-Mafia and another who was ex-gang member. Both had committed serious crime before conversion but did serve as elders (a little different from what that letter said). The thinking was that since Jehovah had forgiven them, who is the organization to question Jehovah's mercy?
Once that practice was in place, it is easy to see that when the child abuse problem came along, the same "don't tell" policy was adopted. Then when the "no reproach on Jehovah's name" dynamic is factored in, voila, we see the reasons behind the policy that has got them in such hot water now.
Just as it is still hidden and safely swept under the carpet from the R n F even at this given moment !
Mind control is all about hidden layers of an onion, very few get to the core which is the true face of the organisation.
Zing
Correct me if I am wrong in the 1980's the news media started to bring this problem out. Making the general public aware of it. In turn many witnesses became aware of it and then the Awake maz. in the 90's had a article on it. This caused a can of worms to be open by the borg. The sad fact is this was the norm in human society before this bright light came out on it showing how sick this thinking is and the problems it causes.
I truly hope this will be the down fall of the borg. There are many things the wt. has done to show me they are not a honest religion but the sexual abuse that has and still taking place help to show me they are not the true religion and are like all the others who claim they are the way to god. To me the only honest thing they have ever taught is religion is a snare and a racket. A survivor Still Totally ADD.
ZOOS:
The Witness religion is hooked on secrecy and JWs in congregations are cover-up artists of the highest magnitude. Each JW feels they have to defend and make excuses for the religion so the public (and even other JWs) don’t know anything bad. They did a good job for years hiding this problem from the rank & file.. I myself didn’t even know the extent of it until I did online research.
I started my ‘fade’ around 2001. Several years prior to that I heard a story of a girl in the circuit molested by somebody in her congregation...In the years after I ‘faded’ I heard the official line from still-in friends that the ‘religion abhors...and how they were complying with the laws, etc.’. (This was the story for consumption by JWs.) However, I had an elder say to me in private conversation that ‘anybody who goes to the police could be bringing reproach on Jehovah’s name’...SO, only somebody who had a molested child would hear this guilt tripping language - which I’m sure is the REAL story. The family was probably sworn to secrecy and told to keep their mouth shut. Presto!..The congregation is in a news blackout and nobody knows about this.
So, you probably would not have heard any of this unless you personally knew someone involved..And those who might have known about such things - felt obligated to keep quiet in this Fear-Based religion that I don’t miss!
I'm not sure how you define "rampant," but the Australian Royal Commission uncovered the fact that the Aust. branch had 1,000+ reports in the course of 50 years or so. Not sure what historic publisher numbers are but the most recent peak was 68,000, so averaging way less than that in terms of total numbers.
Finkelstein - "...There were a lot of adultery, fornication stuff happening but pedophilia not really."
Ten bucks says a significant number of those cases of "adultery/fornication" actually were instances of child abuse, but were deliberately classified as the former, in part, as a form of denial on the part of local elder bodies.
After all, everybody is supposedly subject to temptation towards adultery/fornication (), but pedophilia? Those offenders are a far, far worse class of deviant, by any reasonable modern standard... and on a gut level, elders had to have known that (not to mention that - considering the Org's track record - some were likely guilty of it themselves at some point ).
Re-labeling an offense as "adultery", "fornication", or "loose conduct" would have enabled more conscience-driven elders to view said offense as a little less offensive*, and therefore an anomaly (as opposed to a repeating pattern of egregious criminal behavior)...
...therefore easing any potential conscience issues about avoiding the involvement of secular authorities (not to mention also conveniently enabling them to more easily continue believing that the WTS was still "God's Earthly Organization").
* Why else do you think they seem to try so hard to determine if the event was "consensual" on the part of the underage victim (female or male)?
