Field Service Privilege Can Be Taken Away Due to Hairstyle and Tight Pants???

by Wild_Thing 33 Replies latest jw friends

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  Wild_Thing

  Here is something I just found out this week.
  Former belief - field service is a publishers inalienable right
  New belief - field service privilege can be taken away if person styles hair or wears clothing in a way that is deemed metrosexual.
  I was pretty much dumbfounded.

  This was posted on another thread, so I decided to start a new topic about this.

  I think this is amazing! I wish this was in place when I was a kid. In my mind I see all the JW kids running out and getting their hair dyed purple and donning tight pants with colorful socks! I would have done ANYTHING not to go out in field service!
• 

  steve2

  This is NOT - repeat NOT - new. When has it ever been an "inalienable" right - and who ever came up with that overblown adjective to describe Witnesses having rights?

  Sisters who turned up for field service in the mid to late 60s wearing miniskirts were told to go home and change into more modest attire before joining the group for field service, as were brothers whose hair was judged too long. And don't even get me started on facial hair!
• 

  George One Time

  Wild thing has a point. Even one who is reproved and on "restictions" is never denied the "privilege" of preaching.
  
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  Lieu

  Go preaching anyway. No one can take away talking about God's kingdom from you if that's what you feel compelled to do. Those guys are NOT Jesus! Not even close. They don't overrule anything he said and they have neither the right nor the authority to. No one's knees will bend to their names.

  Acts 4:17-20 NET

  But to keep this matter from spreading any further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name." [18] And they called them in and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. [19] But Peter and John replied, "Whether it is right before God to obey you rather than God, you decide, [20] for it is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard."

  I'd pull an Apostle and completely ignore them.

  Insanity!!!
• 

  sparrowdown

  No, this not new but putting it in an official directive may be. Just thinking about this, if the elders can refuse you your participation in field service then are they by doing so accepting responsibility for FS being an official "church" activity. If FS is an official "church" activity then is the congregation and by extension WT legally liable for the actions and safety of the people that participate as representatives of the WT and the householders they call on?

  WT better watch out they may be opening a can of worms.
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  Phizzy

  They can force someone on to a slippery slope with this one, if you decide not to alter your "dress" after six months you would be declared Inactive. Elders visits would be used to either get you to conform, or to find a way to DF or DA you.
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  Room 215

  "field service 'privileges' can be taken away?" what a great incentive to wear tight pants!
• 

  sir82

  This is NOT - repeat NOT - new.

  It most definitely IS new.

  What you refer to in your post is what happens when someone shows up dressed "inappropriately" to a meeting for field service. They get sent home, and won't be "allowed" to join the group until they change your clothes.

  The new letter is an entirely different kettle of fish.

  What the letter describes is barring someone from ever sharing in field serve-us, based on his dress code in general. I.e., not his dress in field service, not his dress at meetings, but his dress when "off the clock", just in normal everyday life.

  If a guy dresses as a "metrosexual" just going down to the local Piggly-Wiggly to pick up a case of PBR, the elders can tell him he is barred from going out in service the next day, the next week, the next decade, until he changes his wardrobe.
  
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  TheListener

  I agree with Sir82. We would tell someone who turned up for the meeting for field service dressed inappropriately to go and change or stay home that day. But, since the preaching work is a directive from J the elders didn't have the right to stop someone from participating in general due to overall dress/grooming. Even if someone was on reproof. It was even talked about that disfellowshipped persons preach and it would be up to J if he accepted their service or not; but of course the DF would not be allowed to join the witness group.

  Of course, it's all crap and control mechanisms.
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  blondie

  Does that mean if a jw goes out on their own (street witnessing e.g.) and talks to people about their beliefs could they be prevented from doing that? Or if they went to the meetings dressed "inapproiately" that they could/would be asked to leave the meeting and blocked from entering? Or could they be df'd? I could see their being "marked."