more haphazard thougths on the recently concluded elder school..... a big chunk of time was spent on a video which traced a judicial case, all the way from the confession to the elders through the decision to disfellowship the guy.. here is a very brief synopsis of the video:.
tearful late-teen or early-20's publisher confesses to 2 elders that he committed fornication with a "worldly girl" who is now preganant and wants to marry him.
the elders give him some "homework" to do prior to his judcial committee - read psalm 51 and an old wt article.
well said UC!
They've been complaining for years that elders were too soft on "wrongdoers". I was on a BOE that was chewed out by a CO because we gave too many reproofs and reinstated a few people too quickly for his liking.
No doubt they are becoming more hardline.
fresh off the recent 1-day elders school.
to keep things readable i'll post "highlights" over the next several days in different topics.
point 1: they have progressed from "just plain" stupid to dangerously stupid.. .
Alfredjones 100 - welcome to the board. Your advice is spot on.
fresh off the recent 1-day elders school.
to keep things readable i'll post "highlights" over the next several days in different topics.
point 1: they have progressed from "just plain" stupid to dangerously stupid.. .
Ethos has obviouslly never been an elder.
Back to the topic at hand. Again we see a complete lack of understanding when it comes to depression. At least the WTS does realize that many of their elders have no "fellow feeling" and no ability to comfort. Of course, the advice given here is basically the same albeit delivered in a much better way.
I think one of the big problems is the way individuals are chosen to be elders in the first place. 95% of the qualifications have to do with 1) how much FS time, 2) does he comment, and 3) is he and his family at meetings regularly. If you're a MS that gets in +10hrs a month, comments at nearly every meeting, handles assignments and has a family that is regular at the meeting, you will be made an elder. However, that doesn't mean you're a good "shepherd". It doesn't mean that you know how to comfort people or how to encourage people.
And, the WTS gives you basically no training on how to comfort people. I have learned more about being a source of comfort since stepping aside as an elder than I ever learned during my time as an elder. An elder's number one job is enforcing the WTS rules. Worrying about peoples feelings is way down on the list. It's not that they're bad guys (some are, many are not), it's just they think that reading a scripture will do the trick. It's only after they have to deal with something personally that they truely understand.
continuing on with my haphazard review of the recent one-day elders school..... in one of the introductory talks, the co was making the point that we can't view things merely from a black and white perspective.
many issues have "shades of gray" and we need to use discernment in such situations.. and i'm thinking "finally!
maybe he will continue on to make an actual, reasonable point!".
Is it any wonder the WTS is a huge fan of the "Hebrew" scriptures??? I mean, that Jesus dude was ok and all but WAY too soft on people.
jw leaks has published the latest court documents, in pdf, relating to "candace conti v the watchtower bible and tract society of new york" as filed on november 16, 2012.. the watchtower society motion to substitute or reduce bond on appeal is denied.. www.jwleaks.org.
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But if the WTS settles and drops their appeal, wouldn't this be bad case law for them? If they are sucessful on appeal, wouldn't that help them defend future suits with similar circumstances?
The few million they're going to save if they drop their appeal and settle would need to be weighed against the additional millions new suits could cost them wouldn't they?
That's why I think the WTS has no choice but to push forward with the appeals process.
i've raised this idea before but recent events seem to support it.
changes in the watchtower may be guided by more than a need for cash flow: they may simply be liquidating/shutting it down as discreetly as possible.. of course, this doesn't mean they stop working on their upstate ny country club - but it could mean that the throrough going exposure and disproof of their beliefs on the internet, when it emerged, took many of them by surprize, as it did many of us!
after awhile, they generally gave up trying to make any sense of their doctrines - and coupled with cash flow issues - moved towards a quiet retreat.. take a look at a few things:.
The reactionary moves of the last 20 years lead me to believe that there is no faceless, shadow group running the WTS. If there is, they are the worst business men in the world. The organization lurches from point to point like a ship without a captain. I think the GB makes the decisions and they are surrounded by uncreative yes men who tell them what they want to hear. The legal department chimes in when necessary, although I'm not sure they're always listened to.
I'm as cynical a person as there is but they are too inept to be anything but misguided true believers who believe they have been selected by God to lead his people.
I could fix the business fairly easily and suggest in addition to some of the good ideas above:
1 - Institute tithing
2 - Greatly reduce printing operations including moving KMs and WT study articles digital format in countries where it makes sense. Move as much to digital as possible in 1 st world countries and reduce 3 rd world printings to basics. Eliminate the public WT.
3 – Drop the shunning and DF’ing policy, it costs too much to enforce in terms of donations. Better to keep bad JWs on the tithing rolls than to kick them out. Also, not having people confess their sins would protect the WTS from pedophile lawsuits. If they don’t know about it, they can’t be expected to act.
4 – Amend the door to door work to only pioneers and create a new pioneer category that is for say 15 a month people. You still want recruiting to keep the illusion of a world wide successful preaching work but you eliminate a big bulk of printed material. Also, amend door to door to be like the Mormons where they give you a tract and direct you to their website. Again cuts down on materials. Finally, charge for the literature that is ordered and pay any local taxes that are necessary. You just add the tax on to the purchase, it’s not that hard.
5 – Amend the blood policy to conscious matter to defuse the potential liability.
6 – Have local elders elected by the congregation. Again, eliminate the liability link to the mothership.
7 – Turn the new facility in Warwick into a small private college similar to BYU.
If the organization were run from a business prospective, you could see that some of these changes could be made and there would be a master plan to do them. As it is, they seem to be going on the whims of the GB and it shows.
hiya,.
i'm new to this forum but just wanted to talk to somebody about this.. i was brought up as a jw and left just over a year ago.
i'm now 26 and feel messed up sexually.
I'll buck the trend here. I don't feel messed up at all. Married over 15 years to the only person I've had sex with. Our marriage is fine and the sexual aspect I think is pretty decent (although I'm a typical guy and would like to see it happen more often).
At first, the lack of experience was telling but we both lacked it so it wasn't embarrasing. There's been great improvement.
I probably got lucky (no pun intended) in that my wife and I are compatible. Obviously we didn't know that before the wedding and it was a roll of the dice.
I also got some decent advice that if you "take care" of her, its way better for you. Also, it seems to me that on the rare occasions when the subject of sex comes up (and its often the women talking amongst themselves), the folks in my generation and younger who very young kids/not born in the 70s don't even know about the WTS prohibitions regarding certain acts. Either that or they just don't care.
I know many were messed up. I was certainly very awkard with the ladies when I was a teenager but I would have been that way regardless of being a JW.
he said: "<biometrics>, if you can't see 1914, and don't beleive the gb is god's only channel, there's not much point in discussing this any further"..
It is true though. If they are God's Organization, then he'll fix whatever problems come up. If they're not, then they're 1) doomed or 2) there isn't a God to care either way and there's no benefit to following them.
I used to believe that they were God's Organization and thus tried to effect local change to the best I could. Once I realized they couldn't possibly be Gods organization mainly due to 1914 not being prophetically significant, then the rest of the doctrinal matters really didn't matter.
) - p. 7 par.
10:12, 13) - p. 20 par.
- p. 25 par.
So I started looking at the Revelation book to see if I could unwind some of the 1914/1919 teachings and push the dates forward. After losing my lunch and bashing my head against a wall for ever believing this crap, I have to say I agree that it's still relevant.
What a mess that Revelation book is! They take the same scripture and apply it to 1) early Christians, 2) "apostate" Christanity (only the bad stuff) and 3) post 1919 JWs (only the good stuff).
Their interpretations don't make any sense and aren't consistant so to come up with an alternative while staying in the same general framework is hard because you can't apply any logic to it!
I agree with the others that say it really doesn't matter if they change 1914 or not. They've bought themselves another 30 years or so with the insane generation definition. Let the next GB deal with it.
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2012/11/12/chetrit-bistricer-pay-81-million-for-brooklyns-bossert-hotel/.
that is quite a hit.
it had sold a few ago for $100m but that fell through.
Keep in mind it costs $$$ to maintain the building. Electricty, water, sewer, gas, routine maintance projects. Sure, they use free labor to do the work, but the fixed costs are likely not cheap to keep that building up and running. So I'm sure its a drag on the bottom line.
They turned a nice profit, yeah they're not selling at the top of the market but buyers for these sorts of buildings don't come along every day. I'd probably sell it if I were them because while not as big of a profit as they once thought it was, it's still likely 3 to 4 times what they paid for it.
The sale of the Brooklyn properties has really heated up this year. They certainly have gotten an influx of cash this year.
