Posts by jordan12

9

6/15/2010 WT Twisting scriptures on disfellowshipping,

by EndofMysteries in

disfellowshipping notes - page 14 paragraph 13 - notice how they state disfellowshipping for a man who unrepentently practices fornication.

(it was beyond even that, but with his own mother!

in the scriptures ) .

jordan12

Notice how they state disfellowshipping for a man who unrepentently practices fornication. (it was beyond even that, but with his own mother! in the scriptures )

I'm not sure what you're objecting to here. What The Watchtower says is exactly what the Bible says. It wasn't his mother. If it had been his mother, Paul would surely have said so. It was his father's wife, so presumably his stepmother.

But it gets even better....in paragraph 15 they said Paul instructed them to reinstate him after being repentant. The scriptures provided in 2 Corinthians. Now ask anyone to point out where in those scriptures that man in the first letter is referenced? It has NOTHING to do with him.

I hardly think that the idea that 1 Corinthians 5 and 2 Corinthians 2 are referring to the same case is unique to Jehovah's Witnesses or invented by them. No doubt there are a variety of opinions, but a fair number of commentaries agree with what The Watchtower said:

"If any have caused grief. The reference in this indirect way is to the incestuous person named in 1Co 5:1." (People's New Testament, 1891)

"Any. Referring to the incestuous person." (Vincent's Word Studies)

"If any have caused grief - There is doubtless here an allusion to the incestuous person." (Albert Barnes)

"But, if any have caused grief - Here he seems to refer particularly to the cause of the incestuous person." (Adam Clarke)

"he handles the releasing and unloosing of the incestuous person" (Geneva Bible commentary)

"But if any have caused grief,.... The incestuous person is here manifestly designed" (John Gill)

"In these verses the apostle treats concerning the incestuous person who had been excommunicated" (Matthew Henry)

"The “any” is a delicate way of referring to the incestuous person." (Jamieson, Fausset, Brown commentary)

What makes you think that Paul was talking about a different case in 2 Corinthians?

Then, the REAL deception......in paragraph 15, they make the statement, "a repentant sinnerought to be readmitted to
the congregation, it indicates that he has been forgiven by Jehovah." WOW, so only through the elders readmitting someone, is he forgiven by Jehovah. I guess if they do not readmitt him, he is NOT forgiven. Again, where in the bible is that backed up?

You're misrepresenting the sense of the article. The entire paragraph says:

"What do we learn from this account? It saddens us when individuals have to be disfellowshipped. They may have brought dishonor upon God’s name and discredited the congregation. They may even have sinned against us personally. Yet, when the elders appointed to examine the case determine, in line with Jehovah’s direction, that a repentant sinner ought to be readmitted to the congregation, it indicates that he has been forgiven by Jehovah. (Matt. 18:17-20) Should we not seek to imitate Him? Indeed, to be harsh and unforgiving would be tantamount
to opposing Jehovah. In order to contribute to the peace and unity of God’s congregation and to have Jehovah’s approval, should we not, rather, ‘confirm our love’ for sinners who truly repent and are reinstated?"

The article clearly states that when the elders determine that a repentant sinner ought to be readmitted, it indicates that he has been forgiven [past tense] by Jehovah. In other words, the article does not say that someone is forgiven by Jehovah "through the elders readmitting [him]", as you state. Actually, it says the opposite: the elders' job is to determine whether the person has been forgiven by Jehovah.

This is confirmed by what previous Watchtower articles have said, commenting on the same verses (Matthew 18:17-20):

"Their decision should accurately reflect the way Jehovah and Christ consider the matter. What they symbolically ‘bind’ (find guilty) or ‘loose’ (find innocent) on earth should be what has already been bound or loosed in heaven—as revealed by what is written in the inspired Word of God. If they pray to Jehovah in Jesus’ name, Jesus will be “in their midst” to help them." (July 1, 1992, page 16)

"In matters involving serious violations of God’s law, responsible men in the congregation would have to judge matters and decide whether a wrongdoer should be “bound” (viewed as guilty) or “loosed” (acquitted). Did this mean that heaven would follow the decisions of humans? No. As Bible scholar Robert Young indicates, any decision made by the disciples would follow heaven’s decision, not precede it. He says that verse 18 should literally read: What you bind on earth “shall be that which has been bound (already)” in heaven.
Really, it is unreasonable to think that any imperfect human could make decisions that would be binding upon those in the heavenly courts." (March 15, 1991, page 5)

"In making such a decision, overseers need to adhere closely to instructions in Jehovah’s Word. Thus, when they find an individual guilty and worthy of punishment, the judgment ‘will already have been bound in heaven.’ And when they “loose on earth,” that is, find one innocent, it will already have been “loosed in heaven.” In such judicial deliberations, Jesus says, “where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.”" (February 15, 1988, page 9)

Do they realize they are making the elders claim being able to forgive or not forgive sins? Who alone has that authority?

They aren't making any such claim (see above)

Jesus did actually state that his followers could forgive sins. He said: "If you forgive the sins of any persons, they stand forgiven to them; if you retain those of any persons, they stand retained.” (John 20:23) But The Watchtower has never claimed to be able to forgive sins or grant absolution in the manner of the Catholic church. It commented on this verse:

"Hence, any forgiving or not forgiving on the part of the elders would be in the sense of Jesus’ words at Matthew 18:18: “Truly I say to you men, Whatever things you may bind on earth will be things bound in heaven, and whatever things you may loose on earth will be things loosed in heaven.” Their actions would simply reflect Jehovah’s view of matters as presented in the Bible. (April 15, 1996, page 29)

I used to say for years when I was in that the guy mentioned in 2 Cor is not the same as the one in 1 Cor, of course nobody listened because the GB said different.

Probably no-one listened because it is quite obvious that he was talking about the same person. What makes you think otherwise? It's not just the GB who say so; so do many Bible scholars (see above)

It says in the direct Greek to English before rearranging the words...... "Wholly it is being heard in you fornication, and such fornication which not-but in the nations, as-and woman someone of the father to be having. " Don't know greek, but seems it could be saying incest, "someone of the father", his sister for example.

No. "Someone" is the subject of the sentence. "Woman" goes with "of the father," i.e. the father's wife and is the object.

56

Pedophiles in your congregation??

by ziddina in

i'm listening to the "six screens of the watchtower" broadcast from october 25, 2008 [yeah, i know, i'm waaay behind...], discussing pedophilia... that broadcast caused me to look up the current status of 'pedophilia notification' in the u.s.a..... rebel8 posted a link sometime back that gave locations of pedophiles in one's (u.s.a.) neighborhood... that portion of the link is, unfortunately, not working right now.... i decided to check out my [old] site, http://www.nsopw.gov/core/offendersearchcriteria.aspx to see if it still functioned the same way.... again, unfortunately, that site is also no longer giving out maps of one's area.... but, as pointed out in rebel8's posted link, pedophiles tend to move around.

this was also mentioned in the six screens broadcast by a lady named "lilly".... the new versions of both sites simply allow one to input the name of someone suspected to be a pedophile... not as effective, imo, but perhaps the cost of updating the maps due to pedophiles' high mobility became prohibitive.. so, here's my suggestion... using the 'name' search function, check out every name in .

your congregation, starting with the elders!!!.

jordan12

JORDAN 12- You mentioned that there are currently 700,000 registered sex offenders in the United States . But that doesn't account for many life-long sex offenders who may have NOT had to register before the laws were made years ago that they legally HAVE to register. For some of these sex offenders who were charged 20 to 30 years ago and even served hard prison time - the statue of limitations ran out BEFORE Megan's Law was passed so they weren't legally REQUIRED to register as a sex offender. So how many thousands of THOSE type of offenders are running around unrestrained ??

Well if there are more than 700,000 sex offenders in the US, then surely that amplifies my point, which was that the incidence of sex offences among Jehovah's Witnesses is much lower than among the public at large.

A case in point is someone we know on the board tried to expose a former child molesters court records ( which was public access ) to the body of elders in her congregation- she was maligned and scolded by the elders for gossipping and threatened with DFing if she informed JW parents in her congregation about the child molester . What's wrong with this picture ? EVERYTHING.

People post these stories anonymously. How can I possibly know if it really happened the way they said? There are two sides to every story, and we only get one of them on boards like this.

What I do know with certainty is what the written instructions say, because they're reproduced verbatim on a number of websites. None of them say a single word about disfellowshipping victims or those who truthfully speak to someone about a person's past. Elders have to explain the reasons for disfellowshipping to Bethel. If they tried to disfellowship someone on those grounds, Bethel would send it back.

Furthermore, has anyone ever gone on record saying that they were disfellowshipped for that reason? I think not. There is one such allegation on Silentlambs, but legal textbooks give a quite different reason for his disfellowshipping. (http://www.silentlambs.org/VickiBoerPedoparadise-Why.htm, http://www.watchtowerdocuments.com/downloads/1995_Frank_Mott_Trille_v._Steed.pdf [page 7])

Bottom line is Jehovah's Witnesses and the WT society prefer to protect their own " perceived " outward reputation - than protecting ANY young people in their organization. Peace out, Mr. Flipper

Bottom line is that opposers are much more interested in using child abuse to discredit Jehovah's Witnesses than they are in helping Jehovah's Witnesses' children. If they really cared about Jehovah's Witnesses' children they would try to help them in a way that shows respect for their religion and their sensitivies.

9

Paedophile used religion to keep abuse secret

by behemot in

paedophile used religion to keep abuse secrettuesday, march 30, 2010, 06:30a paedophile raped and sexually assaulted women and girls over a period of 40 years by using their religion to keep the abuse secret.. despite one revealing it to the jehovah's witness elders, no help was given, a court heard.. now george arthur cockerill, 78, has been jailed indefinitely after he admitted 19 rapes, four counts of sexual activity with a child, six counts of indecency with a child, one sex assault and two counts of indecency with a child.. judge roger thorn qc, sitting at hull crown court, said: "you have pleaded guilty to 32 serious counts that reflect your sexual depravity.. "the reality is that, from beginning to end, it is extended over 40 years.

you have wasted your life and caused untold misery.. "as one victim said, you have stolen her childhood.. "you have been the most terrible hypocrite, passing yourself off as a law-abiding member of the community and using religion as a tool of subjection to control your victims.. "that is why i'm satisfied this remained a secret for so long.".

cockerill was sentenced to imprisonment for public protection for a minimum of six years.. he will not be released until the parole board believe he is no longer a danger.. cockerill, of hull, was also ordered to sign the sex offenders register for life.. he allegedly had five victims, three of whom were subject to the convictions he pleaded guilty to and two more have made allegations against him.. police believe there could be more.. in a statement read to the court, one victim said: "he took my childhood away.".

jordan12

Wasn't there a flyby apologist in here last week trying to tell us that this sort of thing happens far less in Dub-land than in "the world"? If it happens ONCE there's a problem. God the borg sucks.

It does happen far less. When was the last case in Britain before this? A year? Two, three years?

56

Pedophiles in your congregation??

by ziddina in

i'm listening to the "six screens of the watchtower" broadcast from october 25, 2008 [yeah, i know, i'm waaay behind...], discussing pedophilia... that broadcast caused me to look up the current status of 'pedophilia notification' in the u.s.a..... rebel8 posted a link sometime back that gave locations of pedophiles in one's (u.s.a.) neighborhood... that portion of the link is, unfortunately, not working right now.... i decided to check out my [old] site, http://www.nsopw.gov/core/offendersearchcriteria.aspx to see if it still functioned the same way.... again, unfortunately, that site is also no longer giving out maps of one's area.... but, as pointed out in rebel8's posted link, pedophiles tend to move around.

this was also mentioned in the six screens broadcast by a lady named "lilly".... the new versions of both sites simply allow one to input the name of someone suspected to be a pedophile... not as effective, imo, but perhaps the cost of updating the maps due to pedophiles' high mobility became prohibitive.. so, here's my suggestion... using the 'name' search function, check out every name in .

your congregation, starting with the elders!!!.

jordan12

I too was molested by 2 Jehovah's Witness brothers - one was an elder. I was victimized....my childhood damaged, too...

I'm as disgusted by child molestation as anyone else. You have every right to be angry. If anything like that happened to my daughter, I'd be furious. And if an elder did that then it's twice as bad because he betrayed his trust.

I went to the congregation for help. What help did I get...silence (no word on if anything was ever followed up on), and then silenced (don't tell anyone in the cong. or I could be faced with "discipline" for causing divisions)

If that is actually what happened, then the elders failed to follow the instructions. The letters to elders telling them how to handle these cases have long been on the internet. None of them say that you should have been treated that way. There is certainly no instruction to 'discipline' persons making abuse allegations. And I've never heard of a single person who was disfellowshipped for making an accusation of child molestation. How could they be? There'd need to be two witnesses that the allegation was false.

Fast forward a few years...one of these @$$holes abuses my younger sister (10 years younger than me.) It is the congregations fault 100 percent for what happened to my sister. I told them. They chose to keep their reputation than deal with either of these men. My sister had to pay the price.

What happened to your sister is 100% the abuser's fault. He should take responsibility for what he did.

It isn't your fault (even though you could have reported the matter to the police).

It isn't the congregation's fault. They have to balance all sorts of legal requirements and principles.

It's not about keeping their reputation. It's about common sense. The reporting requirements are no different from any other church or professional counselling association. As for the two witnesses, if only one person made an allegation, then it was one person's word against another. Do you want congregations to disfellowship anyone just on one person's say-so? As I've told others, you might think differently if things were the other way round and you or a loved one were falsely accused of child molestation.

That's just one story...there's also the fact that my ex-husband's father had a baby (he was an elder) with my ex-husband's sister (a pioneer). My kids have a cousin who is also their aunt. It's sick. The lengths the organization went to hide this story (Lake Simcoe, Ontario - early 70s) to when in finally came to public knowlege (Ladner, BC apx 1985) is unbelievable.

Again, that sort of filthy conduct is appalling. You aren't the only one who is disgusted by it. I am, too, and all Jehovah's Witnesses would be.

But you're confusing confidentiality with covering up. Members of religious groups go to ministers/priests/pastors/elders to confess their sins on the understanding that what they have done will not be discussed with others. In many places, they have a legal obligation not to divulge what they've been told. (Even more so in the 1970's.)

The policies of the organization make it the congregations fault. Take your head out of the sand Jordan12, your ignorance is foolish.

The policies of the organization are excellent and no other church has anything near as good. They include: disfellowshipping of unrepentant wrongdoers, immediate removal of repentant wrongdoers from all positions of responsibility and scrupulous adherence to legal requirements.

I'm 100% sure the elder you mention was removed, if he was not disfellowshipped.

If there were problems, then they arose from failure to follow the policies, not from the policies themselves.

42

Turning in time?

by crazy2try in

jw
friends

i have a problem.

my hubby and i are tying to fade out completely, but we ran into a snag.

my in-laws showed up with a stack of time slips and said that they will turn them in for us if we fill them out.

jordan12

Jordan12, I asked a question, basically, What would you do? If you don't agree with others, sometimes, just posting what you would do and why, in a mannerly non-reproving fashion will add credibelity to your message and will be taken by others in a more positive manner.

My point in saying that is, well, I quit reading what you had to say cause you seemed to be attacking other posters. Though the point you were trying to make was understandable and if presented the right way makes for a good argument. So if you were counseled from the stage, the brothers would say you came off aggressive and therefore lost the respect of your audience.

You are right. Looking through my posts, some of them were a bit aggressive. I'm sorry. I'm hope you understand why, though. I'm pretty certain that there was a time when you would have been thoroughly incensed if someone suggested that you should falsify your field service reports.

As for attacking other posters, I notice they attack Jehovah's Witnesses plenty - is that OK? And it's not just attacking the Society; it's attacking the integrity of millions of sincere and fundamentally decent individuals. When certain people claim that most Witnesses routinely tell lies on their field service reports and elsewhere, that isn't merely inaccurate, it's slander. I know plenty of Jehovah's Witnesses who would rather die than tell lies or do anything else they considered immoral. And in fact, I know quite a few who don't report all their field service time (particularly informal witnessing) because they'd rather report less than more.

I must say that there is very little "mannerly" or "non-reproving" about most things written on this forum. You read stuff in 10 minutes here that you wouldn't hear in a year attending the Kingdom Hall. Surely you must admit that. Writers routinely show utter contempt for Jehovah's Witnesses, using disparaging language that belittles them as individuals. I'm not going to repeat the words in question. They obviously don't respect Witnesses as individuals or really care about them at all. I noticed in your first post that you did not impute bad motives to the Witnesses you know; many others here, however, do.

There is a lot of taking the extreme situations and presenting it as though they were typical. Actions and comments of the most immature and thoughtless Witnesses are presented as though they were the views of the organization itself. If one Witness does something he shouldn't, that is used to discredit the Witnesses. Of course, if one ex-Witness does the same things, that isn't used to discredit ex-Witnesses!

Many, if not most, of the posts criticize the Watch Tower for things they haven't even done. It starts off: "What do you think the WT will do next?" Then people chip in "I wouldn't be surprised if ... " and "They will probably ..." Step back and think about it ... it's infuriatingly puerile.

There is very little in the way of respectful discourse anywhere on this board. There's plenty of sarcasm and bitterness. For a lot of people who post here, anything the Society does is wrong. But if they did the opposite, that would be wrong again. If the elders don't come to visit you, they're showing that they don't care. But if they do come, they're badgering you. If a wrongdoer isn't disfellowshipped, so the elders "did nothing". If he is disfellowshipped, the elders were trying to avoid bad publicity. If Witnesses give visitors to the meeting a warm welcome, that's "love bombing". If they don't, then that's a lack of love.

Even sending aid to Haiti - it's not "well done, Jehovah's Witnesses, for helping people in need." It's "yeah, they only help their own" (not true) or "they just do it for good publicity" (also not true). I mean, come on, wake up! Have you any idea how ungracious and bitter that sounds?

Not to mention this comment about the Haiti earthquake, that just beggars belief: "Dubs dying in an earthquake mean less Dubs spreading their message of death and doom, so indirectly probably many lives have been saved" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/187447/1/Preliminary-report-58-JWs-died-in-Haiti) That's how much some here evidently care about the lives of fellow humans.

Yes, say something like that and your are probably on relatively safe ground (although one person did offer a very mild rebuke) because you're criticizing JW's. But say anything in supportof JW's and you'll soon be shot down in flames. It's nothing to do with how you say it. Any support for Watch Tower, or any criticism of ex-JW's, no matter how delicately expressed, is taboo and you will be roundly condemned if you break it.

The irony of it all is that most don't seem to notice how much the posters resemble their own caricature of Jehovah's Witnesses; they are exactly like what they accuse JW's of being.

So yes, I'm genuinely sorry if my comments offended you, but if you look at it from my viewpiont, it does look remarkably like a case of gulping down the camel but straining the gnat.

42

Turning in time?

by crazy2try in

jw
friends

i have a problem.

my hubby and i are tying to fade out completely, but we ran into a snag.

my in-laws showed up with a stack of time slips and said that they will turn them in for us if we fill them out.

jordan12

In My my country, Czech republic, when JW asked to be acknoweldged by government (in 1993) they were asked by the Ministry of culture (responsible for religion) three simple questions. One them was:

Do JW teach their members are not allowed to accept blood transfusions? Do JW teach a parent should avoid blood transfusion of their child, even in the threat of death?JW (czech branch coordinators) have answerd: NO, JW DO NOT TEACH THAT.

This was publicly revealed in media and turned to be a big shame and many JW had left because of that.

How do you know? Just from the newspapers? Is this a verbatim quote? And is it the complete quote?

I remember reading all sorts of quotes that Fred Franz and others had supposedly said in court, but when I saw the court transcript, they had said nothing of the sort.

56

Pedophiles in your congregation??

by ziddina in

i'm listening to the "six screens of the watchtower" broadcast from october 25, 2008 [yeah, i know, i'm waaay behind...], discussing pedophilia... that broadcast caused me to look up the current status of 'pedophilia notification' in the u.s.a..... rebel8 posted a link sometime back that gave locations of pedophiles in one's (u.s.a.) neighborhood... that portion of the link is, unfortunately, not working right now.... i decided to check out my [old] site, http://www.nsopw.gov/core/offendersearchcriteria.aspx to see if it still functioned the same way.... again, unfortunately, that site is also no longer giving out maps of one's area.... but, as pointed out in rebel8's posted link, pedophiles tend to move around.

this was also mentioned in the six screens broadcast by a lady named "lilly".... the new versions of both sites simply allow one to input the name of someone suspected to be a pedophile... not as effective, imo, but perhaps the cost of updating the maps due to pedophiles' high mobility became prohibitive.. so, here's my suggestion... using the 'name' search function, check out every name in .

your congregation, starting with the elders!!!.

jordan12

If Bill Bowen (SilentLambs) was such a lier...why hasn't the WTS used their well paid attorneys to sue him or shut his site down?

How would I know? It doesn't mean that the site isn't full of lies. You only have to take a cursory look at his site to see that it is. For instance:

"Brother Griest - MURDERER" (except the murder was committed 17 years before he converted to Jehovah's Witnesses)
"Sister West Child Murderer" (except she's not and never was a Jehovah's Witness)
"Brother Proulx kills" (except that he was not a Witness)
Ditto for Mark Barton, Christian Longo, Robert Bryant.
"Most cases that involved the murder of a family by the father in recent years have had JW connections." (Absurd. There are reportedly 500 such cases a year in the USA - Silentlambs mentions about 14 cases worldwide in a 15-year period, the majority of which did not involve Jehovah's Witnesses anyway.)
"In effect the victim is accused of lying and now he/she is guilty until he/she can prove they are telling the truth by producing either people who watched it happen or photos as tangible proof." (False and ridiculous. No publication or letter of instruction to elders has ever said any such thing.)
"The requirement for two witnesses means to the same event, not two separate occasions" (complete lie, easily refuted by looking at elders' textbook)
"Public relations representatives for the Watchtower Organization have stated to media they will now take witnesses to separate incidents and take action in congregations. This became a policy instituted when silentlambs.org pressed the issue on child abuse." (So how come the policy is written in the 1991 elders' manual, ten years before Silentlambs came into existence?)

Even the media have stopped giving Bowen a platform. Could it be that they've realized that Silentlambs isn't interested in helping children so much as discrediting Jehovah's Witnesses? Using children to pursue a theological agenda leaves rather a nasty taste...

I t's totally DISGUSTING to think that an organization who claims to be Jehovah's messengers would even put in print... " if a state doesn't make it mandatory to report the CRIME OF CHILDREN they don't have to"!

It's not as simple as that. There are legal and common-sense reasons why the Society doesn't have a blanket policy of reporting all abuse, except if legally necessary. Why do you think no other church has the policy you want? Why do you think that professional counselors' associations don't have such a policy? Why don't even child protection agencies have a blanket policy of reporting all cases?

Would you report abuse, for instance, against the wishes of victims who are now adults?
Would you report a 17-year-old boy who had sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend?
Have you considered that the policy you are suggesting would deter perpetrators (and even some victims) from telling the elders what happened? How is that going to help?

As said before...it's a clear case.....let the proper professionals handle the cases with professional investigators..and law...obey the laws of the lands.....

We do obey the laws of the land - meticulously. If victims or their parents want the case investigated by law enforcement, then they're free to report it.

in fact, it's a UNIVERSAL LAW OF CONSCIOUS, child sex abuse is not to be tolerated by anyone....the two witness, three witness DID apply not too long ago...and that applied to ADULTS...notice if a brother has something against you.....

The two-witness requirement basically concerns whether a judicial committee will be formed, with the unrepentant abuser disfellowshipped. Since other religious organizations don't disfellowship abusers whether there is one, two or ten eye-witnesses, I think you'd have to agree that Jehovah's Witnesses are still streets ahead of other churches.

I hear this excuse from many of you ... oh well, it happens in all the other religions. Actually, JWs are a smaller group...so of course their are going to be more among the Catholics with sex abuse....

Well of course it happens in all religions. It also happens among people with no religion. Can you propose any way of ensuring that it never happens? I can't, short of following everyone in the religion around with video cameras.

I think the evidence presented in previous replies makes it quite clear that abuse happens a lot less frequently among Jehovah's Witnesses than, say, among Catholic clergy.

Oh well, I guess the CHILD asked for it.....or dress wrong....Oh well, it's made up in the child's mind....

None of Jehovah's Witnesses' publications or internal documents has ever said anything of the sort.

Oh well, there's a cleansing of the molesters in the Cong....(there will be a cleansing from the top for not taking).Oh well, even though we have problems....we are not the worst of the worst...REALLY? You are to be unblemished among the nations.....as an example to his name! You have become like the other religions making foul excuses for many things...

You're not being reasonable. There is no way for any organization to know what its members are doing all the time. Abuse is considerably less frequent among Jehovah's Witnesses than in the population in general. Jehovah's Witnesses have an excellent child protection policy. Our policies don't apply to clergy only, but the whole congregation (unlike other churches). We have scrupulously followed legal requirements (unlike many other churches). We disfellowship unrepentant abusers (unlike most other churches). Repentant abusers are removed from all positions of trust. When there has been a case, the congregation is warned by a talk (unlike other churches). We keep a central register to prevent abusers simply moving to another congregation (unlike other churches).

I was molested by a Jehovah's Witness brother.....as a very young soul....I was victimized....my childhood damaged.....

That is appalling, but that is the fault of your abuser, not the congregation.

there should have NEVER BEEN two witness, three witness policy when it comes to CHILD SEX CRIMES, PERIOD!

Are you saying that everyone accused of child abuse is guilty? I think you'd soon change your mind if you or a loved one were falsely accused of abuse.

It's not like adultry, smoking....etc....what kind of moral, god like, concisous is this. Maybe if you knew the filthy details of my victimization, it would become more real to you.....instead of spewing your coldhearted comments.....

I'm sorry you were victimized. No-one should have to go through that. But I think your anger would be better directed toward the perpetrator rather than the congregation.

If you feel your abuser should be reported to the police, why don't you report him?

What part of...."They did not go to the authorities" do you not understand?

I understand perfectly. What I don't understand is why you don't go to the authorities, but you want them to.

What part of...."It's totally DISGUSTING to think that an organization who claims to be Jehovah's messengers would even dare put in print..." if a state doesn't make it mandatory to report SEX CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN, they don't have to"!

Please see above.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21917798/ns/night...

What is your point? That a Witness can be a child molester? Nobody disputes that. The perpetrators were disfellowshipped and the crimes were reported to the police by the victims. That is the way it should be. If someone commits a crime against me, then I am the one who should report them to the police, not my church.

Evil deeds of one person? Evil deeds on only a few? Really?

Actually, there are very few cases. Silentlambs claims to have reported 300 Witness abusers to the police in a five-year period - an average of one a week. Where are they? Having gone to all the trouble of locating them and reporting them to the police, they suddenly "forgot" to put the names and details of the trials on their website, and instead put up stories about people who aren't even Jehovah's Witnesses and never were!

In countries where the law requires a report to police (e.g. Canada), a report is always made. Have we seen a much higher incidence of convictions for child molestation among Witnesses in Canada than in the USA? I think not.

Even if cases were mishandled..do you think they (GB or Elders) would ever say anything to the victims? Do you think Elders feel repentful/sorry for mishandling the cases.....maybe they should get DF by God for mishandling cases....but I guess that's why the WTS is paying out...for settlements....and setting gage orders....

If they've mishandled the cases but are sorry, Jehovah will forgive them.

With regard to settlements, there have been a handful -- tiny number compared to the figure of over 1,100,000 Witnesses in the USA. These concerned isolated cases before 1997, when the tighter policy on child abuse was brought in. I don't think we'll be seeing many more.

56

Pedophiles in your congregation??

by ziddina in

i'm listening to the "six screens of the watchtower" broadcast from october 25, 2008 [yeah, i know, i'm waaay behind...], discussing pedophilia... that broadcast caused me to look up the current status of 'pedophilia notification' in the u.s.a..... rebel8 posted a link sometime back that gave locations of pedophiles in one's (u.s.a.) neighborhood... that portion of the link is, unfortunately, not working right now.... i decided to check out my [old] site, http://www.nsopw.gov/core/offendersearchcriteria.aspx to see if it still functioned the same way.... again, unfortunately, that site is also no longer giving out maps of one's area.... but, as pointed out in rebel8's posted link, pedophiles tend to move around.

this was also mentioned in the six screens broadcast by a lady named "lilly".... the new versions of both sites simply allow one to input the name of someone suspected to be a pedophile... not as effective, imo, but perhaps the cost of updating the maps due to pedophiles' high mobility became prohibitive.. so, here's my suggestion... using the 'name' search function, check out every name in .

your congregation, starting with the elders!!!.

jordan12

That sample is probably quite accurate, unless the CO was misleading to me. I don't know why he would.

I don't doubt that the CO would tell the truth. I do doubt whether you would, in view of the way you misrepresent what I wrote (see below) But even if what you say were true, how on earth could you possibly know that the one circuit was representative of the whole country? Incidentally, even if it were, it would still be less than half what Silentlambs claimed and about a quarter of the rate amongst Catholic clergy.

It would be wonderful if we could say that there are never any cases among Jehovah's Witnesses, but unfortunately that is impossible to achieve. We have no way of knowing what is going on in people's minds and what they do in private, when other congregation members aren't there. I do believe, though, that it happens a lot less frequently than among the population in general.

I would agree with your assessment that there might be as many as 12,000 'unreported' molesters in the USA congregations.

You're putting words into my mouth. I didn't say that there might be that many. I merely said that if what you said was true and the circuit you describe was a representative sample, there would be 12,000 persons on the child-protection list. I also said that I thought the true figure was likely to be much less.

Furthermore, I did not say that I believed those cases to be unreported. Many cases have already been reported to the police, since that is what is required in most US states. Failure to report is illegal in those places and yet no elder or congregation has every been found guilty of a crime like that. Additionally, some on the list were convicted of child molestation before becoming Witnesses. What would there be to report?

I've also pointed out that it isn't a list of proven molesters. It could include the names of persons who are the object of unverified accusations. It could include people who, as teenagers had sex with an underage girlfiriend a couple of years younger.

So I most certainly did not say that there might be 12,000 unreported molesters among Witnesses in the USA, as you claim.

When I read your first post, I was willing to suspend disbelief about what you said. First, that there would be that many persons on the child protection list in your circuit, and second that your CO would tell you about it. I thought well maybe, it's just possible. But when you distort my words, I'm afraid you lose credibility. If you can't get something straight when it is right in front of your eyes, then you either have serious difficulties in understanding English or you're being dishonest. Either way, I see no reason at all to take anything you say seriously.

You know as well as me, why I can't reveal more information on that congregation I mentioned.

I'm not sure I do. What would happen if you did? And whatever would happen, isn't it worth it, if protecting the children is your only real objective?

I certainly don't know why you can't tell us how you know this while claiming that only the elders know about it. Are you an elder? If you are, what are you doing serving as an elder if you don't agree with the Society's policies?

The WTS advised the Elders not to report it.

How do you know? Why should I believe that?

The point is, the person was DF'd and NO investigation by the proper authorities was inacted to confirm if anyone else was molested.

How do you know?

The Elders and the WTS should not have made that choice for the authorities.

The way I understand it, the elders are instructed by the Society to comply with reporting requirements. If the state makes a law on reporting, the elders will comply with it. Do you know the reporting requirements for your state? What state do you live in? We can look it up.

I know of no religious or professional counselling organization that has a blanket policy of reporting all cases to authorities when not legally required to.

Furthermore, the victims are adults now. They could have made a report if they wanted one made. If someone commits a crime against you, then if anyone should make a complaint to the authorities, it is you. It's not your church's job to make the report for you. And, if the victims don't want to make a report, should the elders really go against their wishes?

He is now re-instated, and no one in the congregation is aware of his past problem, except for the Elders. How is that protecting the flock? Its not. That's the problem with the confidential reckoning of the WTS.

I think you know very well that the elders can't just tell everyone what he did. What legal or Biblical basis would they have for doing so? They have to protect the congregation by monitoring the person closely and ensuring he has no unsupervised access to children.

I was speaking of the WT policy of keeping it confidential, as a cover up plan, which does more to protect the WTS than potential victims.

I'm not aware of anyone having been molested by a reinstated former child molester. I think it's more a product of someone's fertile imagination than a scenario that actually happens. Apparently, then, the policy works perfectly well in practice.

And I agree with you, we are all culpable in this cover up.

Except I didn't say that we are all culpable in this cover up. You're putting words into my mouth again.

If you confess a crime to your lawyer or your therapist, it isn't a cover-up if they don't go to the authorities. It's their professional duty. Even child protection charities don't always report what they know to the police. That isn't a cover up. They have to balance a number of factors, including their legal responsibilities of confidentiality, possibility of defamation cases, and other factors.

That's one reason why I'm here, to expose this and do my part to change it.

So, to get this straight. You know a crime was committed, and instead of reporting it to the police, you're campaigning for the Watch Tower to change its policies and report it. If you want them to do it, why won't you do it?

This is only one reason why the WTS has had to pay millions in settlements to victims, with probably more to come. I guess you were not aware of that fact.

I'm aware that there have been a few out-of-court settlements. Maybe a couple of dozen. Out of a million Jehovah's Witnesses in the US. It's hardly the pandemic that it's been made out to be. In any case, the settlements all concerned cases that took place before the more rigorous procedures were introduced in 1997. I don't believe that there's been a settlement made in any claim relating to alleged cases after that time. I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong ...

It's not a "fact" that the Society have had to pay millions; that is pure conjecture. Saying that there is "probably more to come" is also an opinion, rather than a fact.

I also understand that so far everyone who has refused an out-of-court settlement and taken their case to court has lost.

In both of the congregations I mentioned, NO ONE knows anything about the molesters, except for the Elders and those families affected, let alone the public.

Well, if you report it then presumably that will rectify the situation.

The WTS policy of ' keeping it quiet' is a very effective tool, no? That would explain why few have heard about these covered up atrocities. Multiply that by the 1,000's of other congregations and you can see why few JW's know much about this, nor the general public.

I'm not sure what exactly you want the Society to do. You mean you want them to announce that someone has been accused of child molestation? I do not know any religious or other organization that has a policy like that, for very good reasons. Not even Silentlambs do that! Apart from the legal problems that would entail, there are practical concerns too.

Suppose a man wants to get baptized. He has committed some form of sexual offence in the past. If he tells us, we're going to announce it to the congregation ... do you think he's going to tell us?

Do you think that someone who has become involved in that type of crime is going to tell the elders about it if they can't be sure that it will be kept confidential? Isn't it better that someone in the congregation knows rather than no-one? The elders can't monitor things if they don't know about them.

As for victims, it is hard enough for them to come and talk to someone as it is. Wouldn't it discourage them from coming forward if they thought that the elders were going to broadcast the facts to the congregation and go to the authorities?

I really don't think you've thought this through sufficiently.

How could they?
Child molesters in the WTS Congregations is one dirty little secret we need to get out, wouldn't you agree?

I don't believe that it's a secret at all. Everyone knows that child molesters exist in the community and that they sometimes join religious organizations. Sometimes they manage to control their proclivities, sometimes they don't. I know it's sick, but it's a reality. A number of articles in The Watchtower and on the Society's website have frankly acknowledged that these situations exist in the congregation.

Furthermore, the Society's policies on how matters are handled have been published in The Watchtower and on the website, as well as in letters to the congregations. There's nothing secret about that either.

Admittedly, some Witnesses may be a bit naive about the subject, particularly if they have not read the Watchtower articles about the subject.

But is it really about helping Witnesses and protecting their children? Some who are critically inclined might think that your real agenda was to try to use isolated cases of child abuse within the organization to try to discredit the whole religion. They might think that if you were really interested in helping Witnesses and their children, you would do so in a way that shows greater respect for their chosen faith and religious sensitivities.

56

Pedophiles in your congregation??

by ziddina in

i'm listening to the "six screens of the watchtower" broadcast from october 25, 2008 [yeah, i know, i'm waaay behind...], discussing pedophilia... that broadcast caused me to look up the current status of 'pedophilia notification' in the u.s.a..... rebel8 posted a link sometime back that gave locations of pedophiles in one's (u.s.a.) neighborhood... that portion of the link is, unfortunately, not working right now.... i decided to check out my [old] site, http://www.nsopw.gov/core/offendersearchcriteria.aspx to see if it still functioned the same way.... again, unfortunately, that site is also no longer giving out maps of one's area.... but, as pointed out in rebel8's posted link, pedophiles tend to move around.

this was also mentioned in the six screens broadcast by a lady named "lilly".... the new versions of both sites simply allow one to input the name of someone suspected to be a pedophile... not as effective, imo, but perhaps the cost of updating the maps due to pedophiles' high mobility became prohibitive.. so, here's my suggestion... using the 'name' search function, check out every name in .

your congregation, starting with the elders!!!.

jordan12

A CO disscussing a child molestation case with me in my congregation mentioned that every congregation has at least one and some two in our circuit. Of these, he was relieved, none had been made public. That's 18-20 in our circuit alone.

Following this average, how many exist in the USA alone? Hard to say, but it would be signifigant and would probably destroy the WTS as we know it, if it ever became public.

Assuming for the sake of argument that this is true, which I have no way of knowing, I'm not at all sure that that would be a representative sample. I think the true figure is likely to be much less. Of course, even if it is true and a representative sample (about 12,000 names) it would be an incidence of about 0.8% - a fraction of the figure of 4% of Catholic Priests that have apparently been accused of child abuse. (http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/PriestAbuseScandal.htm)

In any case, not everyone on the list is a child molester. A number of other categories are included on the list. Not all of the allegations are substantiated. It looks as though the frequency of pedophilia is actually way lower among JW's than in the population in general.

There are apparently 700,000 registered sex offenders in the US. Statistically, you'd expect about 2,700 to be active Witnesses, maybe about 3,500 if you include inactive/disfellowshipped. I doubt the true figure is anywhere near that. That's corroborated by the extreme scarcity of reports of Witnesses' committing these crimes, even in places where reporting is mandatory. And, let's face it, groups like Silent Lambs would be more than willing to publicize these cases if they existed.

What's really bad about keeping this quiet, so as not to bring about 'reproach on JG's organization' a convenient euphanism, is that many of these child molesters are going unchecked and probably are abusing others.

You're assuming too much. First, it's pretty well established that we scrupulously observe the reporting laws. I understand that pretty much every state in the US has mandatory reporting laws now ( http://www.smith-lawfirm.com/mandatory_reporting.htm ). I don't believe there's a single case of a congregation or an elder being found guilty of failure to report.

When there is no mandatory reporting, there are still other legal considerations (confidentiality, possibility of false accusations, law on fiduciary relationships, etc.) It's not about 'bringing reproach on the organization'. No publication or letter has ever said that crime shouldn't be reported to the authorities. And of course, the victim or the victim's parents can report. Or anyone else who knows about it for that matter.

As an example, in the congregation next to mine, an Elder woke up one day with a visualization that he was molested as a child. He feared his sister, a Special Pioneer was molested by their father, a long time Elder. He called her and she confirmed she was as well.
They decided to bring this to the Elders attention who inturn admonished them to go to the father and confront him. They didn't want to, but at the insistance of the Elders, they went with two Elders. He at first denied the charges vehemently, but the mother confessed she had witnessed it.The result? He was removed and DF'd. No one in the congregation knew why he was DF'd.

I agree that it's sickening that people do these things, particularly people who lead a double life and pretend to be exemplary Witnesses. I'm glad the man in question was disfellowshipped, as that's a very powerful protection for the congregation's children. I wish other religious organizations would do the same.

But it was also decided not to go to the authorities, because they felt that was all there was. But how do they know he didn't molest others? How could you trust him? And how were they protecting others in the future? They didn't
The one in my congregation was completely unkown to everyone except the Elders.

I'm not sure how you could really know all this. How do you know what they decided or what they felt? Did they tell you? And how could it be unknown to everyone if you knew about it? And how do you know it wasn't reported to the police? Didn't the victims report it? Didn't you?

That is not a confidential matter, that is a cover up.

But surely you can't say that other people are covering it up if you know about it and you haven't told the authorities. That would make you part of the cover-up too.

The elders will always comply with the law on reporting abuse. Where elders aren't required by law to report, then it's better if the victim or their parents make the report. They are the ones who are most directly involved.

If all of these became public, on a registered list, the JW Kingdom Halls would be lit up like a Billboard. No one would attend, no one would study with them, no one would contribute, and everyone who was 'encouraged to keep quiet' would sue the WTS.

But isn't the whole point of this thread that they are already public? I thought that was what the first poster was saying. Maybe I misunderstood. As I've already pointed out, the expected discovery of numerous pedophile elders hasn't materialized.

Some have tried to sue the WTS. I don't think any of them have won their cases though. Yes, I know a handful of plaintiffs settled out of court - a tiny number considering the total number of Witnesses in the US.

42

Turning in time?

by crazy2try in

jw
friends

i have a problem.

my hubby and i are tying to fade out completely, but we ran into a snag.

my in-laws showed up with a stack of time slips and said that they will turn them in for us if we fill them out.

jordan12

LoL. Ad hominem is Latin for "toward the person" or "against the person" and is used to describe a response that attacks the person rather than the person's point, which is what you did. But you're not stupid. Sure.

It matters little what it means in Latin. When someone encourages others to lie, that inevitably tells you something about his trustworthiness. Pointing that out is not an ad hominem.

Furthermore, I didn't attack the person's point. How could I? He didn't make a point. He simply made a recommendation (that someone else should act deceitfully). Someone with that standard of honesty is likely to lie about other things. That is all I said and it is a perfectly valid inference.

I didn't say it's ok to do it because the Watch Tower does it.

So why bring up Theocratic War strategy then? Most Witnesses have never even heard of it. And yes, I've read the articles from 50 years ago, saying that you don't have to hand your brothers over the the Gestapo or the KGB. Big deal. You make it look as if Witnesses lie all the time in quite trivial things to promote their religion. That is false. But since you apparently approve of lying, I don't expect you to acknowledge that.

So they're courageous victims of cult mind control. I guess that's something to be proud of.

Pure rhetoric, sarcasm and nothing else. It takes very little intelligence to be sarcastic.

This is the sort of stuff that people on this board get used to taking for granted because no-one ever questions it.

People become Jehovah's Witnesses because they study the teachings, believe them and decide to join. No-one makes them join and no-one stops them from leaving. "Cult mind control" is a fantasy accepted by hardly anyone except ex-members of religious groups trying to justify their former religious affiliations.

Have you seen too many lies to point out a few? Go ahead, join the discussion.

I already have, in other threads.

Here are some lies: "Jehovah's Witnesses don't acknowledge that rape is a violent crime" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/189257/1/jw-blamed-her-daughter-when-grandaughter-was-raped);

"Former/Active District Overseer Arrested for Child Porn" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/189875/1/Former-Active-District-Overseer-Arrested-For-Child-Porn-on-Laptop-In-The-UK);

"you can get df'd for masochism but not for beating your wife and children" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/190879/1/Disfellowshipped-for-masochism);

JW man circumcised son at home (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/190870/1/One-year-in-jail-for-JW-man-who-circumcised-son-at-home)

Speaking of lying, I don't believe that you don't know what the "borg" is. Pot, meet kettle.

I think you are intelligent enough to recognise when someone is using a figure of speech.

First, I AM A DUB myself, so get off the high horse and quit taking offense with a little nickname.
Second, I've been A DUB for a LONG time. I know how folks operate.

It's not just a nickname; it's a term of contempt. You aren't capable of respectful discussion; you are a ridiculer, pure and simple. It's pathetic.

And there is no way you can possibly have any idea what millions of Witnesses put on their reports. You're slandering a whole group of people without any proof at all ("I know" is not proof) just so you can defend the indefensible: a poster here encouraging others to tell bare-faced lies.

What I have learned from your thread, by your own admission, is this: it's perfectly OK to tell people lies and call them names.