the new direction in the new elders book is very clear.
absolutely no jd if there is a suspicion of suicidal thoughts.. this is obviously due to the high number of suicidal attempts after the announcement that someone is no longer a jw and the shunning that accompanied it.. so what will happen now going forward if situations arise where there would formerly have been a jd and they say there is suicidal thoughts?.
i can’t see it working, but elders stick rigidly to what it says in the book.
The change now is that the JC will not even be formed or go ahead
That's not the case.
The recent direction says: In judicial cases in which the accused threatens suicide, it may be best for the committee to suspend the hearing to focus on helping him regain his balance.
The Judicial Committee is always formed if the wrongdoing ticks the list mentioned in Chapter 12. Only the hearing is suspended.
the new direction in the new elders book is very clear.
absolutely no jd if there is a suspicion of suicidal thoughts.. this is obviously due to the high number of suicidal attempts after the announcement that someone is no longer a jw and the shunning that accompanied it.. so what will happen now going forward if situations arise where there would formerly have been a jd and they say there is suicidal thoughts?.
i can’t see it working, but elders stick rigidly to what it says in the book.
It is not a new direction. It has always been the case.
It was communicated through policy letters during the reign of the ks91 elders book (1977-2009)
It was also mentioned in the ks10 elders book (Chapter 6, Point 16) (2010-2019)
and it has been in the new elders' book (Chapter 15, Point 17) (2020- current)
Judicial committees are suspended till the accused is seen fit enough for the committee to resume. His shepherding begins and is continued till he is deemed fit for the JC to resume. If the elders find out that suicide was just a ruse, then disfellowshipping is confirmed. The situation can get messy if the accuser is vindictive and wants to see the accused punished.
A JC once formed never goes away. I have been on some JCs. Many people find it easier to cry, gain mercy, and then quietly fade away, rather than threaten suicide or legal action and make a mess out of everything.
i remember a couple of decades ago when the internet was relatively young and the wt was at war with it, that they were battling to keep the pay attention book secret, commencing legal action against anyone who published it online (and of course, trying to out anyone who leaked it).
i think it was a norwegian skeptics organisation who had it available for download and dared the wt lawyers to come after them.. so i guess the new shepherd the flock book came out to try and put the genie back in the bottle and reassert some air of mystery and secrecy back into the equation.. so i typed jehovah's witnesses secret elder book into google.
colour me gobsmacked!
How did the R&F react?
I remember a few years ago a brother in our congregation downloaded the book from that site and printed out a copy for himself. He excitedly told a few of his friends (including me).
A few months later when I asked him about it, he said that he never went beyond the first chapter and found it is just a boring book of rules and procedures.
The GB hasn't given any direction about that but they know that most publishers don't know what to do with it once they have it. Like a dog chasing a car...
The elders' book is a generalized set of rules, however, the actual meat / secret lies in the direct correspondence that happens between the service desk and the body of elders where the direction is given for each case separately.
2023-price per publisher.. .
https://imgbox.com/jshf0csu .
atlantis!.
Per publisher, per what? Per month?
It's $10 per publisher per month.
The per-publisher amount is not announced to the congregation. The elders use it to calculate the total amount, announce the total amount to the congregation, and send it every month to the branch from the congregation's bank account.
note: photos can be found on the blue envelope channelhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nakezkhqbmtony and susan morris are living in lumberton, north carolina.
a real estate document on the robeson county website is filed:.
the religious order of jehovah's witnesses has provided a "life estate" for them.they can live in this townhouse until they are deceased or choose to move away and in either case the ownership becomes entirely the property of jehovah's witnesses.
Saw this comment on the avoid jw website:
According to Wayne Kettelle (Susan’s brother) in a correspondence that I had with him on 4th July 2023 he stated: “They are living in a territory which was once an area Anthony served as a CO. They are in a country territory and are enjoying the door to door ministry and the congregation.”
*** w94 11/15 pp.
"in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
" so said 18th-century american statesman and inventor benjamin franklin.
Those at Bethel (and the COs) don't work secularly for their food and housing. Instead they live off others' incomes, people who pay taxes. According to the Bible counsel, everyone at Bethel and the COs are "bad association"!
Paul said that anyone able-bodied who wants to live off others' incomes should be marked and not associated with. According to the Bible counsel, everyone at Bethel and the COs are "bad association"!
Not sure if you have worked at Bethel, but in my 1 year at Bethel, I was not "living-off" other people's incomes!
I worked my ass off in the printery, worked double shifts during summer convention releases, did endless days as the night guard, got up at 3 am in the mornings for kitchen duty, and traveled to and fro 7 miles to my assigned congregation meetings. When you say housing, I shared a small room with 2 other boys, with no privacy, and ate out of a pre-decided menu. The allowance that I received barely covered my travel expenses and my mother had to send money to me every now and then.
The publishers needed regular magazines, and I was there printing it for them. It was a simple business arrangement. It was not a place where we endlessly sat meditating or praying. It was not a conclave where we shut ourselves off, but every evening went with congregation members to return visits, BIble studies, and shepherding calls.
We walked on thin ice and saw dozens of Bethelites get reproved and sent off for laxing off the rigorous schedule.
When I left Bethel, I didn't have any savings. While working voluntarily, I slogged as a laborer and certainly didn't consider myself as "living off" the publisher's money, and out of all, the words of Paul didn't apply to me.
what happens when a jehovah’s witness who has been disfellowshipped returns to attending the meetings again?.
mark jones writes:.
if it's the same congregation that they previously attended then, yes, the congregation will remember who they are and so continue to treat them as dead or invisible.. one of the identifying marks a cult is that it uses shame and humiliation to control members, to keep them from leaving and manipulating those who escaped into coming back.. a disfellowshipped person is never allowed to quietly leave with dignity.
Diogensister,
Agreed.
However, not having a central mandate for treating ex-members is a real danger. Because it gives liberty to individual units to impose their own rules.
The Catholic Church didn't have a clear rule on contributions, due to which the local pastor pestered the flock to tithe. In fact, apart from passing the contribution plate, he sent a weekly envelope to our home and even sent one of his assistants to gather the money from individual members.
It reached such an extent that four families in a year joined the JW's as they saw that no one forced them to contribute money to the kingdom hall.
In many developing and under-developing countries, people became JW's in throngs because of their notorious ex-religious communities, their unending money extortion, black-magic mired ceremonies, caste discrimination, etc. JW's were a welcome change for them and hence for them the "truth literally set them free". Shunning was the least of their woes.
In fact, of my cousins stated that he was happy that with the right bag of tricks, you can save yourself from getting disfellowshipped, and there are easy ways to escape the JW's without the threat of being hunted down.
I know because my family was one of them.
what happens when a jehovah’s witness who has been disfellowshipped returns to attending the meetings again?.
mark jones writes:.
if it's the same congregation that they previously attended then, yes, the congregation will remember who they are and so continue to treat them as dead or invisible.. one of the identifying marks a cult is that it uses shame and humiliation to control members, to keep them from leaving and manipulating those who escaped into coming back.. a disfellowshipped person is never allowed to quietly leave with dignity.
30 years ago when my parents left the Roman Catholic Church, our names were announced in the pulpit. The next few years were filled with constant ridicule by Church members. In my school, the priest called me up during the assembly and forcefully pulled my hair to and fro announcing before all children that I am now going to hell with my parents. Till now, our names are read out by that priest during his sermons as a reminder of leaving the Church.
My wife, an adult, when she left her community to get baptized as a JW, got whipped by her parents. No one from her community talks to her, in fact, they conducted a series of religious rituals to cleanse their homes and hurled expletives against her and do it till this day.
There are whackier ways in which communities treat their members and JW's are not an exception. In fact, they are less crazier than many other groups out there.
no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.
please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.
a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!
DW: Millions of babies every year are killed before they are born. Is God responsible for that too?
Cofty: No ... and?Is your defence of god something like, 'humans do bad stuff too'
Sorry Cofty, maybe I didn't phrase the question right.
Shouldn't God be responsible for abortions too? Doesn't the idea of God allowing bad things to happen by other humans make him responsible for them, going by the concept of willful inaction?
Sorry if I am not able to express my view clearly. These are my questions (with an assumption that a xian God does exist):
At what point does God stop being responsible for evil?
Even if he is not responsible for some evils solely attributable to humans, wouldn't people hold him ultimately responsible for all evil?
What kind of an ideal world should exist to make the idea of a Christian God believable? As an analogy, we have a world where everyone is hard-wired only to make good choices, i.e. no free will. Or we have a world where free will exists, but God interferes whenever someone makes a bad choice.
no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.
please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.
a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!
