Anna

Yes, it does appear like that sometimes. Perhaps though it really IS due to misunderstanding 😀. It can happen so easily, especially with the written word. This is why it's always better to call someone, rather than text 🙂. But if you know the Bible, then you believe the opposite: "Then that slave who understood the will of his master but did not get ready or do what he asked will be beaten with many strokes. But the one who did not understand and yet did things deserving of strokes will be beaten with few. Indeed, everyone to whom much was given, much will be demanded of him, and the one who was put in charge of much will have more than usual demanded of him" (Luke 12: 47-48) (This scripture is actually talking about the Faithful and discreet slave/GB).

Something is only as good as what it is on the inside. Any structure has value to the Witnesses when it is used for pure worship. I know an old church that was converted to a KH. So it's not about the building, but about what goes on on the inside. Once a building stops being used for the purpose it was built for and is put on the market, it becomes immaterial to the JWs what or who occupies it after that. This proves there is no idolatry or placing of spiritual value on the building itself.

It's a little bit more complex than that. Yes, parent's are definitely responsible for their minor children, even when their minor children are out of sight, the responsibility for what the children do is still the parents, because the parents should be watching them. However, is an employer responsible for what his employee does outside his employment? If the employee does something bad while on vacation (robs a bank) would his employer bear responsibility? Obviously not. Now if the employer planned the robbery with the employee, and got the employee to carry it out, then the employer will hold some liability. But it is still the employees choice, whether to go along with the plan or not. I don't think the claim "he made me do it" would hold up in court. It always seems to me that when people try to hold the GB responsible for their choices in life, its like they forget that no one actually MADE them do anything. That it was the persons personal conviction, that whatever the direction the GB gave was correct, and therefor they followed it. We have to make the choice whether to follow it or not. Now if the direction proved wrong, then sure, we can blame the GB for the bad outcome, but it was STILL our choice and we have to get up and move on.

This club is open to anyone. If you want to join a JW only club here it is:

The butterflies are pretty impressive too!

What do you know?

Seems Satan is a bit dumb then. There was a bigger picking of JWs in America.

An interesting article on the Masoretic text: https://torahapologetics.weebly.com/apologetics--daily-life/january-22nd-2016

That reminds me, we haven't done convention resolutions for a while

I have heard she's not baptized...you probably heard the same thing..

That's cool!

I see Roger Federer and Grigor Dimitrov were there! I heard it was some convention!

You watch, he will dig it up from somewhere

Example: "B.C. court ruling against father in child hormone treatment case sets dangerous precedent" https://www.thepostmillennial.com/bc-court-ruling-father-child-hormone-treatment-case-dangerous/

Well thank you. Only problem is I would have to come up with $41,615 You should start putting it down on paper now.

Sounds good, when do you start?

That's what I wondered too. The whole story seems a little odd.... If this was someone outside the congregation, you would have thought she would feel very free to go to the police

It seems that the elders did not believe the woman when she said she was "abused". We don't know the whole story, we don't know the woman. I can think of a number of situations which may have incurred the decision to disfellowship. No one gets disfellowshipped for being sexually abused. (Especially not nowadays). I wonder if she went to the police to report the abuse. The article does not mention if she did.

Yes, it's always been that way, it seems since the earliest of times; men with power and money know they can get ANYTHING they want.

Also I think we always get more motivated when we've just been to a convention 😊

Here is just one example of a government agency's (department of social services) failings: https://www.coloradocpo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018-3050-CPO-Compliance-Letter-Final-Redacted-Aig-9-2019.pdf

I agree, and that is a problem many conveniently forget about. Just recently the Child Victims Act has extended the statute of limitations. And legislation is working on making priests mandated reporters in all the states of the US. These things should have been in operation for a long time already. So really, many of the problems of so called "cover ups" are a result of the inefficiencies and shortcomings of legislative bodies.

You mean like pee?

I cannot say because I do not know the details of all these cases. But it leads me to your other question: Personally? Personally think that if an elder/elders are convinced that there is a legitimate cause for concern then they should report it to the police, and if necessary, not in the capacity as elders, to whom a confession or report has been made, but as congregation members who have come to know of a cause for concern. The reason why elders are to call legal is to see whether they are mandated reporters or not. This clergy penitence stuff should be abolished by the law, it is archaic and harmful. Unfortunately, the organization seems to think it has to abide by that law. One reason is that if an elder learns of a matter that has been disclosed in confidence to them by a victim, then the victim has the right to decide whether the matter should be taken to the police or not. Not the one to whom the matter was disclosed in confidence. It has to be remembered that just because an elder applies clergy confidentiality, this does not mean that anyone else in the congregation is bound by it. Anyone and everyone has the right to make a report, even if unsubstantiated! In many states, a person who has suspicions, which are later found to be unfounded, is protected by law and they cannot be sued for defamation. However, a person (elder) acting as clergy, who has broken the clergy penitence privilege, can be sued for divulging what has been told to them in confidence (in states where clergy privilege applies). This also applies to lawyers. If you disclose a private matter to a lawyer, that lawyer cannot go to the police without your consent, no matter the crime. Most of the lawsuits involve the debate whether at the time of disclosure, the elders were mandated reporters or not. This is the case of the Montana lawsuit. I discuss this in detail in the JW closed club. If the court decides that the elders were not mandated reporters, then the whole thing flies out of the window. In any case, personally I think that elders should not claim clergy penitence privilege regardless. They are not clergy. However, in the eyes of the legal system, their function is clerical....so you see, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. This is why he best thing would be if the law would do away with clergy penitence, period. One state legislator in Kentucky tried to get this law abolished in 2003, but it did not pass. Kentucky remains one of the clergy penitence states. This is what the article stated in part: January 10, 2003 FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A state legislator has outraged religious groups by introducing a bill that would abolish the right clergy now have to stay silent when they learn in a confessional that a child has been abused. The legislation strikes at a central Christian tenet that is also written into state law, guaranteeing confidentiality when priests or ministers are acting as spiritual advisers. "People are not going to violate their oath," said the Rev. Nancy Jo Kemper, a Protestant minister. "They'll go to jail." Kentucky already requires members of the public, including clergy, to notify civil authorities about child abuse if they learn about the wrongdoing outside of the confessional. But Democratic Rep. Susan Westrom, a former therapist who worked with abused children, felt the law should go further. Under her proposal, the "clergy-penitent privilege" would be eliminated only in cases of child abuse or neglect. The Catholic Conference of Kentucky said Westrom's legislation violated the First Amendment right of religious freedom. A similar bill proposed last year in Connecticut failed. "This is not a victims' rights issue," said Scott Wegenast, the conference's lobbyist in Frankfort. "It violates a tenet of our faith, the sacrament of penance, which is an absolutely confidential conversation between the penitent and a priest and it cannot abridged." Under church law, a priest who disclosed a confession could be excommunicated, Wegenast said. Kentucky has been hit especially hard by the sex abuse crisis that has battered the Catholic church nationwide. "No right is absolute, whether it's free speech or free assembly or free religion," David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "If an exception is to be made to the clergy-penitent privilege, I think this is a smart and good one to make." Like I said, this Bill did not pass. So today, 2019, if a disclosure is made to an elder in Kentucky in confidence, then the elder has no duty to report it to the police. Obviously anyone else can.

It couldn't have been. Why you ask? because it would make "Jehovah" sad.......( I was asking because you made the claim that it wasn't an elder when in fact you do not know. It makes your other arguments lose effect because one cannot be sure if you are just guessing. Not necessarily. Just because there is a lawsuit doesn't mean the plaintiff will win. It all depends on whether the court recognizes the law's self made problem, that of making clergy exempt from reporting. If it does, then elders cannot be blamed for not reporting. Of course this does not stop anyone else from reporting, which as has been seen, has been the case. I don't know. It's their word against Candace's. The elders claimed they were watching Kendrick, and that he did not go in service alone with any child. As for potential, then all members of the congregation should be watched as anyone has the potential to harm children. I don't remember being trained not to report a member of the congregation if I suspect them of committing a crime. I would like to make one thing clear, I personally welcome any change that helps to make children safer. I also have no doubts that all Jehovah’s Witnesses feel the same. If it means lawsuits is the way to go, then so be it, I am not against that at all. I believe the Australian Royal Commission helped in making JW child protection policies more transparent, and helped in some necessary changes and adjustments. The lawsuits are also helping in avoiding ‘mistakes’ and ‘oversight’ and are promoting extra vigilance in protecting children. If along the road there are ‘casualties’, since no court of justice always metes out justice, so be it if it helps a child. My arguments with the Candace Conti case was not to defend child molesters, (obviously!) but to fairly asses the case as far as it was possible for an amateur (me) (I have read all the hundreds of pages of the court transcript) and I have my own opinion on the Conti case. No one will really know the true story, however, I agree with you, that if it has helped others to come forward, then it is a good thing. And even IF some of those judgements end up wrong, it adds to the motive to protect children as far as humanly possible. And if it means that it restricts the freedom of adults (one elder told me that if he is using the rest room, and a young brother walks in, the elder leaves, and waits for the young brother to be done, before he walks back in, just so that there can never be any accusation) then so be it. And if it means a father cannot be alone with his own children then so be it. And if it means a mother cannot be alone with her own children so be it. Every adult and every relative, parent or step parent can be a potential child molester and a danger to their own children, step children and their children’s friends and should be watched so they are never alone with any child. After all, the ultimate goal is that no child is sexually molested in the first place, not just that a survivor gets compensated for the harm they have suffered.