Anna

This has nothing to do with the methods of obtaining confessions by the elders. I have only rarely heard of these methods being problematic. The spreadsheet indicates that only 58% of the alleged perpetrators made a clear confession.
I am saying only that at least 290 of those 579 reported confessions (50.1%) were not volunteered to a judicial committee due to remorse that followed soon after the sin/crime. These confessions happened most times after SEVERAL YEARS.
Imagine sitting in the same Kingdom Hall (or Book Study home) where your victim is also sitting and continuing to go on for years without ever admitting your crime. Or knowing that your crime has caused that person to leave the Organization and still not being bothered enough to confess until after an accusation is made years later and a judicial hearing is called. Imagine being in the same household pretending to be the spiritual head of the household in front of your wife and children knowing that you are abusing those same children, time after time, in some cases.
The most obvious cases where the perpetrator confessed, but not voluntarily, would be the 257 of those confessions that occurred after MULTIPLE children were abused by them. (I removed all the cases with just 1 victim or an Unclear number of victims.) With some of them, it was actually 10 or more children abused and their first abuse occurred when they were baptized publishers. For two others they began abusing when they were Ministerial Servants and still went on to abuse at least 10 victims each. With some elders, it was only after 2 or 3 or 5 or even 7 accusations that they finally confessed. Although they may have "voluntarily" confessed years later, i don't see this as a voluntary confession. No one is supposed to accept an appointment to be an elder without confessing to such crimes/sins that began after they were baptized.
With 44 alleged perpetrators where the confession was labeled "Unclear," these also had been accused of abusing MULTIPLE children. These 301 alone (257+44) )already puts us into the definition of MOST.
In all these cases the confession was about abusing at least ONE of the MULTIPLE children referred to in the accusation.
Even though this already covers enough of the numbers required to speak of MOST being involuntary there is a large number of additional cases which are based simply on the fact that there was no judicial hearing until years after the initial accusation of abuse. For these, of course, I removed those perpetrators whose first abuse was as a Non-Witness.
I should have mentioned before that I don't consider it a "voluntary" confession if a person waits years to confess it, or has continued to abuse MULTIPLE children before that confession. Even if just one child was abused, I think that waiting years until confessing at a judicial hearing (especially only after an accusation is made) doesn't count as voluntary.

So …. What happened to Tony Morris?
Can you give an executive summary in two paragraphs, with say, ten bullet points? Also in bold type so I can actually read it would be nice.
You have no idea how difficult this is on an Apple Watch.

Thanks for adding this. It validates the point I made earlier, and was also a point made on the Reddit link. It admits several important points.
First, it's the admission by the JW defense that NONE of the cases were ever turned in the authorities by the JW congregation even though at least SOME of the case files of abuse occurred in jurisdictions where there WAS a legal obligation for ministers of religion to report.
Also, it was clear that the Australian court had determined that MOST of the cases DID occur in jurisdictions where there WAS such a legal obligation.
It clearly admits that it was only the victims or others who reported. And that the only involvement of the elders was when victims or their families later decided to report, and in some of those instances the elders provided support.
We know from the BCH case that one elder did evidently come forward as a reluctant witness 11 years later to make a statement. But that statement is sloppy and not very supportive at all. He says he barely knew the perpetrator except for a very short time related to the judicial meeting he was called in to join. But he can't remember what year, or which daughter. He remembers two things the daughter said something about how the father had "interfered" with her, but can't remember the "extent of the interference." He appears to hide behind the excuse that he "can't remember the exact words" she used as a way to avoid discussing anything additional about her claim. In fact, he never even mentioned the second thing he said he remembered that the daughter had said.
In other words, he would confirm nothing that could even be supportive of a true claim of sexual abuse even though the elder was the chairman of the committee that disfellowshipped BCH for it - and justified that judgment to be correct even after appeal. Then this elder (Bennett) actually indicates at the end that he is there INVOLUNTARILY, which was already obvious by the way he didn't really support the victim claimant.
Who needs "support" of that kind?

This is the JW legal team attempting a very weak "negotiation" defense. It's easy to see that the data doesn't bear out the claim, however. With 221 of the 1,006 perpetrators, the data provided by "Jehovah's Witnesses Australia" admits that JW/WT cannot rule out the fact that the "two-witness rule" kept the case from moving forward to a judicial committee. This was a connection that the court (and even victimized JWs) have made between sexual abuse and the beliefs of JWs.
But there is an apparent skew in how that two-witness rule is used depending on the position of responsibility that the Witness holds. The two highest-level accusations that I have learned about, were actually left off the list altogether, and in at least one of those cases, the accused had no hearing and was promoted to a higher position within the Organization. For now, we can safely ignore this however since it was not in the ARC data. But the following are all from the Watchtower-provided data:
The only Circuit Overseer included on this list did not have a judicial case, and it is admitted that "YES" the two-witness rule kept this case from going forward to a judicial committee.  And there was, therefore, no reproof, demotion, or discipline of any kind reported.
Pioneer data I had here a few minutes ago was removed. Turns out it was 3 out of 8 whose cases may have been kept from going forward due to the two-witness rule. That's 37.5%.
Now we come to all the persons on the list known to be Elders at the time of their first accusation of child abuse. There were 38 such elders and for 16 of them -- that's 42% -- the data could not rule out that it was the two-witness rule that kept their case from going forward and therefore there was no judicial committee formed.
Now we come to the cases of the 65 who were Ministerial Servants at the time of their first accusation of child abuse. It drops down to 22% where the data admits that they could not rule out that it was the two-witness rule that kept their case from going forward and therefore there was no judicial committee formed.
Now we come to the cases of the 689 who were JW Parishioners (Baptized JWs who were not MS/Elder/Pioneer) at the time of their first accusation of child abuse, it drops a bit more, down to 20% where the data admits that they could not rule out that it was the two-witness rule that kept their case from going forward and therefore there was no judicial committee formed.
I didn't include those for whom it was unclear what their position in the congregation was at the time of their first accusation, but only a very few of them were definitely identified as servants or elders in other parts of the data. 
Technically, of course, the JW legal team didn't deny anything related to what I said above, but they only said that "The suggested findings by Counsel Assisting are problematic in the sense that, they often seem to assume a connection between child sexual abuse and beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses in circumstances where there is no obvious connection."
Those are typical lawyer "weasel words" that don't actually deny that there is a connection; they just claim that the connection is not obvious in SOME of the cases where the Court "often seemed to assume" one. For some persons, hardly anything is "obvious" which is the entire reason for investigations. This doesn't discount the fact that there were other cases listed where the connection was entirely and blatantly obvious.

Yes, please calm down JWI … and while you are at it, keep it secret behind closed doors … and don’t run with scissors … and don’t track mud across the nice clean agenda!

If "BHC" was a victim herself, and reported to the police, then is not related to the common claim about whether any congregation elders, the Branch, or legal representatives of the Branch, ever voluntarily reported any cases to the police. I guess I see your point, though. It's possible that someone could have found a way to add up any of the 1700+ cases that actually did finally make it to the police even if it was from victims themselves. Yet we already know that many of these reports happened many years after the congregation's and Branch documents showed that they already were aware of some of these cases, and had never reported them. Most of the time, the victims who reported also waited many years before reporting. If this is the case, then I am pretty disgusted with Holly Folk's false implication about the 383. I understand that they (at BitterWinter) want to build a niche audience supportive of "new religions" and their support is often helpful. But it should be done honestly or it isn't worth so much in the long run. 

(1 Corinthians 5:1) . . .Actually sexual immorality is reported among you, and such immorality as is not even found among the nations—of a man living with his father’s wife. 
Well, I agree that the fault lies with the perpetrator, but the shame falls on the whole of God's people. What are we to think of what Paul mentions to the Corinthians? Well, surely the Christians of that city would be criticized, it is most likely.
In fact, when we used to say to the victims something like: "don't report him so as not to bring reproach to the name of Jehovah" it was because, sadly, his name really did get dirty.
I also agree with the report that our site only presents positive information: successes, victories and achievements, but not the opposite. As a politician here in Spain said (and I'm sure it's the same everywhere) "others are already there to criticize us, we don't have to do it ourselves."
And I agree with the argument that we have used naivety in acknowledging the errors of the biblical writers as proof of the authenticity of the Bible.
I do not think it is debatable that at the Organization level there have been very few times where we have recognized doctrinal or other errors. And I prefer not to delve into this precise subject because he is one of the ones that hurts me the most.
Finally, with regard to Spain, from where I write, due to the fact that general elections have been called for next July, this tax exemption measure has been postponed, and we will see if with a new government it will be able to enter into force or not. A letter read to congregations this week acknowledged this situation.

The reproach of the abuser falls on the abuser, not the congregation. It was indeed a timely attitudinal shift. It’s a chapter that was in TTvtA, and now will have to be included somewhere else.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html

It's very difficult to make a presentation without showing bias. The things that are important to one person or group or religion are the thing reported, not the things that are much less important. This presentation above was extra careful to present only things that were factual, but even here a couple of biases slipped in.
For one thing, the narrator claims by strong implication that no changes to CSA policy were initiated in the wake of the Australian Royal Commission. This isn't true. First of all, Bro Jackson made some excellent points about how responsibility for CSA policies cannot just be one-sided where all blame appears to be put on an organization when the organization itself often has no blame in the matter. Primary blame is always on the perpetrators of the crime, but policies to deal with it include government and law enforcement policies. It's true that many individuals within the organization have not always followed the law, but the law itself is often inconsistent, and frankly, the authorities have not earned public trust.
The ARC pointed out some of these egregious mistakes and even cover-ups. But the truth is that CSA policies were updated CORRECTLY in the wake of the ARC, and there was also a kind of "public service announcement" that addressed a necessary attitudinal shift among Witnesses: There was to be no more thinking that covering up CSA crimes somehow protected the reputation of the organization. From now on the emphasis was on the fact that all the shame should be centered on the perpetrator. Also, there has been a heightened awareness and sensitivity to the legal issues and more legal personnel have been aiding the organization in this regard.
I get the impression that these new policies and emphasis have been working. There are fewer and fewer NEW cases being tried against JWs. There are many cases still being tried and pending, but they are nearly always from CSA reports that predate the updated policies.  

I don't know, James, sometimes accordians are cool...
 
😁
 
 

No, this is entirely wrong. Tharcisse would be much displeased with you. His writing says exactly the opposite of what you allege. How you can pull a “good people are in all religions” lesson out of his book is beyond me.
The non-Witness you may be thinking of is Tharcisse’’s own wife. She was not a Witness at the time of their trials but later became one. In her part of the saga—the same events are related by different participants—she says: 
“The stifling conditions, lack of sleep, scanty food, and darkness had a numbing effect on our minds. But one thing I knew: I, my husband, and all five of my children were alive because our Jehovah’s Witness friends had repeatedly risked their lives to save us. Their faith was like a rock. They lived for peace. No one could force them to use weapons against their neighbors, even those of a different ethnicity. They would sooner die than harm others. They were Hutu, just like the machete-wielding murderers who spilled rivers of blood. It pained me to think of it, but I knew in my heart that the vast majority of Hutu killers claimed to be Christian. Most of them belonged to my Catholic church.”
Did non-JWs help him? Yes. After the genocide, some academic non JWs encouraged and enabled him to publish his experience. And leading up to as well as during the genocide, one was never in danger from one’s own Tutsi tribe, only from the opposing Hutu tribe. And there was a very small Hutu religious component who held themselves back from the mass-murder. But holding oneself back is not the same as putting oneself forward to rescue a family in distress. The book’s foreword, written by a non-Witness professor of philosophy, acknowledges that the Seminega family survived “mainly because of help they received from their fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses who were Hutu.” It wasn’t ‘nice people in all religions putting their neck on the line’ for he and his family.

Some humor however is not appreciated.
Tuesday is kids night at the Golden Corral, and kids under a certain age are free or reduced price with a paying adult, for dinner.
So I asked the waitress, “… So you serve kids free or at a reduced price on Tuesdays, eh?”
She replied that they did.
I replied “Great!, I’ll take two, with barbecue sauce!”

I think the important points that you made in your post, Audrey what is that each person is an individual and there’s no homogenous this or that hiding under any societal label.
I was reading TTH‘s book last night about Putin and in the Forward it said there was a fellow that said “they call me crazy, but that was back when crazy meant something…… nowadays everybody is crazy“. (Paraphrased.).
I often visualize a flying saucer out off the solar ecliptic, bathing Earth in a “stupid ray”, affecting everyone.
Having this theoretical insight, it was a revelation that I was not immune.
We all take turns being a traumatic irritant or danger to someone else.
Yesterday at Golden Corral a large black man was about six tables away, laughing continually with friends so unbearably loud I could not think, and I was getting angry, but then I realized that was not his problem, it was my problem.
Others were trying to hide their anger also, but then I decided to share his joy of life, and was grinning ear to ear looking directly at him.
Others saw my grin and they started grinning and raising their eyebrows in recognition, and in six seconds it was all funny and enjoyable !
Much better than a knife and fist fight with those dinky Golden Corral serrated steak knives.

Good choices. Here is my book review of No Greater Love:
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/07/no-greater-lovehow-my-family-survived-the-genocide-in-rwanda-a-book-by-tharcisse-seminega.html

(Hey, @TrueTomHarley, just wanted to let you know we are adding your book to our homeschool curriculum for this year, since my kids tablets are connected to mine I shared the book with them and they are already enjoying it - my son liked the part "about the author" where you mentioned you have a brother who you play Scrabble with who cheats😆...Anyway, in addition to reading the Bible out loud together my kids and I read a life story together before bed at night, and during the school year we also read selected works by Jehovah's Witnesses out loud together, some of the books we've done that with are Facing the Lion by Simone Arnold Liebster, No Greater Love by Tharcisse Seminega, Faith on the March by A H Macmillan, and Beyond Courage by Robert Aros. Thanks for giving us another one to add to the list!☺️)

I'm enjoying it already...😁 (I love My Fair Lady, and beavers are cool😎)
 
"“Dam, dam, dam, dam!” to misquote Professor
Higgins. “They’ve grown accustomed to my face.” And I have
customers to face. How am I going to face them with a new book I
say is stellar when I have firmly planted the notion that I
originate rubbish? Someone should have told me the ebook needed
work. Then the present salvage would be unnecessary. That’s the
trouble with the friends—they’re either too polite to tell you that
your work stinks, or they have such a low bar of approval, happy to
read anything complimentary, that they don’t think it does. And no,
I did not misspell dam. I spelled it the friendly beaver way
for the sake of my people. Not only does the homonym not trigger
offense, but it puts in a plug for education. Everyone knows that
beavers are highly educated, graduates of Dam U, every one of
them.”  😆
Excerpt From
I Don't Know Why We Persecute Jehovah's Witnesses: Searching for the Why
Tom Harley
https://books.apple.com/us/book/i-dont-know-why-we-persecute-jehovahs-witnesses-searching/id1560211086
This material may be protected by copyright.
 
Thank you!☺️

You make your point based on rejection of 1914 as the beginning of the "parousia" and Jesus' reign as king. I also can't see how that idea fits the Biblical references to the parousia. But I believe Jesus was already enthroned much earlier, so it doesn't matter what happened specifically in 1914. Jesus WAS king in 1914 because he had already been raised up much earlier as the Davidic Messiah.
I noticed an earlier comment you made elsewhere where you reject the idea that Jesus became king when he sat down at the right hand of majesty. I understand that there are different ways to interpret "kingship" and "authority." But it's still a legitimate interpretation that Jesus already held his position as "king of kings and lord of lords" because he was given "all authority" at that time including a name which was above all rulers and principalities whether they be in heaven or on earth. Hebrews says that he had a crown at this time, a sceptre at this time, and a throne at this time, and that he was already of the order of Melchizedek who was both king and priest at the same time.
Revelation calls Jesus the "ruler of the kings of the earth." Paul shows that when Psalm 110 used the expression "sit at my right hand" that one should interpret that phrase as "rule as king." 
For Christ must reign [as King] until He has put all His enemies under His feet.
The examples of Jewish persons who worked for and supported gentile governments is not necessarily seen again in Christian times, where Christians owed their citizenship to the heavens and believed they were just temporary residents in this world.

When troubles come, the counsel in the movie is to obey the branch direction even if you don't understand.
They say that Jehovah will save you if you obey the branch no matter what, and there is fear instilled by certain scenes in the movie, to motivate by means of fear rather than love, that if you don't obey the branch direction, you will probably die.
The truth is that we need to obey Jehovah. Jehovah's direction is what will save us.
When people obey the branch without thinking and meditating on God's Word and comparing the direction of men with Jehovah's direction, well, it doesn't always work out well. Like what happened in Malawi.
 
It's easy to look back and say, "oh, it's not the Watchtower's fault the Malawi government was so mean."
But what if it's your kids next week when the branch sends direction that is in opposition to God's Word. Or when the branch sends direction that is based on a flawed understanding of scripture. Or a misapplication of scripture. Now what?
 
Jehovah has allowed kings in the past to make mistakes. He has allowed the people to follow those kings. Sometimes there were individuals who clung to Jehovah even when the leaders were not obeying Jehovah. 
 
Jehovah is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and truth.

I have no desire to get drawn into a conversation about what happened in Malawi, but I would say that (in my opinion) there was nothing wrong with the Watchtower's policy about not purchasing the political party card in Malawi. It was not the fault of the Watchtower that the government in Malawi pushed an agenda of extreme and vicious persecution upon good citizens of Malawi just because they had sound religious reasons not to purchase a political party card.

A veritable love-in between Boyle and JWI.
I never thought I’d live to see it.

First of all. Thanks for the sentiments in the previous post. I don't plan to focus much on things said here anymore, so you're right that it isn't really going to matter much whether those details about 2016 are explained to me or not. 
I've read what the editors of "DTIB" have said about genealogy and it's easy to understand. I also understand what it says about "generations" in those pages you referenced and in other parts of this same "Bible Dictionary." Also, I know that if someone did a search on the term "overlapping generations" among all the Bible commentaries and Bible dictionaries, the term almost never comes up at all except in this particular one: "Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible" (DTIB). And it only happens on page 244, the first page you quoted. Yes, it's "cool" and "unique" that someone can find a person with academic credentials who used the term "overlapping generations" but its very use here undermines the Watchtower teaching instead of helping to support it.
The problem, of course, is that the editor you recommended here (pp. 244-246), doesn't really believe the Bible's genealogies are trustworthy and accurate as actual genealogies. He prefers to see many of them as unhistorical. But that's typical of modern critical commentaries. However, he quotes Rendsburg who actually does argue that the genealogies of the Pentateuch are reliable and historical. And in that paragraph, he uses the phrase: "overlapping generations." He says that:
Rendsburg "has based his conclusions in part on the observable pattern of overlapping generations so that people of the same age need not be of the same generation."
But it's quite easy to see that this goes completely against what the Watchtower publications have tried to say about generations. In fact, it directly opposes what the Watchtower publications say.
The Watchtower publications NEVER use the expression "overlapping generations" with respect to the generation teaching, because our current teaching is the opposite. Our teaching is that even persons of widely different ages NEED to be part of the SAME GENERATION because Jesus said that "THIS GENERATION" (not "these generations") would not pass away. Our current teaching is that almost all of the people in the first part of the generation do not need to have their lives overlap with most of the people in the second part of that same generation. In fact, our current teaching is supposed to work out even if only ONE person among the thousands in that first part has a lifespan that overlaps with at least ONE person in the second part of that SAME generation. The infamous Splane chart even mentions the possibility that this ONE person might be, using a known example: Brother Frederick W. Franz. If FWF was indeed the last living person from the first group, then his lifespan, in the end, would only need to have overlapped with ONE remaining person from the second part of that same generation by the time the end of this system arrives. Our definition of the current teaching could allow for this even if that overlap had happened for only a few seconds and the overlapping person in the second group had never met or even known about FWF while FWF was alive. And then, by definition, this ONE GENERATION Jesus spoke of can only go on for as long as at least that ONE person from the second group, is still alive.
That might sound complex and I'm using an extreme example. But it's an example that fits the current teaching.
I'm personally not too concerned with whether this teaching is going to hold true, time-wise. It very well might. If it does, I don't think it's necessary that it was because the teaching was right. It could just be a coincidence if the end of this system comes tomorrow.
One reason I'm not too concerned is just based on the very nature of speculative teachings. If the teaching is now correct, then this means that it is the "truth." Yet, if someone believed and promoted this "truth" back in 2004, for example, then it would have been an apostate teaching at that time. Speculative teachings are always this way: they could be an apostate teaching, then a true teaching, then they might become an apostate teaching again in the near future.
I'm not saying the Watchtower is wrong. But I'm not personally concerned with our more speculative teachings. And this one is the kind that creates a range of dates, which, to my conscience, goes against what Jesus and Paul said about not needing anything to be written to us about the times and seasons. These things are in the Father's jurisdiction, not ours.
We should be more concerned with what type of person we ought to be knowing that the end could come at any time.

Not even that one

@JW Insider I'm going thru all the comments on this thread but it will take me a while. My preliminary judgment is that I don't think "practical" covers the role and office of those taking the lead.
We all agree Jehovah , being omnipotent, could have done it in any way he saw fitting.  He could have set up His Congregation such that it had no hierarchy (brothers taking the lead), and each man was guided entirely by the holy spirit through his own reading of the Bible. But that seems entirely unfitting to human nature. As @TrueTomHarleyhas commented in some of his writings.  We are social/political beings by nature, and our nature is expressed in societies, as Aristotle explains in his Politics. From the family, to the local community, to the state. Just as marriage has a head of the home, and a company has one CEO, and our country has one president, it seems quite strange that for any other community hierarchy it's a necessity,  but not when it comes to Jehovah's family (the congregation).
@Anna In regards to the suspicions @Witness mentions, the Scriptures teach and speak of the importance of the strong helping the weak. That is the purpose of the hierarchy, that those who have God given authority, might serve those entrusted to them. The worldly (fallen) notion of authority is one of domination and tyranny, but that's not the way Jehovah has created hierarchy in the family, and in the Congregation. Of course a tyrant does not serve those whom he rules. But tyranny is an abuse of government, not it's proper use. The true ruler of any society serves that society through his leadership. Hence, when Jesus says that the Apostles should not “lord it over” them, as the Gentiles do, Jesus is not contrasting leadership in the Kingdom with the way leadership in the state should be (as though civic leaders should not serve those whom they lead). Jesus is instead contrasting leadership in the Kingdom with the way leadership in the state often is, tyrannical. 
Also, I don't see a contradiction between Christ being the head of the Congregation, and the Governing Body being the head of the Congregation, so long as we are very clear that the word ‘head’ is being used in two distinct senses. Christ or ultimately Jehovah, is the head of the Congregation, because He is the Congregation’s source, life, highest authority, and end. But the Governing Body is the representative of Christ, under His authority but acting in His authority as steward of the Congregation until Christ returns. So the Governing Body is the head of the Congregation in a different sense than Christ is the head of the Congregation. The Governing Body is subordinate to Christ. But Witnesses are subordinate to Christ by being subordinate to the Governing Body, as Jesus said, “Whoever listens to you listens to me. And whoever disregards you disregards me also. Moreover, whoever disregards me disregards also Him who sent me.”(Luke 10:16) If it were true that no one could speak for Christ without undermining Christ’s unique authority, this verse could not be in the Bible. This verse (along with others) shows how Christ’s delegation of authority in His Congregation does not undermine His unique authority, but allows others to participate in it, in a subordinate way.
 

I can understand why we thought that the evil slave came from the ranks of the faithful slave. At first glance the scripture does suggest that this could happen, so then when the schism came after Russell’s  death, that became a logical conclusion. And then with the apostasy in the early 80’s at Bethel, the scripture could be applicable again.  
I can also get the new understanding as per WT 2013. In fact, in my mind, it places even more responsibility on the GB/Slave as “His words here are actually a warning directed to the faithful and discreet slave”. For that reason I do not feel this “new” teaching is trying to somehow avoid the potential for suspicion or questioning the GB. In fact it is saying that theoretically it is possible, albeit not realistic. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but if the whole of the GB/slave became apostate, that would defeat the purpose of the role Jesus assigned the GB/slave in the first place. Although of course if that did happen, Jesus would find a way around that. But why complicate things, instead, going back to what I mentioned earlier, it is a grave warning to the GB/Slave. I think that makes more sense.

Interesting to see another Haitian person on here, I am Haitian/Belizean, the Haitian side of the family is out of St. Marc, Ayiti, raised there for a good chunk of my life on God's green earth. But you'll have to join groups, if you are one of JWs, you'll have to go to the JW only group.
@Anna or @JW Insider should be able to help you with that.