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Dutch parliament not satisfied with minister's letter about JW abuse


Jack Ryan

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26 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

There is not a New Testament writer who does not deal, sometimes at length, with apostasy. 

Is that because the first century governing arrangement screwed it up, too?

I was discussing the comparison between the two court systems.

A valid charge of apostasy assumes that the people "with the bayonets" have it right ... which is not often the case.

Please tell me how the Congregational Court System worked among Christians in the first century.

Only with real data could I possibly know the answer to your question.

...  I DO know what we have NOW.

 

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This is an interesting concept and has a bit more to it than it's context. For the congregation, in the absence of an alternative, there is a 2 witness rule. Now the debate about what does or sho

I can't for the life of me see why this kind of topic should be presented in such a sinister and threatening manner. At the worst, investigations could reveal nothing.  At the best, evil peo

They did as a whole, however the problem was the total misapplication of 1 Corinthians 6:5-7 by some elders. I personally know of an instance where the elder advised to keep the matter away from secul

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On 7/4/2018 at 7:15 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

The reason abuse is linked with Jehovah's Witnesses is that they have a policy of investigating it, along with all other types of wrongdoing.

This might be partially true, but I have not seen the evidence that there is a direct link between JW investigations and the linking of child abuse with Witnesses. We now have a couple sources of some data that goes back quite a ways and lets us know the number of cases that were investigated each year as a percentage of the population of JWs in a particular place where the data comes from. Even though the data sometimes goes back several decades, I see a very sparse number of cases from the earliest decades, and they often don't show up at all unless it was part of an ongoing series of accusations for a person who shows up as still having accusations from more recent decades.

If the JWs had been investigating child abuse, and had rooted out two or three persons per decade from every congregation in the world, the total numbers would appear astronomical to those who merely want to spin an idea based on embarrassing numbers. (As the number of congregations rose, so would the total numbers rise proportionally in more recent decades.) Yet, the numbers themselves would be easy to explain in these terms. From the perspective of the investigations, the complaint is not the number itself, or even the proportion of accusations as compared with say Catholics (or colleges, or Olympic trainers, or ballet schools, or the Boy Scouts of America, etc.)

The focus of outsiders has almost always included a need to investigate the process of our investigations. Our process produces questions that make outsiders cringe. How was it that in Australia the number of cases of sexual abuse that the Watchtower had admitted were on the order of "thousands" and the number that ended up being reported to the police were on the order of "zero"? How was it that persons in positions of authority had sometimes been given a pass to work with children again, and even had multiple accusations of child sexual abuse on their record? How was it that "the two-witness rule" could sometimes result in children being told that they cannot ever mention the fact that their abuser had abused them without the threat that children themselves could be accused of slander? How was it that in at least one case the accused sexual abuser who would later admit that he had threatened further harm to the child if the child turned him in, was still told that they had to meet face-to-face with such an accuser? And even when they did, the child was told that practically nothing could be done against the abuser, even when the elders on the judicial committee believed the child?

I think you will find that these questions, in their own way, come up in many non-JW cases, too. But we have a "process" that sometimes has "demanded" (in effect) that a JW investigation will turn out this way.

We are definitely not the only ones with the problem of trying to save the reputation of an organization and, because of that, forgetting about fighting for justice with respect to our "orphans." That is a subtext of many of these crimes in many different types of organizations. When it appears to an elder on a committee that we have an opportunity to either protect Jehovah's name or allow it to be sullied if the case were to make it to the police (or press) then this tendency will easily translate into protecting the accused, instead of protecting the victim. We may even have a greater tendency toward making this mistake because we think the stakes are so much higher in protecting Jehovah's name, than those on the outside who are trying to protect, for example, the reputation of a teacher in a school.  

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14 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

That means that Theocratically, we can trust the judgement of the secular authorities judicial system MORE THAN OUR OWN.

This is an interesting concept and has a bit more to it than it's context.

For the congregation, in the absence of an alternative, there is a 2 witness rule. Now the debate about what does or should constitute the 2 witnesses is being tested elsewhere.

But what is it to accomplish? That one judged as guilty as charged and unrepentant is excluded from the congregation. Pretty pathetic sanction when compared with the gravity of the crime wouldn't you say? Aw, the poor little molester's relatives won't talk to him no more What a shame.....not.

There are probably other crimes that could be similarly characterised. The congregation today only has a spiritual role and the sanctions against crime can only be handled in that context. Isn't that why Romans 13:4 says current secular governments serve as "God's minister", and "it is not without purpose that it bears the sword"?

There is no need for 2 witnesses to report an allegation of child abuse to the secular authorities, although the inconsistencies of requirements and conflicting legislation make it very prudent for legally-inexperienced congregation elders to seek legal advice in carrying out this action where it is not specifically mandated.

The congregation is simply neither authorised nor equipped to carry out the kind of investigation and victim support needed, or to try, and if found guilty, impose sanctions that God's secular minister has within their remit  at this time. And if God's secular minister finds such a perpetrator guilty of a crime of this nature, then we can trust that the finding is sufficient once the appeal process has been exhausted. The perpetrator, if found guilty, has carried out a henious crime and will likely find that the hands of Caesar are a lot rougher in the short term than the hands of Jehovah via the current congregational structure, to which stoning is no longer an option.

So it will always be true that Theocratically, we can trust that Jehovah's current arrangement, which allows for the secular authorities to execute judicial decisions, is always going to be better than our own. And, thankfully, they answer to him, not us, as how they are discharging their responsibility.

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14 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

For thousands of years, the Jews had a court system that was completely public, open, and transparent, and in the City Gates, where anyone could observe, and SEE if Justice was being done ...  see who was telling the truth, and see who was lying.

There is definitely a principle of transparency that is lost even in some Western judicial systems. There is one type of case, which is often used as a case against such transparency in child sexual abuse cases. These are cases of incest. It is believed that irreparable harm is brought to the child victim if such cases were completely out in the open. Of course, as these cases go to criminal courts, the accusations become known anyway. For us, (Witnesses) it's also been a matter of learning that some sins are also crimes, even if we hadn't really treated them that way in the past.

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On 7/4/2018 at 3:51 PM, Anna said:

I am so pleased we have a concise, transparent document now which informs not just the elders, but also the publishers and anyone else of how cases of child abuse should be handed. Every one can be on the same page now. I particularly like par. 10

Yes, indeed. I'm very happy about this too.

On 7/4/2018 at 3:51 PM, Anna said:

They did as a whole, however the problem was the total misapplication of 1 Corinthians 6:5-7 by some elders. I personally know of an instance where the elder advised to keep the matter away from secular authorities lest it brought shame to Jehovah. That was the attitude of some in the 80's as far as I know.

I've seen this happen for other types of abuse (1983, 1995, 2005), but have never personally seen it happen in a case involving child sex abuse. My father (in the 1970's) was part of a judicial committee that had to try to get a Witness disfellowshipped as fast as possible when police picked him up for a crime that would ultimately result in jail then prison time and, of course, some very bad press. The goal was to make sure that by the time the papers might have picked up on the fact that he was associated with our congregation, we could honestly say that he was a former Witness. This directive came directly from Harley Miller, who as head of the Service Department in those days, was sometimes considered to be "the Society." Elders at the time would actually joke that when someone said, "The Society says this or that" on policy, that they meant "Harley Miller says this or that" on policy.

My father complied because the person really had sort of slipped out of the purview of the congregation and had been known for drunkenness and running (riding) with a questionable crowd of worldly people, some of whom had been in trouble for robbery, B&E, etc. Had they bothered to follow up with him at earlier junctures they might have disfellowshipped him then too. I brought this up as a question at Bethel in '76 and was told that there "many" cases like this. But Harley Miller is now considered to have been very "old school" and harsh in his tactics. While he was the running the service department however, I could see a potential counter-claim to what you say here:

On 7/4/2018 at 3:51 PM, Anna said:

It was never the policy of the society on the whole though.

Another reason that could call this claim into question is that I have it from a reliable (Witness) source that the Society had already paid out "millions of dollars" long before Barbara Anderson went on that 20/20 program to expose a sexual abuse problem among the Witnesses. A primary goal, I'm told, was to pay for silence among victims.

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23 hours ago, Anna said:

That was the attitude of some in the 80's as far as I know.

"In 1987, Cleveland social workers and pediatricians removed over 100 children from their families suspected of sexual abuse. Public outcry was such, fueled by media cries alleging ‘overzealous’ and ‘intrusive’ agency overreach, that most were promptly returned, despite credible evidence of abuse. Lucy Delap, writing for History and Policy, credits ‘feminist campaigners’ with making the protection of children a priority, and states that “clear guidelines for best practice were not established until the 1990s.”  (from Dear Mr. Putin...)

It is the height of dishonesty to measure yesterday's sins by today's standards, yet this is usually the rule when zealots get into the act.

Frankly, child abuse that fell short of rape was once one of those things that children were thought to bounce back from rather easily. Even Richard Dawkins, in his book 'The God Delusion" maintains this view,. He has learned to keep his mouth shut about it so as not to infuriatie those who are, in many respects, his allies.

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2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I have it from a reliable (Witness) source

I would like to trust this (the reliability of the source that is) but .......no..... I'm too suspicious of reliable (Witness) sources..I need all the w's before I even start weighing it up. Proverbs 14:15 "The inexperienced one believes anything," ?

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4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

This might be partially true, but I have not seen the evidence that there is a direct link between JW investigations and the linking of child abuse with Witnesses.

Well, I think it is no more than common sense. If someone abuses a child and both happen to be Presbyterian, will that connection ever make media reports? If it happens right there in the church, yes, or if it is in some church-sponsored retreat. But if it happens in pure social settings, when is the connection made? In Witness cases, however, the connection is always made. Most cases are in settings having nothing to do with the Kingdom Hall, yet the proactive organization investigates wrong conduct regardless of where it occurs.

 

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

The focus of outsiders has almost always included a need to investigate the process of our investigations.

Yes. Would that they would also consider that Jehovah's Witnesses were virtually alone in making them during the time period in question.

When Star Fleet command feels it necessary to discipline Capt James T Kirk    (not Rook) and crew, they take into account that he was "boldly going where no one has gone before."

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

then this tendency will easily translate into protecting the accused, instead of protecting the victim.

 

There is no question that victims have suffered and do suffer. It is legally enabled and it is a consequence of "innocent until proven guilty.' "Innocent untli proven guilty" could be, and increasingly is, spun as "protecting the accused, rather than protecting the victim." 

In fact, the bad guy does not always get nabbed, preferable though that outcome would be.

When the offense is vile enough, people say: "To hell with evidence ... we want to see someone behind bars.' Some prosecutors even seek to make names for themself, sending people up on evidence they know is sketchy. The 'justice' that JTR worships yields to this influence all the time. That is why countless innocent persons are now being released from prison now through DNA evidence, a circumstance that he had no answer to, so he declared it spectacularly irrelevant.

I am pleased, as are you and Anna, that our organization has revised some procedings to greater approach absolute justice, elusive though that quality is in any dealings human. And yes, it is accomplished, it appears, though prodding of the greater world. And no, it does not satisfy them, because in the case of those who despise Jehovah's Witnesses, it does not remove the real source of the problem: Jehovah's Witnesses.

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26 minutes ago, Gone Away said:

I would like to trust this (the reliability of the source that is) but .......no..... I'm too suspicious of reliable (Witness) sources..I need all the w's before I even start weighing it up. Proverbs 14:15 "The inexperienced one believes anything," ?

I agree with the sentiment. I have been fooled by "reliable sources" in the past. And even the most reliable source might only be repeating something because they heard it from one or more reliable sources, which might themselves turn out to have placed unwarranted trust in unreliable sources. Or our reliable source may have misunderstood their reliable sources at any weak link in the chain. 'Let God be true though every man be proved a liar.'

It bears repeating that everything stated here is a kind of opinion, even if we state it as if it is a proven fact. Even common sense deductions don't always hold up. Even "proven facts" don't always hold up.

There are rules of evidence, logic and reason that make some deductions better than others, but that doesn't mean the conclusions are necessarily more correct than others.

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38 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

In Witness cases, however, the connection is always made.

I think the connection is made too often in our cases that reach the media. The vast majority of cases never make the media, nor law enforcement.

But the connection is NOT always made. A brother sent me a list of Australian newspaper articles related to cases that had been investigated and which had recently been turned over to the police. I think it provides good evidence that the connection is not always made even where I would have thought there was a perfectly legitimate journalistic reason for doing so.

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1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

If someone abuses a child and both happen to be Presbyterian, will that connection ever make media reports?

I have a subscription to newspapers.com and just decided to do a quick search on Presbyterian church child sexual abuse. But even without a subscription you can do this search and at least see that the newspapers in their library produce this result:

  • View all 112,267 matches for Presbyterian Sexual Abuse

I did the exact same search on Jehovah's Witnesses Sexual Abuse and got this:

  • View all 3,787 matches for Jehovah's Witnesses Sexual Abuse

Per Google there are now about the same number of Jehovah's Witnesses in the USA as Presbyterians: 1,415,053 active members (2017) -- Presbyterian Church (compared with about 1,200,000 Jehovah's Witnesses).

But I also found this relevant write-up from a Google Search on the same:

https://religionnews.com/2014/06/20/denomination-confronts-child-sexual-abuse-positive-step-forward/

I'm reposting larger than usual excerpts from that article below about a Presbyterian acknowledgment, process and procedure to deal with child sexual abuse, apparently from about 2013 or 2014:

  • There are some days when I am thrilled to report positive developments within the Protestant world about the slow but steady shift taking place on issues relating to child sexual abuse.  Just a few years ago, there was very little private or public discourse within most Protestant circles about abuse within the Church. Besides the ignored cries of survivors and a few advocates, public acknowledgment and dialogue on this subject was off limits.  As a result, children continued to be at risk in our churches and survivors continued to be silenced through blame and false pity.
  • In the past year, I have encountered more and more folks who are beginning to realize that the Church has been largely silent — and this silence has had excruciatingly dark and grave consequences for countless individuals and for the very soul of the Church.  Through some amazing (and many very painful) set of circumstances, I believe a growing number within the Protestant community are finally beginning to realize that there is an epidemic of child sexual abuse within the Church and that silence and inaction are unacceptable.

. . .

  • This acknowledgment was demonstrated this past week when the entire General Assembly (annual meeting of pastors) of the theologically conservative Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) unanimously and publicly adopted Overture 6 – perhaps the most robust statement on child protection adopted by any Christian denomination.  . . .
  • This statement doesn’t pull any punches.  Not only does it acknowledge that child sexual abuse is an epidemic in our culture, it concludes that the silence of the church renders it complicit before God.  It urges all church leaders to use their influence to protect children, including preaching and teaching against child sexual abuse and exposing those who abuse.  It is also significant that this resolution implores the church to compassionately support survivors.
  • Perhaps the most important and unique aspect of this adopted resolution is its call for action. It directs the various departments of the denomination to review their policies and practices related to the protection of children and the response to abuse disclosures.  They are also directed to develop future plans on how to help educate the denomination on issues related to child sexual abuse.  In order to prevent these denomination transforming tasks from disappearing into oblivion, this resolution requires a full report at next year’s meeting.
  • Don’t get me wrong, we still have a very long way to go in the Christian world when it comes to protecting the vulnerable and embracing the hurting.  I was reminded of this when I read the results of a newly released survey that found 74% of faith leaders underestimate the level of sexual and domestic violence experienced within their congregations.  . . .  This same Christian organization hired a friend of the leader to conduct a “thorough review process” of the abuse allegations and concluded that God still desires to use this individual “for His work in the Kingdom of God.”
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30 minutes ago, JW Insider said:
  • View all 112,267 matches for Presbyterian Sexual Abuse

I did the exact same search on Jehovah's Witnesses Sexual Abuse and got this:

  • View all 3,787 matches for Jehovah's Witnesses Sexual Abuse

Are these repeat or individual reports?

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