JW Insider

I notice that the date is highlighted on this police form above. Notice that it was 11/10/2000 that "Elder Bennett" gave a statement to "Police Officer Bennett." But look at the ARC exhibits here: https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/exhibits-case-study-29 and select the document: Report of Appeal Committee regarding [BCH]. If you download it you will see the following: But this letter is dated: July 1989. This was evidently more than 11 Years before Charman Bennett gave a statement to the police.

Seriously? If anyone started to upvote me the way your doppelgangers upvote you, I'd complain to them that they were spamming, and that, when used excessively, it can give the appearance of unfair bias or sometimes even "mockery" or something "pathetic" instead of agreement. For comparison, here's a screenshot of what Ray's activity on your own profile looked like, all from that same three-minute spamming spree mentioned above: I think the word "pathetic" comes to the mind of most persons who Witness this kind of thing here.

Looks like Peter Carroll was correct, @Fausto Hoover. According to your Ray Devereaux profile, [ https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/profile/18582-ray-devereaux/ ] you hadn't brought "Ray" out do your spamming work for you for over 2.2 years, per that post from Srecko back in March 2021. As usual, per all your previous spamming patterns, it's easy to guess who your "Ray" has down-voted, and who your "Ray" has up-voted, without even opening the link above to see the actual posts the following screenshot refers to. I know I had promised you I wouldn't keep exposing your multi-personality tactics, and I've kept that promise for nearly two years now. But this one had already been exposed by others. And it also made me realize that this is all a game to you anyway, and it really does you no harm to expose you. After all, you already admitted that "someone" will just come back under a different name in the worst case: i.e, if any admin happens to discover this latest flailing of yours, for example. Anyway, I'm not asking that you get banned again over this practice. I think it actually helps everyone see through your tactics. I hope they leave you to own devices and machinations. If I continue to respond on this topic, it's not because I care whether or not you agree. It's just that there are others here who see how serious this topic is, and don't think all of it is part of a game. unnecessarily edited 2 hours later to add: P.S. Just thought I'd quickly check to see all the emoji activity on your own account while Ray was on that 3 minute spamming spree. Looks like you did pretty well this time, almost as many upvotes as last time: Unfortunately, this software doesn't keep track of such iconic activity for more than a few hours, so I thought I'd check your profile before they disappeared. https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/profile/20274-fausto-hoover/?wr=eyJhcHAiOiJmb3J1bXMiLCJtb2R1bGUiOiJmb3J1bXMtY29tbWVudCIsImlkXzEiOjkwNjEzLCJpZF8yIjoxODMzNDl9 and that's where I got the above screenshot.

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.

I don't promote these numbers to be true at all. I can only refer to the numbers that show up in the documents that were, for a time, all available on the ARC website. I have no way of verifying if those numbers are correct. I can only verify what numbers I have seen within those documents. The documents could be completely without merit for all I know. I have made it pretty clear that it is NOT my contention that the information is true. It could be a lot worse than these numbers purport, or it could be a lot better. All I have is the data provided. This is why my focus was on where that claim of "383 cases reported to the police" came up. It wasn't in any early discussions of the ARC. I didn't see it in any ARC documentation. I vaguely recalled a claim that some [more recent] cases really had been reported to the police, but no one made a claim that reports related to the 1.006 perpetrators came from the Witnesses, or from the Branch, or from congregation Elders. From what I can see so far, it was first on Bitterwinter many years after the ARC hearings. I assumed I must have missed that key piece of data, and it would be very useful data to prove bias on the part of the Australian court. I'm not at all concerned about whether you agree with Jehovah's Witnesses who report 1,006 perpetrators vs those who read it as 1,006 cases of CSA. Your Bitter Winter "Holly Folk" link does not deny that they were "perpetrators." On the link you provided, she says: Based on this document, the media reported that there had been 1,006 perpetrators who had committed sexual crimes in Australia . . . I have no stake one way or another as to whether these numbers are correct, and it's a bit late to try to get a retraction from Holly Folk, or to get a retraction from all the JWs and non-JWs who reported those numbers as they read them. You referred to some contention over the numbers, and you indicated that JWs are making a "false claim" when they read this as 1,006 perpetrators. Against that supposedly "false claim" you said: Yes, the exhibit information is there in my post." And you said: "My exhibit of the ARC document proves my point ." I looked for that exhibit and found nothing that counters the numbers provided by other Witnesses, or the Branch numbers, or Holly Folk. It turned out that your exhibit had nothing to do with the numbers you claimed were false. It had to do with the timing of certain CSA policies.

Sorry. I didn't see your exhibit of the ARC document. Is it in this thread?

Deflating them is unwise, too. That's a very odd, and unsubstantiated accusation. I'm not the original author. Just as I would not claim that you are somehow the author of the incorrect information about only 1,006 "cases." That same misinformation had been spread dozens of times before you repeated it. It's not your fault. Also, I have never made a comment on reddit, or do I have an account there anyway. So the JW defender who happens to disagree with you, is NOT me. He just happens to agree with me and he happens to agree with the ARC data provided by the Watchtower Branch.

The problem here was that much of the data came from a time when the victim really was forced to confront the accused. And there was evidence that it had happened since 1999, too. And the elders testifying at the ARC didn't help when they wouldn't reject the old policy. And of course, a similar problem happened when the elders, even Bro. Jackson himself wouldn't completely reject the court's understanding of how we implement the two-witness policy.

The thing is, it never was 1,006 cases [instances]. It was 1,006 perpetrators, per the numbers the Watchtower Branch provided to the ARC. It was always at least 1,732 cases, per the numbers the Watchtower Branch provided to the ARC. 1,006 "cases" was just a very common sloppy reading of the numbers. I saw it being misreported that way on the first day of the ARC hearings. Only a few people corrected it. I recalled the number vaguely because when I saw people making the correction, I looked it up myself to make sure it was right before commenting on it. Although I have looked at my notes, I still haven't got out my old computer with the files (and I don't plan to for at least a week). But I did find a site (unfortunately it is generally an anti-JW site) and that site has numbers that pretty much match all my own notes from MS-OneNote. I won't link to it, but you could look up any of the lines in Google and would probably find it easily: I don't know if every statement is true. I don't even know if the Watchtower Branch provided all the data. (In fact, I heard from the Australian brother that several Witnesses were already suspicious when some notorious cases were missing from the Gold Coast, Queensland area.) At any rate, here is their summary of the ARC data that generally matched my own notes taken directly from the ARC data: There was at least 1732 children who were sexually abused. Over 650 of those children were abused by family members. At least 170 of the children sexually abused were under the age of 5. There was 1006 alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse within the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Of that number, 15 were women. 579 of the alleged abusers confessed to their crime(s). 306 did not. Of the remaining 121, it’s unclear whether they confessed or not. 95 of the alleged child abusers were not Jehovah’s Witnesses when they committed their first sexual abuse. 65 of the alleged child abusers were ministerial servants; 42 were elders; 8 were pioneers; and 1 was a circuit overseer. At least 56 ministerial servants and 27 elders were deleted from their roles. 6 elders and 2 ministerial servants were re-appointed to their roles. Over 33 ministerial servants, 13 elders and 1 pioneer were disfellowshipped. 14 ministerial servants, 4 elders and 1 pioneer were convicted for Child Sexual Abuse by the Australian authorities, yet 3 of those elders and 3 of those ministerial servants were never disfellowshipped for their crimes. Not a single instance of Child Sexual Abuse was ever reported to the authorities by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Sure. I had added that information to a post a ways back, but I added it by editing the post almost 3 minutes after I first posted it and you had already responded to before seeing the edit. Here it is: I have the docs on another laptop I stopped using because it was giving me problems. But I did keep notes in OneNote which I can retrieve on any computer. It's not the source, but it says 1,006 perpetrators and 1,732+ children. When I looked up your link I also noticed that a person identifying as a JW on Reddit is defending against the potential exaggerations. He admits the same thing here: https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/a6cmmo/an_answer_from_a_jw_regarding_the_arc_1006_cases/ He (or she) says:

Thanks. I didn't go too far down the reddit hole to figure out where the person who made the comment was coming from. He seems not to always be very careful with the numbers and his understanding. But anyway, it's clear that his source is Holly Folk, and perhaps someday I will try to find out what HER source was. Perhaps there was a review of statistics coming from the ARC that I missed. At any rate, if the number came from the ARC, then that doesn't provide ammunition against the ARC for bias -- and that was what I was looking for. But if the numbers came from elsewhere, I'd love to know who gave them to Holly Folk and if she quotes a source.

Thanks. I had read the Holly Folk article on bitterwinter some time ago, and I forgot that number 383 reported because Holly Folk was extremely careful to say things that were supportive of the Watchtower's position, yet she seemed to have carefully worded that line so that it didn't actually say that it was the congregations that had reported those 383 incidents. Her article only tried to imply it was the congregation who reported these incidents by saying the 383 was evidence there wasn't a cover-up. Obviously someone had reported them. But there were no reports that Witnesses had ever reported any. Remember that some of these cases were listed in the database because when a CURRENT case comes up in a congregational judicial matter, the accused may admit to crimes prior to even becoming a Witness. The same issue has come up in the United States where persons previously convicted of CSA crime have become Witnesses only later in life, but their confessions even to prior crimes would be included in a record of some kind so that the elders would know what to watch out for. Some current Witnesses have even served time in their past for previous convictions. Obviously, anything that resulted in a conviction had been reported somewhere, whether a teacher, a bartender, a friend of the victim, a non-Witness parent, or a Witness who went against counsel from the elders. What I was saying before was that I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are skewed somehow. It's hard to believe that of 1700 incidents and 1000 perpetrators, not one JW would report.

Yes. There is. Hopefully, you can help with that Reddit source for the 383 incidents you mentioned. Thanks.

Yes, I can. I'll look it up again. I saved the spreadsheet that the ARC had as one of their documents along with a lot of other documents they had on their site. If you can provide the source I asked about (those 383 cases), I will go look up the sources again. If memory serves, however, it was 1006 perpetrators and about 1700+ children. (Many perpetrators are reported to abuse more than one child over long periods of time.) Over a third of the cases were related to their abusers, although this does not always fit the term "incest" which I used rather loosely above. Also although a 20-year time frame covered MOST of the cases, there were several outliers that went further back. I think there might have even been a case where a perpetrator might have admitted to starting his crime spree as early as 1938.

I wouldn't be surprised at this. Do you have a source? Is there a reason that the Watchtower lawyers forgot to include this in any kind of defense? I heard a rumor about this too but was surprised that it took so many years for this rumor to begin circulating. But it seems reasonable, and if it were just made up by someone, I'm sure they would have picked a higher number. After all, 1000 perpetrators and at least 1500 unreported cases versus nearly 400 reported incidents is still embarrassing. I'm sure privacy issues were a part of this too, especially in cases of incest, where family members and even victims often insist that nothing is reported to authorities. I now know one of the Australian CSA victims personally, and he says that many cases are about incest, but his own was not. (For him, it was multiple instances of rape over a period of a couple of years. When a young friend of his finally talked him into turning in his rapist, the elder threatened him with blackmail based on lies. ) But I'm all too aware of the old policies of protecting the reputation of the organization (aka, not bringing reproach upon Jehovah's name). My sister went through this with a physically abusive husband and was threatened with discipline herself if she let hospital personnel become aware of her true reasons for being treated. Not nearly so traumatic was my own experience when a Bethelite stole my money on his last day at Bethel. I confided the issue to an elderly brother who lived next door and he and several elders at Bethel wanted me to let it go, not say a word, and they would get the Home Office to refund it. But I took my cue from Brother Knorr who was publicly dismissing at least one Bethelite a week for theft during this time by announcing their dismissal and reasons for it at Morning Worship. So I thought it better to contact the elders in his congregation. I ended up getting the money back. But I wasn't worried about the money. I knew my parents or my brother would replace it in an instant. I think I was just angry at the thief and wanted him to face the music.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I probably haven't kept up enough with things being said recently, so I don't really know what you're asking about. A few months ago, I always tried to read almost everything that everyone would write on this forum. I did this for a few years here but decided it was a bit excessive even though this forum is relatively small. I have read only a very small percentage of posts for about two months now. So I don't really know what you are talking about when you ask if I and BroRando did the numbers. I don't know anything about the significance of 2016 or the "Alpha Generation." I've read that the Alpha generation refers to people born after the year 2000, who are therefore currently about 23 years old or less. I don't recall reading anything from BroRando about 2016 or the Alpha Generation. I am hopeful that the end of this wicked system comes soon, but I have never believed in trying to tie the future fulfillment of prophecies to specific dates. I'd go so far as to say it's unchristian to get overly involved in such speculation about the times and seasons. But I do understand the desire to peer into such things and always want to learn more about the fulfillment of prophecy. I'm intrigued about whatever you mean about me "doing the numbers" "2016" "Alpha Generation" and whatever you meant by my "reference." I'm sure I didn't refer to any of those things, so I wondered what you meant by that.

I know that the excerpt I just re-quoted here was for another poster, but it reminded me that you hadn't answered my question yet. Please let me know if you intend to answer the question about which part of that article on pages 244-246 gave the "insight" you wanted people to see. (I'm guessing that you meant "insight" that might have supported the current teaching about the "generation" that is sometimes misnamed: the "overlapping generations" doctrine.)

I delved into the insights of this article. At least, I read it and found it very easy to understand. But didn't see why you recommended it. Did you think it was supportive of the so-called "overlapping generation" theory, or non-supportive. And in either case, was there something specific in that article you wanted to highlight? If so, where? Here's the 2005 edition, for reference pps:244-246:

Just a teaser here. I found what might be the earliest version of early Christians (or perhaps early apostates?) coming up with their version of the "overlapping generations" theory in the late first century CE or early second century. I'll try to include it when I get some time to respond to a poster's fig tree parable discussion in the more joyful, peaceful, kinder part of the forum. Seems like too many topics in this part of the forum quickly boil over with festering fruits of the flesh.

I messaged her earlier. She says they are OK. Sent our love to them and anyone they know affected by the tragedy.

That's such a great line: "a book about self-pity for an audience of one." I might have missed something, but when I read on his site about three companies he claims to have exposed for fraud, they didn't seem to have anything to do with any local German companies that Witnesses or elders were involved with. It seems he was promoting the idea that he had been exposing fraud in major multinational companies, or at least fraud at very high levels within those companies.