Christian expectations

[Menotu]

People have expectations of certain groups of people: policeman, politicians, salesman, attorneys, women, men, priests/religious leaders, etc.
People have expectations of themselves, too.
Typically, they are thought to be honest, respectful, sincere, loving, etc.
No one is perfect (policemen and attorneys can lie, politicians can steal, salesmen rip you off, women can be masculine, men can be feminine, priest can molest children and adulterous, etc) Christians can (and do) slip up as well.

Questions to consider:
1) should people be harder on Christians when they slip up, understanding they aren't perfect but have a perfect being supporting them?
2) should people expect more out of Christians than they do policemen, priests, attorneys, etc, understanding they aren't perfect but have a perfect being supporting them?
3) should Christians be given more leeway when it comes to being hateful, forcing their views on society, endorsing laws that remove protection from other groups?
4) should Christians be given less leeway when it comes to the expectation of them being loving, caring and sincere to all people, regardless of religious (or lack of) belief?

[Tcg]

[Replying to post 16 by onewithhim]

It'll take time, but you want to show me how evil JWs are, so prove it.

Someone said JWs are evil?!?
I didn't see that, but maybe I missed it.
But ever bushel has a couple bad apples I suppose (speaking personally, of course).

It's very true. The difference with JWs is that they don't allow someone who molests children to stay in the organization, and if they repent they can come back but will never hold positions of authority again, or be allowed to be near other people's children unsupervised.

Testimony contradicts your claim:

• A Secret Database of Child Abuse
  
  After I left Mark’s house, I tracked down the stepdaughter, now 40. In fact, she told me, she had been only 8 when her stepfather had molested her. “He was the adult and I was the kid, so I thought I didn’t have any choice,� she said. She was terrified, she told me. “It took me two years to go to my mom about it.�
  
  Her mother immediately went to the congregation’s elders, who later called the girl and her stepfather in to pray with them. She remembers it as a humiliating experience.
  
  Her stepfather was eventually disfellowshipped for instances that involved “fornication,� “drunkenness,� and “lying,� according to the letters. But according to the stepdaughter, his alleged molestation of her resulted only in his being “privately reproved,� a closed-door reprimand that is usually accompanied by a temporary loss of privileges, such as not being allowed to offer comments during Bible study or lead a prayer. The letters make no reference to police being notified; the stepdaughter said her mother was encouraged to keep the matter private, and no attempt was made to keep the stepfather away from other children. (Calls to the congregation’s Kingdom Hall—the Witness version of a church—for comment went unanswered.)
  
  https://www.theatlantic.com/family/arch ... rs/584311/
  
  <bolding mine>

Tcg

[Tcg]

[Replying to post 21 by Tcg]

Here's more testimony from the same article:

• But piety, Mark noticed, did not always translate to morality. When he was 12, Mark became suspicious of a local Witness named Louis Ongsingco, a flight attendant who would bring home Toblerone bars for the local Witness kids and invite them to his apartment to act out religious plays. Mark noticed Ongsingco touching young girls in a way that made him uncomfortable. He told an elder about his concerns. But rather than take action against Ongsingco, the elder told him what Mark had said. Days later, Ongsingco pulled Mark aside and scolded him.
  
  Mark’s instincts seem to have been right. In 2001, one of Mark’s childhood friends, Erin Michelle Shifflett, along with four other women, sued Ongsingco for sexual assault. The cases were settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Ongsingco died in 2016.
  
  To Mark, the lesson was that for all the emphasis the elders placed on moral purity, there was no greater sin than speaking out against other Witnesses.
  
  https://www.theatlantic.com/family/arch ... rs/584311/
  
  <bolding mine>

Tcg

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 16 by onewithhim]

It'll take time, but you want to show me how evil JWs are, so prove it.

Someone said JWs are evil?!?
I didn't see that, but maybe I missed it.
But ever bushel has a couple bad apples I suppose (speaking personally, of course).

It's very true. The difference with JWs is that they don't allow someone who molests children to stay in the organization, and if they repent they can come back but will never hold positions of authority again, or be allowed to be near other people's children unsupervised.



.

Is that enough? Seems that 'punishment' doesn't fit the crime and they're gettin' off unbelievably easy.

Easier than what the RCC does? They just move their perverts around. JWs excommunicate. If the excommunicated pervert wants to get right with Jehovah and expresses true repentance, who is anyone to deny them mercy? God always said in the Scriptures that if the evil man will leave his evil ways, he will be forgiven. So a repentant individual is granted mercy and reinstated. Unlike other religious groups, JWs do not allow the former molester to be tempted again with easy access to children, and he cannot be an elder or servant or have any other privileges except to be able to express ideas during a meeting.


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[Menotu]

[Replying to post 16 by onewithhim]

It'll take time, but you want to show me how evil JWs are, so prove it.

Someone said JWs are evil?!?
I didn't see that, but maybe I missed it.
But ever bushel has a couple bad apples I suppose (speaking personally, of course).

It's very true. The difference with JWs is that they don't allow someone who molests children to stay in the organization, and if they repent they can come back but will never hold positions of authority again, or be allowed to be near other people's children unsupervised.



.

Is that enough? Seems that 'punishment' doesn't fit the crime and they're gettin' off unbelievably easy.

Easier than what the RCC does? They just move their perverts around. JWs excommunicate. If the excommunicated pervert wants to get right with Jehovah and expresses true repentance, who is anyone to deny them mercy? God always said in the Scriptures that if the evil man will leave his evil ways, he will be forgiven. So a repentant individual is granted mercy and reinstated. Unlike other religious groups, JWs do not allow the former molester to be tempted again with easy access to children, and he cannot be an elder or servant or have any other privileges except to be able to express ideas during a meeting.


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I never mention the RCC nor compared the two (maybe someone else did?).
Bringing them up doesn't negate the guilt of any other organization.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 16 by onewithhim]

It'll take time, but you want to show me how evil JWs are, so prove it.

Someone said JWs are evil?!?
I didn't see that, but maybe I missed it.
But ever bushel has a couple bad apples I suppose (speaking personally, of course).

It's very true. The difference with JWs is that they don't allow someone who molests children to stay in the organization, and if they repent they can come back but will never hold positions of authority again, or be allowed to be near other people's children unsupervised.



.

Is that enough? Seems that 'punishment' doesn't fit the crime and they're gettin' off unbelievably easy.

Easier than what the RCC does? They just move their perverts around. JWs excommunicate. If the excommunicated pervert wants to get right with Jehovah and expresses true repentance, who is anyone to deny them mercy? God always said in the Scriptures that if the evil man will leave his evil ways, he will be forgiven. So a repentant individual is granted mercy and reinstated. Unlike other religious groups, JWs do not allow the former molester to be tempted again with easy access to children, and he cannot be an elder or servant or have any other privileges except to be able to express ideas during a meeting.


.

I never mention the RCC nor compared the two (maybe someone else did?).
Bringing them up doesn't negate the guilt of any other organization.

YOU are casting aspersions on JWs. I brought up the RCC because they are even less concerned with justice! Children have been, and continue to be, molested, and the guilty clergymen are not called to face the music. JWs do discipline wrong-doers, and you say that we aren't harsh enough! Why don't you look at the organizations that don't do anything?


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[Tcg]

YOU are casting aspersions on JWs. I brought up the RCC because they are even less concerned with justice!

I don't recall Jehovah suggesting that we be just a little bit better than one of the worst examples we can find.

The JW's record stands on its own, and concerning not just pedophilia, but its cover up, it is appalling. The fact that some organization may do an even worse job of protecting innocent children does nothing to change the reality of their failure.


Tcg

[Menotu]

[Replying to post 16 by onewithhim]

It'll take time, but you want to show me how evil JWs are, so prove it.

Someone said JWs are evil?!?
I didn't see that, but maybe I missed it.
But ever bushel has a couple bad apples I suppose (speaking personally, of course).

It's very true. The difference with JWs is that they don't allow someone who molests children to stay in the organization, and if they repent they can come back but will never hold positions of authority again, or be allowed to be near other people's children unsupervised.



.

Is that enough? Seems that 'punishment' doesn't fit the crime and they're gettin' off unbelievably easy.

Easier than what the RCC does? They just move their perverts around. JWs excommunicate. If the excommunicated pervert wants to get right with Jehovah and expresses true repentance, who is anyone to deny them mercy? God always said in the Scriptures that if the evil man will leave his evil ways, he will be forgiven. So a repentant individual is granted mercy and reinstated. Unlike other religious groups, JWs do not allow the former molester to be tempted again with easy access to children, and he cannot be an elder or servant or have any other privileges except to be able to express ideas during a meeting.


.

I never mention the RCC nor compared the two (maybe someone else did?).
Bringing them up doesn't negate the guilt of any other organization.

YOU are casting aspersions on JWs. I brought up the RCC because they are even less concerned with justice! Children have been, and continue to be, molested, and the guilty clergymen are not called to face the music. JWs do discipline wrong-doers, and you say that we aren't harsh enough! Why don't you look at the organizations that don't do anything?


.

YOU tried to deflect the issue by bringing up the RCC in our conversation.
Which speaks a lot in itself.

Good try though

[Overcomer]

Tcg wrote:

Some Christians claim to have the Holy Spirit to guide them. If that were true, we should expect to see a drastic difference in the behavior of Christians.

Unfortunately, that isn't what we find, so no, there is no reason to expect more from Christians. Given that some Christians are known to cover up the sins of other Christians particularly in the area of pedophilia and sexual abuse, based on these documented occurrences, in some cases, we should expect a great deal less.

First of all, you would have to have known all Christians down through the centuries to be able to say that we don't see a drastic difference in the behavior of Christians who are filled with the Holy Spirit. Personally, I have seen liars, cheats, addicts completely change following their conversion. They are a far cry from the people they used to be. Are they perfect? No, because conversion doesn't render a person perfect. It only gives one the incentive and the power to grow toward perfection as they walk with the Lord.

Secondly, anybody can wear the label "Christian" without being one in fact. I would say that anybody who covers up for pedophiles and sexual abusers isn't following Christ at all and I would question whether they are born-again and Spirit-filled.

Tcg wrote:

You of course don't identify the religion you are condemning. Given that the Jehovah's Witnesses have been found guilty of protecting pedophiles in their ranks, which is de facto approval of the maltreatment of children, why should any stay in the JW religion?

First of all, people should leave the JW religion because it's false whether there are chlid molesters within their ranks or not.

Secondly, just because there are some rotten apples in a Christian church, that doesn't make Christianity bad or Christ bad or all Christians bad. A lot of atheists have done terrible things. Are you going to abandon atheism because of them?

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 28 by Overcomer]

Covering up for child molesters should be an indication of some very dark roots there. As far as JWs are concerned, I have seen no absolute evidence that there were cover-ups to shield molesters, as we see in every other religion.

You said that people should leave JWs because they are wrong in their teachings, but I would ask every one to actually scrutinize what they teach....look into the Bible itself without making up one's mind about a doctrine beforehand, and see if there is actually evidence to support the belief that there is no Trinity or hell-fire.

It's also good to go to get info from the horse's mouth, rather than believe rumors or outright lies. www.jw.org



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