News and Links for ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses: Child Sexual Abuse within Jehovah’s Witnesses on Australian TV

Video: Child Sexual Abuse within Jehovah’s Witnesses Australia

The link above takes you to a YouTube playlist that includes videos from Australia regarding their recent (and televised!) investigation into more than a 1000 cases of unreported sexual abuse of children.

Video: Jehovah’s Witness Meeting Changes 2016

For those who haven’t already heard, it sounds like sisters won’t be involved in meetings at all. They barely had anything to do before.

Video: Elders extort

A dispute between an average Jehovah’s Witness and an elder. It pretty much goes down like many of us would expect. It’s a tiny bit Jerry Springer.

Local father offended by Jehovah’s Witness letter, claims its writer is targeting obituaries

A local father who wishes to remain anonymous sent Action News Jax a copy of a letter sent to his family’s church.

The letter read in part: “Sorry about your loss. I read about it from the obituary.”

Jehovah’s Witness literature was attached to the letter.

Jehovah’s Witness grandparents ordered to keep faith to themselves

The couple lost their bid for unsupervised access to the girl because they insisted on taking her to worship at their faith’s Kingdom Hall despite the repeated objections of the child’s mother.

I wish the courts would do the same for my in-laws… Sorry. But also, wow.

‘Abused by my brother, then shunned by my Jehovah’s Witnesses family after I went to police’

Louise Palmer says parents sided with evil Richard Davenport over her, while church offered only prayers and urged her not to go to police

I think the flaws in policies like the two-person rule and telling Witnesses they can’t take accusations to the police without elder permission (elders aren’t cops, though some of them think they are…) should be really obvious by now.

How the Church of Scientology fought the Internet—and why it lost

The title pretty much says it all.

Japan closed 638 Congregations lost 6,000 Publishers in 10 years!!! WHY?

Many seem to think it’s the internet. I suspect it’s at least partially a cultural issue as other religions tend to dominate in Japan. What do you think?

62 apostates mark JWsurvey Day 2015 with a message of love for Jehovah’s Witnesses

Very cool. 🙂 Big shout out to everyone who participated!

Betrayed and exploited: Dismissed ‘special pioneer’ lashes out against downsizing

This website recently reported growing resentment among bethelites over the constant downsizing that’s taking place as the Governing Body hoards its dwindling resources in order to complete the Warwick project.

There’s also a story about the issues that prompted the lashing out.

Watchtower of Britain found liable for actions of child rapist Peter Stewart

Still think the Watchtower Society doesn’t have a pedophile problem?

The Tight Pants Rule: Wearing “disturbing” clothing gets you banned from preaching

Control issues. Yeah. They have them.

TONIGHT on February 16th: PBS Newshour to air Trey Bundy’s Jehovah Witness child sex abuse investigation

It’s true; PBS Newshour will be talking about Jehovah’s Witnesses and child sex abuse allegations this very evening. The title was taken from a link to this article, which is rather lengthy but goes into detail about the legal issues the Watchtower Society has been having with increasing numbers of pedophile cases. Go to the PBS News Hour website and register your local PBS station to get it streamed to your computer.

On a related note, another article, titled Jehovah’s Witnesses use 1st Amendment to hide child sex abuse claims, talks about some of the Society’s more recent legal maneuvering. It also mentions the show.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Shunning

Shun the nonbelieverWhen one of Jehovah’s Witnesses does something that his local elders deem a serious offense against God and Watchtower, he will probably be disfellowshipped by a closed-door tribunal. From that point forward, he is basically dead to all Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide. It’s a bit like that one episode from the Twilight Zone, actually. If he tries to communicate with them in any way, he will either be ignored or angrily told the error of his ways.

They call it “congregation discipline” and make it sound like it’s a punishment from Jehovah God himself. As if Jehovah floats down from Heaven and plays judge and jury instead of congregation elders. If those elders were truly being influenced by Jehovah or Jesus in any way, then why is it that some disfellowshippings get annulled? As in, oops, the elders made a mistake!

But you don’t hear about those very often, do you? (They do happen, though.) Never mind. Keep reading to learn more about disfellowshipping.

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