What about the victim of childhood sexual abuse within the Witness setting who remains faithful but it was anything but easy because her abuser basked in the respect of all until the day he died? Think it’s easy to answer that person? Think it’s easy to be that person?

If there is one thing that might be described as our gross planetary product, borrowing terminology from the economists, it is childhood sexual abuse. Thirty years of all-out war against it has made barely a dent. You can still throw a stone in any direction and hit half a dozen pedophiles. Within the month, three local cases of teachers busted for the vice (including a principal) has made the news.

Though the greater world battles the evil, it does what it always does. It focuses on symptoms and not root cause. It focuses on punishment—though it is not just Elon Musk who wonders why, two years after Epstein died in prison over CSA (‘If you were surprised to hear Jeff Epstein committed suicide in prison,’ one cynic said, ‘just think how surprised he must have been), and shortly afterwards his mistress was jailed, no one else has ever been implicated—didn’t he run a pedophile paradise island and there entertain some of the best-connected persons in the world?

(photo: OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia)

It’s rather like what Frederick Douglass said about slavery. Characterizing the proposition that the North (at first) was fighting to preserve the union irrespective of ending slavery, he said, “We strike at the effect and leave the  cause unharmed.” It is the same with the world’s approach to childhood sexual abuse. Strike at the cause and maybe then we can be more impressed.

How can continually focusing on Bible teachings with regard to sexual morality not be counted among efforts to stamp out the cause, not merely the effects? Nonetheless, while I might onetime have liked to say there was no CSA within the Jehovah’s Witness setting, such has not been the case. Be abused in that setting, and you are likely to think that setting is the focus of the problem, though those not so emotionally attached will know this is not the case.

So it’s back to square one. The perpetrator has died. The victim has remained faithful to God and the infrastructure she perceives He has set forth. What on earth do you say to such a person?

Maybe the verse that should carry the day is 1 Timothy 5:24

“The sins of some men are publicly known, leading directly to judgment, but those of other men become evident later.”  

What that judgment will be I will not venture to say, but it’s the notion that there has been no judgment that devastates. It will, should it fall under the purview of this verse, happen “later.” Will “later” be in the new system of things—or is the person’s goose already cooked and he won’t be there? Either way, no more will someone parade around in a false veneer of respectability while a victim is only too aware of his wicked underbelly. The emperor’s clothes will be shed, for all to see. How will he deal with that little problem?

I have a certain flare for dramatic reading, which compensates for lack of talent elsewhere, and I used to draw out this verse with a long pause before “later.” The effect of a long pause is that when the next word at last comes it hits like a hammer. (Pastor Ingqvist of Lake Wobegon tried to master this technique by emulating the TV preacher, but he began pausing in such odd . . . . . . . . . . . . places . . . that nobody knew what he was talking about.) The sins of some men with become evident—“not now,” I would insert the phrase, but . . . “later.”

The scripture was included in the public talk outline ‘Jehovah’s Eyes Are Upon Us.’ That talk, at least the way I used to deliver it, laid majority emphasis on, ‘Don’t think you’re going to get away with any wicked schemes—God sees it all even if humans don’t and he will see that you are clobbered for your bad deeds.’

Some of the nasty schemes that scoundrels were so sure they were going to get away with (until they didn’t) was the rotten sons of Eli laying down “with the women who served at the entrance of the tent of meeting.”  (1 Samuel 2:22) What if you knew about it? How could you not, the tent of meeting being at the time the center of worship? What a downer that would be.

Wussy Eli would scold them, halfheartedly—and I would read the following as though it were “the people” causing the trouble: “Why do you keep doing things like these? For the things I am hearing about you from all the people are bad.” “But they refused to listen to their father, for Jehovah had determined to put them to death”—huge stress on the italicized, slowly enunciated words, with my own: “All this time they thought they were getting away with something, but . . . “ Who did they think they were kidding?

Other lowlifes who earned their justified ends, even though they thought what they did had been in secret, were those rotters of old-time Israel carrying on outrageously, untroubled because “they are saying, ‘Jehovah is not seeing us. Jehovah has left the land.’” (Ezekiel 8:12) Turned out he was and he hadn’t. Gehazi, who went on to serve as another bad example, also met his comeuppance due to God’s vigilance.

All of these accounts were drawn out in an overly dramatic fashion that sort of embarrasses me today. Moreover, could I even do it today, and would I want to? The talk has been completely rewritten, a current speaker assured me, to emphasize the positive over the negative. You can go either way, as can be seen from this verse:

“The eyes of Jehovah are on the righteous, And his ears listen to their cry for help. But the face of Jehovah is against those doing what is bad, To erase all memory of them from the earth.” (Psalm 34:15-16)

The former used to be there and I would dutifully read it—no, not grudgingly—I gave it its due—but the rewards of the righteous was overshadowed by the punishment for the wicked. Today it is the reverse. Doubtless it is a good thing. Emphasize the good over the bad. It’s in complete accord with today’s emphasis that, as a default position, you think well of the other person, not regard them with suspicion. It is absolutely a shift of emphasis for the better. But it also doesn’t hurt to know that the scoundrels will be exposed—even if in some cases it happens . . . . later.

******  The bookstore

Tom was impressed that the answer to each question came straight from the Bible. Isn’t that the telling factor? It accounts for those verses on how God draws some but not others. It just intuitively resonated that the answers he sought should come from God, not men.

It made instant sense to him that a book—which everyone can read, as opposed to someone’s ‘personal revelation,’ which they cannot —would be the way God communicates with us. He had to satisfy himself that the Bible truly was what it claimed to be, of course, but he would have lapped up the evidence, not resisted it. He had had it up to here with vacillating human wisdom.

At the same Kingdom Hall meeting in which that video played, John 8:31 came up. “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples,” Jesus said. Seems a no-brainer for Witnesses (and for Tom). But for much of the world it not only is not a no-brainer, it comes across as reactionary. Steeped in humanistic, evolutionary thinking, they expect religion to fall into step, to ‘move on’ and not to be ‘stuck in the past.’ You should not ‘remain’ anywhere, even in ‘my word’—unless that word says ‘Go with the flow.’

(photo: Pixabay)

Usually Jehovah’s Witnesses think that if they can demonstrate they’re doing something like it was done in the first century, they’re golden. With some, they are. With Tom, they were. But much of the world supposes it pathetic that one hasn’t ‘kept up’ with the times. The pull is between a heartfelt sense that God should call the shots versus a heartfelt sense that humans should call them. Reaction to that ‘remain in my word’ saying of Jesus says it all in a nutshell.

Though, the first of all questions that impressed Tom because it was addressed from the Bible was, ‘How does your organization handle child sexual abuse?’ Okay, ‘got it’ that there is recognition that such issues exist, but does the Bible specifically say anything at all about it?—other than it’s a particularly perverted ‘pornea,’ so throw the bum out (1 Corinthians) but if he snivels long enough in repentance ‘don’t let him become swallowed up with sadness.’ (2 Corinthians). It was necessary to step out from strictly Bible verse to tighten up policies too loose for today’s times.

I wrote something similar in TrueTom vs the Apostates. Opponents will grudgingly acknowledge that Watchtower child abuse policies have improved, particularly with the study article that stipulated the reproach falls upon the abuser, not the congregation, but they will say, ‘It’s because we twisted their arm.’ They will demand ‘credit.’ Give it to them, so far as I am concerned. Everything in life is action/reaction, and here their carrying on did indeed result in better policies.

‘Can anything good come out of Apostareth?’ Now that their efforts have contributed to positive change, will they return to the fold? Maybe—though you know how it is with ‘activists’—they thereafter want to be seen as ‘key players.’ But for the most part not even that. Many are on a mission to destroy. It’s our horror that anyone would willingly leave the truth that leads to an almost superstition over apostates which does not always serve us well. Malcontents are everywhere in every venue. Is it not a little naive to suppose we would not get scads of them too?

******  The bookstore

To portray Jehovah’s Witnesses as “an immensely dangerous” cult on a par with Heaven’s Gate (whose members committed suicide on command) is clear evidence of malicious intent. As is also the opening comparison to an organization in which the religious leaders themselves are the perpetrators, rather than those just said to mishandle it.

Details of any abuse are always wrenching to hear. At worst, the article reveals Witnesses have failed to eradicate from their midst what every other group on the planet, religious or secular, has also failed to eradicate. Thirty years of all-out societal war against child sexual abuse has made barely a dent in the evil.

Plainly, police will not be deterred by any “two-witness” rule of religion, which will only be for congregation use. Four years ago, every Witness in the world (at their summer conventions) considered detailed scenarios in which child sexual abuse might occur so that parents, obviously the first line of defense, could be vigilant. Two years ago, a study article considered by all at a weekly meeting made clear that any “reproach” of sexual abuse fell solidly and solely on the abuser, thus removing any stigma that any member might have felt of reporting such ones to police.

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html

Pedophilia roots run deep. It was endemic to the Ancient Greece that provides the underpinnings of Western civilization, widely practiced and never spoken against. It thrives today despite monumental efforts to snuff it out. Would that those efforts were more successful.

If Jehovah’s Witnesses have not solved the problem of child sexual abuse, neither has anyone else. A more balanced view of the topic, lacking the malice presented here, is that of [non-Witness] scholar of religion, Holly Folk, presented here:

https://bitterwinter.org/jehovahs-witnesses-and-sexual-abuse-4-answering-some-criticism/

“Authorities are urging the Jehovah's Witnesses to contact them to get the ball rolling on the religious group's decision to join the national redress scheme for child sexual abuse survivors.

“The organisation says it will sign up because of new rules introduced by the federal government, which mean it would lose its charity status - and subsequent tax exemptions - for continuing to hold out.

"’Now that the law requires charities to join the scheme, Jehovah's Witnesses will comply,’ it said in a statement to AAP on Wednesday.

"’Jehovah's Witnesses believe that it is their responsibility before God to respect and co-operate with the authorities.’

“A spokeswoman for Social Services Minister Anne Ruston has welcomed the statement but implored the organisation to contact authorities.

"(We) encourage them to make urgent contact with the Department of Social Services so they can make good on this commitment," she told AAP.

"It can take up to six months for institutions to complete the process of joining and the department would hope to work co-operatively and with haste to facilitate the Jehovah's Witnesses joining as quickly as possible.”

....

This is not hypocritical, Vic, nor is it hard. Nor does it show, “it’s all about money with these guys.” 

The Aussie authorities devise a plan that fits all other parties for the institutional abuse of their youth clubs, youth schools, youth camps. They invite organizations to join. The WT declines because they do not have such settings. Whatever outlier cases may occur with them they will handle on a case-by-case basis.

The Aussie authorities then say they MUST come aboard, on pain of losing the tax status that is afforded every other charity. At that point, it becomes an operational cost. They still don’t think it is justified, but it becomes a cost of operating in Australia.

There are times in life when it is all about money. One of those times is when someone is trying to take it from you and you alone. 

There is no "principle" at stake here. They attempted to escape a "fee" they felt unjust and were thwarted. At which point they drop back and say governments have the power and authority to impose or not impose fees. It's what they do, and adjusting to it is no more than obeying the superior authorities. 

Appealing the verdict of a court is not the same as disregarding the superior authorities. It is a right afforded any citizen or collection of citizens. Will this be appealed? No idea. 

....

I would not be so sure that genuine victims will get a better deal with this program. It may be that handling complaints on a case-by-case basis, as was being done, will be more to their advantage. Governments with their agencies, not to mention lawyers, tend to seriously erode funds meant for victims. Plus, it has already been revealed that those churches that did sign on, to much fanfare, are subsequently dragging their feet and are being as uncooperative as possible. These things tend to be facades, with everyone taking bows while raiding the till, and the victims don’t fare nearly as well as you might think.

It may turn out to be more like the vaccine court in the U.S. Though you can sue a manufacturer for every other defective product, you cannot sue for a vaccine injury. Pharma managed to legislate themselves immunity. There is a vaccine court for redress, funded in part by surcharges on each vaccine given. Ask any injured party and they will tell you that their cases are almost invariably denied, and it is only by fighting it out with lawyers that they may, after a few years, get a few thousand dollars, seldom very much. This is true even in cases of permanent paralysis.

...

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that it is their responsibility before God to respect and co-operate with the authorities."

I actually think the statement is a little clunky—for it doesn’t account for the reversal— and that it might have written it better, along the lines already stated. Still, it is such a white-hot issue, and some are trying to milk it for various reasons, that maybe it is just as well not to risk looking “defensive”—state what has been stated, and move on. 

It is a good deal to have resolved. I am sure they are happy to do that. I am sure victims are happy, too. That is the nature of any reconciliation. People are happy when it is done.

I liked how Holly Folk did not shirk from taking on lawyers. Essentially, if you have money, someone will devise a means to take some of it. It will not be a completely fictional means, for that will seldom produce results. It will be something that is real, but overstated, exaggerated, and legitimate cases will be mixed with more dubious ones. It is in lawyers’ interests to portray people as victims, whatever happened to them was not their fault. Accordingly the “cult” mantra is hugely popular with them. At times, one wonders if they to some degree have invented the idea, for they surely benefit from it.

It is not just CSA. That is but a tiny part of the iceberg. In my community, there are about twenty legal firms that advertise on media, and some of them do it virtually non-stop. I can remember a time when manufacturers were the prime sponsors of TV shows. Now they are sidled aside by lawyers. What does that tell you as to the nature of society?  It amounts to a global society-wide transfer of funds, with barristers netting a third.

I was a defendent in such a case. I don’t think many people have not had some such experience, unless they have taken care never to do anything in life. This one involved a house I rented out. Insurance kicks in and you have little to do with it, but if you don’t know that in advance, it is very disconcerting. Even knowing it in advance, it is not comfortable. The suit was for $6 million and the settlement was for $200K. “How can the insurance companies afford this?” I asked my agent. “They can’t,” was the reply. “They just keep raising their rates.”

”My lawyer got me 5 million dollars, 18 times what the insurance company offered.” Such ads are staples on TV. In satire, I append the following to them: “All my neighbors rejoiced with me. Then they opened their premium bills.”

My teenage daughter’s car was hit—not her fault—and within days the other insurance company was hounding me to “settle.” Settle what? I was not accustomed to this new normal. They offered thousands of dollars if only I would settle. Finally I told them, “I don’t think this is going to cost you a dime. Pay a few chiropractic bills and that will be the end of it. But I am not signing anything away, for I don’t know what the finale will be.” They paid a few bills. I never did settle. There was never any reason to. I was probably a chump. I probably should have hit them up for as many thousands as I could. I just didn’t know that mindset, and concepts like “honesty” got in the way. The latest prompting from TV lawyers is that you call them immediately after your doctor to find out what “your accident is worth.” I am of the generation where you didn’t call them at all. You had insurance, the other party had insurance, you relied upon them for fair compensation, and were seldom dissatisfied with the result.

Out of nowhere a scholar has appeared who talks dispassionate sense on the subject of child sexual abuse as it relates to Jehovah’s Witnesses and is unswayed by secular jingoism. Are/were you a Jehovah’s Witness who was abused as a child? That is very bad, Holly Folk agrees, but she cautions such ones that they must be on guard not to be abused a second time. It may happen at the hands of those who mostly feign interest in their trauma so as to enlist them in their greater goal of taking down a religion they dislike. “All I ask is that you consider, for a moment, that you might be being used again, by people who care little about achieving justice for victims,” she says.

“Both official reports and media often confuse ‘institutional’ abuse in religious settings and abuse happening in families that happen to be religious.” It is a statement as pithy yet complete as anything I have written in several chapters of TrueTom vs the Apostates! She instantly cuts to the chase of the matter, whereas I pussyfoot around forever before arriving at an echo not quite so well put.

She pinpoints the flaw of the ARC’s Case Study 29, which I also attempted, but did not put it so concisely. Every other case was an investigation of institutional abuse within an agency, sometimes religious, sometimes secular. Case Study 29 was the only investigation of a religion itself. It is unique. It was rammed into the ARC agenda mostly at the behest of ex-Witnesses who hounded them relentlessly until they overrode their normal judgment. It plainly doesn’t fit into the overall program. JWs have no institutional settings, as did all the other agencies on the hot seat. Next move will be to hold Walmart responsible for abuse that has occurred among their shoppers.

It’s why you don’t sign on to a redress scheme tailor-made for situations of institutional abuse that you don’t have. You wait for a redress scheme tailor-made for situations of abuse that occur among Walmart’s customers. That you can sign on to it as a reasonable parallel.

In a second article (it is a four-part series) she criticizes the studies of the Netherlands and Belgium. I hadn’t gone there, assuming they would be no more than a rehash of the ARC. They were all that and less, she writes, so slipshod and lacking in any sound methodology of social science that it will be a scandal if they are relied upon for policy. Yet they might be, she opines, goaded on by the sheer noise that comes from Witness detractors, mostly ex-Witnesses settling the score, and given false credibility by the prestige of the Atlantic journal.

She speaks in conference here:

As a dispassionate outsider, not a Witness herself, she can do what is very difficult for any Witness to do, self included. She can bypass the reputation of a religion as something immaterial and focus on the greater affront to fight child sexual abuse. It is all diluted, she charges, when ex-members redirect rage against child sexual abuse to a target that is essentially a non-factor. The Witness religion overall does pretty well at fighting the perversion, she writes. I mean, who else [my contribution, not hers] gathers every member in the world (at the 2017 Regional Conventions) to consider detailed scenarios in which child sexual abuse might occur so that parents, obviously the first line of defense, can be on their guard? If there are sleepovers, if there are tickling sessions, if there are unsupervised trips to the restroom, if anyone displays unusual interest in your child—all these things were identified as potential red flags, not conclusive in themselves, but things to keep you eye on.

Witnesses will find her tack hard to copy. Their first response will be violent indignation at these patent efforts to undermine the religious organization they hold in high regard, and in the process, they are likely to come across as tone-deaf to the suffering of victims. But Ms. Folk has no skin in the game, so she can focus directly to how this vendetta of ex-JWs undermines efforts to fight child sexual abuse. She can express dismay that those with an anti-religious agenda squander resources that could be far better employed elsewhere.

Some firebrand on Twitter accosted me the moment I put the subject out there: “So, NO child is EVER separated from its parent(s) for ANY reason for religious purposes (or within a religious setting) by JWs... is that what you are saying?”

Well, duh—no. But NO child EVER separated is a far cry from ALL children ROUTINELY separated, which is the case with other groups Witnesses are compared to, as though apples to apples. Sunday Schools, youth camps and clubs—alas, they have proved to be breeding grounds for child sexual abuse. Witnesses do not have such settings. What! Do they chain their children at home so that no outside contact is possible? Does any balanced person? Imagine the uproar if they did.

Holly Folk also carries the “advantage” of being a survivor herself. “How would you know what it feels like to be abused?” people can (and have) said to me. I don’t. But she does. It gives her a freeness of speech that no non-victim will possess.

The closest I ever came to abuse was when I was walking up and down auto dealer row prior to my 16th birthday, anticipating the used car I might buy once I had my license. A certain slimeball approached and tried to befriend me. “They keep the really good cars in back,” he told me, eager to go there. Even as I evaded him, it was not due to my street smarts or lack of naïveté. I was as sheltered a lad as ever existed, with no specific knowledge of even what a child abuser was. (an ignorance not uncommon at the time.) I just knew that you don’t put the really good cars in the back—you put them up front where people can see them.

They are very thorough articles that Holly writes. Press on the links:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I like it also that Holly Folk does not fear to take on the “money tree” that is lawyers. This doesn’t speak for or against victims in itself, of course, just the inherent possibility for abuse of such as system. In my community, there are so less than 7 accident injury firms that constantly advertise. Not to mention about twice that number that advertise over various carcinogens, medical treatments, devices, and of course, sexual abuse claims. Almost always the Catholic Church is targeted, and the Boy Scouts. Sometimes I hear a catch-all of any abuse in any religious setting.

I get it that injured people seek redress. Still, the sheer cacaphony of legal noise will strike most as overkill—a massive societal transfer of funds with lawyers netting a third. Don’t think the profit motive is absent with the Witness situation, Ms. Folk says, just like it is not in any other. It is no different than defense companies cooking up scenarios of peril so as to sell their goods, or pharmaceutical companies overplaying threats to our health for the same reason, or for that matter, any merchandiser doing whatever it must to expand the market for its goods or services.

”My lawyer got me 5 million dollars, 23 times what the insurance company said.” Such are the ads that I hear. What I do not hear is, “My neighbors all celebrated with me. Then they opened their insurance premium bills.” Where does anyone think the money comes from? The insurance company itself? They just pass the cost along. They have to, in order to survive. 

******  The bookstore

Vic Vomodog’s face got redder and redder. His blood pressure shot to the sky—they had to call NASA.

I began to worry for him—just like I should have worried for the small-town judge Victor V Blackwell stood up to. Victor had been representing draft-age Witnesses in the volatile WWII years and the petty tyrant would barely allow him to open his mouth. “Another word out of you and I will jail you for contempt!” he roared.

“I looked around and saw lawyers, reporters, and professionals—I knew I wasn’t going to jail,” Brother Blackwell related years later at a Niagara Falls assembly. He told the judge: “Your Honor, if we have reached the place in this country where a lawyer can’t speak for his client, or present his defenses, I may as well be in jail with him.”

From his book, O’er the Ramparts They Watched: “Hot anger blazed from the “judge’s” face. His countenance flushed redder than a beet. The veins in his neck protruded like the swelling in the throat of a chameleon. Everyone in the courtroom waited for him to burst asunder....After some little time, gaining a small measure of composure, he told me and my client to stand up in front of him. We did. Then came the sentence:

“I sentence you to serve five years in a federal prison to be approved by the Attorney General. My only regret, you yellow coward, is that I cannot give your twenty-five years.”

Don’t think neutrality is an easy sell when nationalistic fever runs hot.

The judge died several days later. Townspeople said he had never cooled off from his fit of anger. When Victor next visited that town, the locals told him, “You killed our judge.” “I’m sorry,” he responded, but he later allowed at the Niagara Falls assembly that the bullying fellow had brought it on himself.

Every once in a while Vic Vomodog gets worked up like that. He fires out accusations as with a Gatling gun and I begin to worry that if I answer them it will be detrimental to his health.

Ah, well—if he dies, he dies.

“You Jehovah Witnesses are a cult!”

It used to be that if you fell under the spell of a charismatic leader, withdrew from society, dressed oddly, did strange things—you just might be a member of a cult. Nowadays just thinking outside the box is enough to trigger the C-word.

“Um, did the early Christians falsely declare the Great Day of Almighty God?”

Yes. “While they were listening to these things, he told another illustration, because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God was going to appear instantly.” (Luke 19:11)

“Did they pretend to be the ‘faithful and discreet slave’?”

Yes. “As they traveled on through the cities, they would deliver to them for observance the decrees that had been decided on by the apostles and the elders who were in Jerusalem.” (Acts 16:4)

“Ban Jehovah's Witnesses they prefer seeing people dying than receiving a blood transfusion and this is enough to ban them.”

It is controversial to be sure, but since they do not smoke, do not do illicit drugs, do not drink to excess, do not war, they on balance save far more lives than they cost. Even their stand on blood has sparked development of bloodless techniques and these have probably saved more lives than transfusion refusal has cost.

“They’ll use their ban in Russia to feed their persecution complex!”

Probably. This is because of the many verses such as Matthew 5:11‬: “Happy are you when people reproach you and persecute you and lyingly say every sort of wicked thing against you for my sake.  Rejoice and be overjoyed...for in that way they persecuted the prophets prior to you.”‬

“As an organisation they have keep silence about abuse amongst their members and the wall of silence regarding child abuse is unforgivable.”

Alas, there is no sizable group on earth, religious or not, that has successfully purged all child abuse from its midst. Still, with JWs, it is almost always members’ abuse that leaders are accused of ‘covering up.’ Not good, but better than the pattern elsewhere where leaders are the ones committing the abuse and there is not even a mechanism for discovering abuse among members.

“You didn’t sign on to the Australian redress plan. What’s wrong with you?”

When a child abuser is nabbed, unless he is a person in authority, is his religious affiliation ever even mentioned? With Jehovah’s Witnesses, abuse committed by leaders is rare. With the other signees, be they religious or not, it is the pattern. Witness cases that have come to attention are nearly always among rank and file members, something the other signees haven’t even a mechanism to track. 

Other signees have structure in which children are systemically separated from parents, such as Sunday School or youth groups. If you sponsor such a program, it stands to reason that you ought be held accountable to provide for their safety. JWs do not have such programs.

The differences are significant enough that JWs have not signe on to a “one size fits all” program, but instead handle cases that arise on an individual basis. Next thing you know, Hyundai will be supposed responsible for abuse situations that arise among its customers.

No one has apostates as dedicated to their crusade as do Jehovah's Witnesses. One could say they validate us. Since they were a huge concern in the first century—no NT writer not dealing with them—if they were not a huge concern today, would one not have to wonder why?‬

“If only the were banned here, like Russia. The only way to make sure they won't come back here is to open the door naked.”

This does not work. A friend of mine, a registered nurse, said to one such person: “You don’t have anything that I haven’t seen before.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they alone, so far as I can see, of the scrutinized groups, have never had any such program. They ought not be lumped into the same basket of mutual culpability with those that do. Actually, from the article, it seems that very few are signing on—just a sporting organization or two were cited.

Of course, this comment of mine was not taken lying down. Let us call the succeeding person “John,” an ex-Witness, a vociferous opponent.

Are there situations in which an adult might come into contact with a child not his own? Of course there are. Your own experience testifies to one. But they are the sort of incidental thing that could happen anywhere—if your child frequents the home of a friend and it turns out that friend’s dad is a pervert, for example. 

There was a time when my father-in-law, a man with little formal education, asked elders to study with his high school son so maybe they could help him reconcile evolution vs creation and such things that he, the father-in-law, had no experience with. The elders said no—it was for him to study with his own son. It may not have even been a wise decision, but the point is there is no program for elders to wrestle children away from their own parents.

The typical abuse case among Witnesses involves the misconduct of congregation members—often members within a step-family. The culpability of the organization, if there is one, is that elders left it to the disgression of the aggrieved parties to report it. The culpability of the other groups is for systemically separating children from the parents and then allowing someone in authority to abuse them. The two courses are different enough that they ought not be included as though two peas in a pod.

The only point I made in the prior post, John, was that groups that insist upon separating children from parents and then fail to protect them ought to be held to more stringent standards than those that do not. There is nothing wrong with that point. It makes perfect sense. That is not to say it covers everything.

Of course it has happened, and still does—though in view of persons like yourself who want to stunt children by suggesting any adult contact with a child other than its own is perverted, they do it less and with much more discretion. Always in the situations you describe, it happens with full approval of the parent, and often at their request. I’ll give you an example:

My wife and I were in the ministry, along with a sister with her two children—ages probably 2 and 4. We’re all going at a snail’s pace, working in and out of the car, on account of the children. The sister, too, needs adult encouragement—she doesn’t get out all that much—and that’s why the “righteous” solution you might hit on: ‘Work with your wife, and let her work alone with her two kids,’ does not work. 

When I am alone in the car with the two-year-old, and my wife, the sister, and her older child are all working together, I get impatient to do another door or two. “C’mon, Seth,” I swoop the kid up, “Let’s take a door!” I ring the bell and a woman answers. I tell her I am working with my friend Seth (whom I am carrying), and “he wants to show a video to you.” I thumb through a few Caleb and Sophia cartoon videos on my IPad, ask Seth which one did he have in mind, and act as though it is he who has made the decision. Meanwhile, the woman seems bemused by this—she’s playing along—it doesn’t happen all the time. We play the video, she views it attentively, Seth even more so because he knows them all well—they are tools for child-training, and when it is all done, I thank her, acknowledging “You’re a sport,” and we take our leave. I had the feeling that she was playing along simply for the child’s sake, and I stopped in sometime later to discover that I was right. I still reaffirmed that she was a good sport.

Now, I know child’s the mother well. I know the chemistry. This was not a stranger’s child. I know you are probably dying to make a molestation scene out of this, but anyone not completely warped in their own values will instantly see if for what it is—a win-win-win for the child, the householder, and me—and even another win if you include God, for it is advancing the ministry.

(Backtracking)

John: I've been on the ministry in the past and a child has actually asked to be with me on the doors. I've declined as I think children should be with their parents. 

Why in the world would you not agree to this?—unless there is some twisted background that you are not conveying. I would do it in a heartbeat if a child asked it of me, and I knew the parents would have no objection. Do you think you are proving yourself virtuous by your all but criminalizing contact between adults and their non-offspring? Do you think the interests of the world’s children are advanced by the Boy Scouts of America driven into bankruptcy as consequence and retribution for the injuries inflicted upon a handful of children? The Boy Scouts take you out camping. They teach you how to tie knots. They teach responsibility. “Eagle scout projects” are seen everywhere in my area—deeds of civic enhancement, education, historical illumination, ecological projects—deeds that are not likely to be done otherwise. They provide opportunities for children growing up that parents will most likely not be able to provide. And now your type deprive them of that by bankrupting the organization—all the time as you bask in a narrative about how you are ‘protecting children.’

You suggest all contact with a non-related child is wrong, even twisted, and then you think you are doing the village of children a favor? Back in JoePa days—American example, you may not know of it in Britain, when a man outstanding for molding generations of youth was suddenly destroyed because in a certain instance, he did not go “beyond the law” to penalize something he didn’t know was happening—a former coach of youth sports, Bob Cook, wrote: “The most upsetting thing about many child-protection rules is they assume any adult is capable of doing something bad. If you think of yourself as a good person, and the people around you as good people, you can’t help but be taken aback. You can’t help but think a wall has been put between yourself, the children you coach, and the families you deal with. It’s a wall that seems patently ridiculous when, in the case of the Catholics involved in my Virtus meeting, were tight-knit, south side Chicago parishes where families had known each other for generations.”

It may well be an example of the verse: “All things are clean to clean people; but to those who are defiled and faithless, nothing is clean, for both their minds and their consciences are defiled.” Nothing seems clean to some, who would act in such a way as to penalize generations of children from the adult interaction that helps them grow into balanced adults themselves.

I do understand the goal of stamping out child sexual abuse. I do agree that few things are as wicked. I do acknowledge that smoking these ones out is difficult. I do agree, particularly in view of the now commonly acknowledged damage done to a child victim, that punishments ought to be harsh. I agree to all these things. But all society ought not be destroyed in order to attain that goal, for the ones who will collectively suffer the most are the children. John Holt, the homeschooling pioneer, used to maintain that a driving factor of juvenile delinquency is children being shut out of the adult world under the guise of protecting them—and this is well before CSA was on anyone’s radar—he was speaking of the overapplication of child labor laws.

I surprised myself for getting into this thread so. I hadn’t intended to. I literally wrote the book on this topic of JW CSA accusations, with ‘TrueTom vs the Apostates!—numerous chapters are on the topic, and I think there is not another like collection anywhere.

It covers events up to the initial verdict against JWs in Montana, and has not been updated to include that verdict being thrown out. Maybe there will be a “Round 2” or maybe I will tack additional chapters on Round 1: At any rate, I’ve done my share on this and did not intend to involve myself much beyond—because the topic will never be dropped, and there are other things to explore. But your demented notion of ‘nothing being clean’ draws me in despite myself.

Q: What does Rolf have to say in his new book about the controversy of child sexual abuse and Jehovah’s Witnesses?

A: Almost nothing. “Not even in a much too long dissertation on porneia and similar words,” I am told. However—in the footnotes, he writes:

“I would like to add that several accusations against the GB on the Internet and other places are not true. For example, in connection with child molestation, the GB has been accused of having directed elders to hide such crimes from the authorities. The first time such crimes were known to elders in Norway was around 1990. Since then, elders have been advised to take particular measures to protect children, and always to cooperate with the police. So this accusation is wrong!”

Ah. So the real headline to be taken from the Rolf book, obscured by 50,000 wet dream malcontent posts on the internet, is 

“Top Norwegian Awesome Scholar Proves that CSA Hysteria Against Jehovah’s Witnesses Is Bogus”

In writing this headline, I hesitated to use the word “proved.” Had he really done that? He just gave his testimony. But then I deferred to the words of a certain dodo on the internet who declared of Rolf’s book—without having reading it: “I think this gentleman and his book proves the point I'm making here.”

In fact, it ‘proves’ just the opposite. (If he can do it, I can do it.)

In a roundabout way, Rolf brings his gift to the altar. Are legal assaults against JW HQ In recent years due to how leadership evolved over time and how Rolf doesn’t care for the current take on Matthew 24:45-47?

“Who really is the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time? Happy is that slave if his master on coming finds him doing so! Truly I say to you, he will appoint him over all his belongings.”

Or—are they about sensationalized investigations of CSA that sometimes one could wish the JW organization would kick back a little more on? Put Rolf on the stand as star ‘expert’ witness for the defense—after lauding him as Moses descending with the tablets, opposers can hardly say that he has no sense whatsoever—and knock the legal ball out of the park. It can be a win-win. It is just a matter making lemonade out of lemons.

“If he has said his piece, and remains as low-key as he should,” maybe it will all blow over. That’s what my unnamed source said—“unnamed” because I am trying to prove myself a modern journalist, and also because he may be bashful. Maybe it will be some esoteric matter for the airy halls of academia with little spillover into everyday life—after all, it is well-known that the ‘thinkers’ and the ‘doers’ often are from different sides of the tracks.

Maybe. However, this kind of “wishful thinking” often fails because enemies will not let it remain low-key. It has made their day, if not year, and they will pump and pump until it becomes the only story that matters!!!

The 2003 WT, 4/1 writes in the article ‘Mildness—An Essential Christian Quality’ of how a “young man reported to Moses that Eldad and Medad were acting as prophets in the camp—“My lord Moses, restrain them!”he cries. Moses mildly replied: “Are you feeling jealous for me? No, I wish that all of Jehovah’s people were prophets, because Jehovah would put his spirit upon them!” Maybe the HQ brothers will act the same, it was surmised. Maybe. But I added to the account:

“But the young man again said, this time emphatically, “My Lord Moses, restrain them!’ Moses mildly replied: “Not a problem. Chill.”

But the young man once again said: “My Lord Moses, restrain them!!!!!” Moses mildly replied: “Let’s stay low-key about this.”

But the young man once again said: “MY LORD MOSES, RESTRAIN THEM!!!!”  (this is going to be good!!!!)”

Time will tell.

.....[Edit] I was called out on this one several days later:

“So the real headline to be taken from the Rolf book, obscured by 50,000 wet dream malcontent posts on the internet” - this quotation from your blog exhibits a complete contempt for the experiences of others. Would love you to use this language on the doorstep!”

Of course I will not use it there, for every saying must be put in its proper setting. “If it helps,” I replied, I will concede that the “50,000 wet dream posts” is not a phrase that would be heard in the Kingdom Hall, though it is exceedingly mild for the internet. Nor when I speak of them am I referring to anyone who genuinely was wronged. I am referring to a 2nd buttressing layer of supporters who have opposed the JW work and faith since long before CSA arose as a topic.

Even so, maybe certain phrasing should be backed away from. No sooner do we imagine we have razor-sharp intellect than we use it to get others riled. It is the reason that I recently changed but a single letter to take a bite out of Vomidog.

“What I loved best about one of Tom Harley’s books—they’re all so good—is his recall of a squabble between Amy and he over a child abuse video. He was favoring the ‘Protect Your Children’ video of Jehovah’s Witnesses and she was skewering it for not dealing the the possibility that mommy and daddy might be the abusers. She favored a video from the Sinatra foundation, featuring circled areas of a child’s body which were no-touch zones, suggesting both that a child wouldn’t know its ass from its elbow, and also that it would need mentally consult the diagram in order to determine whether it felt bad about a touch or not. 

“I remember how Tom pointed out how the JW video spoke of a child having a conscience, and in fact, it did deal indirectly with her scenario, as one of the parents said ‘Let no one touch you inappropriately’—whereas the agency video specifically said that it was okay for a doctor to touch private places. ‘Ask the young women of the U.S. Olympic team which video they think would have better protected them,’ he said.”

....

Tom responds: Much as I appreciate this review from Top Cat, in fact the account has been edited out of ‘Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses Write Russia’ and has not been inserted elsewhere.

I had a ‘pedophile’ chapter in Dear Mr. Putin and I later edited it out because such charges never once arose in a Russian context. The chapter had been there in the first place is because I was mounting a defense of charges made anywhere and I threw in everything but the kitchen sink. On and on the chapter went, and it began to feel—even to me—a little defensive; of course, that is by definition the nature of a defense, but even so..... I also didn’t know at the time that I would be writing ‘TrueTom vs the Apostates!’ about charges in Western lands, where the accusation does fit. But the deleted chapter still hasn’t found a home, save for on my blog.

There is also an Apostasy chapter in ‘Dear Mr. Putin.’ That remains because it does fit—apostates played a prominent role in exposing some of their former brothers to arrest and jail. But even there, about a dozen paragraphs with no Russian context whatsoever—they were just more pet indulgences on my part—have been deleted. Some of them appear in the latter book.

Top Cat included his photo. I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley:

Like any nation, you must fight with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.

We want our people to be Rhodes Scholars who never misjudge, who hold their own easily among the brightest the university has to offer, whose every utterance sweeps you away for its sheer brilliance.

What we get is a bunch of yahoos who make all the blunders that yahoos have always made. We should not run from this. We should embrace it. It is because Christians are derived from—the very ones taking the lead were described this way—the ‘uneducated and ordinary.’ 

”Now when they saw the outspokenness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were astonished. And they began to realize that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13) They always remained so, by the standards of greater society.

We should embrace it because that is what God favors—“the uneducated and ordinary.” In the brilliant book ‘Tom Irregardless and Me’ (which, brilliant though it is, cannot touch ‘No Greater Love—How My Family Survived Genocide in Ryanda’) I wrote of how the great ideas of this world’s thinkers

“all sounded good – heaven knows one can spin college degrees from them. But when put to the test – when placed under stress – they don’t work.

One might suppose that the architect of ideas that don’t work would be discredited. Bizarrely, the ‘doesn’t work’ caveat doesn’t matter. It is just the fine print at document’s end which nobody reads....Surely it is the fault of the little people below and not the great idea!’....It is that way with the bedrock ideas upon which this world is constructed. Despite being lauded to high heaven, they don’t work. Those who have earned university degrees in them do not sacrifice any prestige on that account. Instead, they go on to master other ideas that don’t work.

God laughs at the wisdom of this world, and in the passage above we see why. He says: “There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, but has not been cleansed from its filth.” (Proverbs 30:12) Tell those educated ones: “Show us the just world that has resulted from your brilliance, and then maybe we can talk.”

So we ought not run from our ordinariness. We should embrace it. When Celsus ridicules 2nd century Christians for being “labourers, shoemakers, farmers, the most uninformed and clownish of men,” don’t run away from that quote. Don’t try to mitigate it (as do most Christian apologists). Instead, say: “You don’t know the half of it!”

An attribute of much of my writing—which is not appreciated by all Witnesses—is to give away many a fault, particularly faults that will make some look ridiculous, as when Tom Irregardless rattles on for ten minutes in that instruction talk about a woman’s ‘ministerial cycle’ because he has forgotten the word ‘menstrual.’ He recalls only cruder terms that he knows would not be suitable for the platform. (This really happened.) 

There is a joke about the sister who collected $6000 dollars by selling eggs every time her husband gave a bad talk—and brothers collapse upon themselves telling that joke—yet no one will tell it within 300 yards of Tom Irregardless because with him it is no joke—it is reality. You risk hurting his feelings. “Why would anybody ever take that risk? In all your days you will never find a more caring, generous person than Tom Irregardless. If you need help he is there. You can pop in at the Irregardless home anytime; they are delighted to see you. They don’t wonder why you didn’t call first. Tom is an excellent man through and through, but only in Jehovah’s organization would he be a public instructor.”

[Actually, this is not nearly so true as it once was, since in recent years there has been more emphasis on speaker quality and less opportunity for them to mess up]

The point is not to humiliate people. The point is to glorify God. When great things are accomplished and the workers themselves are great, you can say that was the reason. But when great things are accomplished and the workers are just regular unexceptional folk, the glory goes to God. So not only do I not hide embarrassing things—I highlight and even exaggerate them—always with 2 Corinthians 12:9 in mind: 

“But he [God] said to me [Paul]: “My undeserved kindness is sufficient for you, for my power is being made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly, then, I will boast about my weaknesses, in order that the power of the Christ may remain over me like a tent. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, in insults, in times of need, in persecutions and difficulties, for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am powerful.

‘Don’t try to be something you’re not’ is the idea to glean. The strategy of admitting faults would have served even with regard to handling cases of child sexual abuse, the plague of the planet. Barely a day goes by that it is not uncovered somewhere, in some new setting. Yesterday I heard one new to me—that of a man suing the newspaper. Decades ago he was a paperboy molested by his supervisor. Young people will not remember, but it was always children delivering the paper back in my day.

Rather than hope for the perception that CSA could never ever occur among a people devoted to God, I wish our people would have said: “Oh, yeah—tell us about it—we’ve had some of those slime balls, too, and let me tell you they are tough to deal with!” It would have all been good. We would not be having opposers who now carry on as though with the mission statement:

“CSA among JWs is very very serious and must be exposed! CSA among the 99.9% that is everywhere else? Stuff happens.”

It would have been better if no one had ever thought it necessary to write that May 2019 article pointing out that the reproach of CSA falls on the abuser and not on the congregation. It’s a great article, and timely, but it would have been better if nobody had ever thought it necessesary.

When I used to be a bad boy and interacted with the malcontents, I would point out that the CSA is not prolific among JWs. They (the more reasonable ones) would not challenge me on this. Instead, they would respond with: “Oh, so now you are saying that you have the same problems as everyone else!” They accepted my premise, that we do abhor it and it is not prolific—it was the perception of self-righteousness—as though imagining selves immune to the problems of everyone else—that got them incensed. It would have been better to have given no cause for that perception, and it would be nice if it is a lesson internalized for future guidance.

It is very very difficult to be the required “no part of the world” and not be perceived as self-righteous, because the world automatically takes offense at non-participation. “If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own,” says Jesus. “Now because you are no part of the world, the world hates you.” Still, I think we do unnecessarily bring trouble upon ourselves sometimes, and the above is a prime example.