Jehovah’s Witnesses: update on child sex abuse

For those who followed the threads about unfolding debacle of the inquiry by the Royal Comission in Australia 18 months or so ago. It looks like the child sex abuse malaise may be pandemic in the organisation. Perhaps this is the beginning of the for the cult.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/08/child-sex-abuse-inquiry-considers-separate-jehovahs-witnesses-uk-investigation

Kathleen Hallisey, senior solicitor in the abuse team at Bolt Burdon Kemp, said she welcomed news of a potential new investigation but wanted a firm commitment:
“The Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to recognise the issue of child abuse in their organisation or to create robust safeguarding procedures to protect children. An investigation by IICSA into the Jehovah’s Witnesses is an opportunity for the inquiry to effect real change in an organisation that refuses to shine a light on child abuse and protect children,” she alleged.”

I’m sure Galveston75 will be along a some point to accuse me of persecuting his church.
Of course @robbie-carrobie won’t be along anytime soon as he was banned for being a chess cheat.

My take on this ongoing topic from a spiritual standpoint is that this child sex abuse scandal is the tip of the satanic iceberg, an outward indicator of the spiritual decay engine that drives the entire organisation.

Originally posted by @divegeester
My take on this ongoing topic from a spiritual standpoint is that this child sex abuse scandal is the tip of the satanic iceberg, an outward indicator of the spiritual decay engine that drives the entire organisation.

That was an impressive bit of writing, tiger. That English composition tutor is really paying off!

Originally posted by @romans1009
That was an impressive bit of writing, tiger. That English composition tutor is really paying off!

Do you have anything to say in regards to the topic of child sex abuse in the Jehovah’s Witnes organisation, or are you going to sully the serious topic with more of your jejune hackneyed wittering?

The findings of the Australian royal commission show that over 63% of the sex abuse cases that occurred in religious institutions over the 50 year period covered happened in Catholic institutions. This has been discussed on this forum but to a lesser degree than the problem with Jehovah's Witnesses because, unlike with the Jehovah's Witnesses, no Catholic here in this community has ever tried to defend the covering up of sex abuse cases in their denomination's institutions or argued that covering them up leads to less sex abuse.

To put the Jehovah's Witnesses abuse cases in Australia into perspective, though, they made up 1.8% of those investigated by the commission while Jehovah's Witnesses make up less than 0.5% of the Australian population. This means that an Australian JW was more likely to be abused by someone in their institution than a Catholic Australian.

This kind of statistical reality is all the more stark and ghastly when it comes to the Salvation Army whose members make up only 0.2% of the Australian population - and yet they accounted for an extraordinary 7.2% of the sex abuse cases looked into by the Australian royal commission.

Originally posted by @fmf
The findings of the Australian royal commission........ .

Not checked your info. but I trust you are correct.

Seems the various religious orders are arguing over who is least evil.

Originally posted by @wolfgang59
Not checked your info. but I trust you are correct.

Seems the various religious orders are arguing over who is least evil.

To be fair I crunched the numbers that demonstrate, for example, that if an Australian person were a member of the Salvation Army, the probability of that person being sexually abused was massively higher than if that person were a Catholic - for example.

And I meant that as a bit of perspective and not to make light of the Catholic church's dreadful chronic problem. Indeed, more to the point now, some of those denominations shamed by the commission's findings are, to varying degrees, sticking their proud and prickly heads in the sand.

I went to check if the Unitarians have any internal concerns for Child sex abuse too. Apparently they do:

"If Our Secrets Define Us”
Gail Seavey,The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville
Berry Street Essay, 2016

Delivered at the Ministerial Conference
June 22, 2016
Columbus, OH

http://www.uuma.org/mpage/BSE2016

Originally posted by @divegeester
For those who followed the threads about unfolding debacle of the inquiry by the Royal Comission in Australia 18 months or so ago. It looks like the child sex abuse malaise may be pandemic in the organisation. Perhaps this is the beginning of the for the cult.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/08/child-sex-abuse-inquiry-considers-separate-j ...[text shortened]... Of course @robbie-carrobie won’t be along anytime soon as he was banned for being a chess cheat.

The Internet is something else, isn't it?

Just out of curiosity I went to see if UU had any skeletons in their closets. I don't gloat and have no glee.

Unitarians sometimes have had to wrestle with misconduct of their clergy as well.

I became a member of the UUMA guidelines committee from 1996 - 2000. During those years we repeatedly responded to requests to facilitate collegial conversations to explore the differences between confidentiality and secrets: confidentiality requires protecting someone else’s story; keeping secrets involves hiding our own stories. In 1999, I served for both MSUU and the guidelines committee to be liaison to The UU Women Federation’s Advisory Task Force on Ministerial Sexual Misconduct, which they originally formed as Task Force One in response to the Service of the Living Tradition incident. There, I quickly discovered that many of our congregations and our Association kept secrets both large and small. For instance, several women reported that Forrest Church had had affairs with them when they were members and that the congregation essentially exiled his DRE wife and children from the church he served. A wider circle of colleagues started to confide in me their painful stories such as - a past minister ran off with the seventeen year old daughter of a pillar of the church, and, even though they got married, her mother responded by donating millions of dollars to the local evangelical college. The UUWF Task Force entrusted our convener, Deborah Pope Lance, to report to the UUA concerns we had stemming from complaints we had received from survivors. They complained about alleged sexual misconduct by UUA staff members who were involved in an official response to clergy sexual misconduct. These allegations made survivors feel unsafe and the Task Force look complicit.

From If Our Secrets Define Us

http://www.uuma.org/mpage/BSE2016

Originally posted by @sonship
Just out of curiosity I went to see if UU had any skeletons in their closets. I don't gloat and have no glee...

You seem to think that because someone somewhere who holds a similar perspective to me on the Godhead is a pervert then somehow I will be upset by that and perhaps realise that you are my hero and the trinity nonsense is right after all.

I am against all denominations sonship.

Especially the Watchtower.

Originally posted by @divegeester
You seem to think that because someone somewhere who holds a similar perspective to me on the Godhead is a pervert then somehow I will be upset by that and perhaps realise that you are my hero and the trinity nonsense is right after all.

I am against all denominations sonship.

Especially the Watchtower.

I just seem to think it would be interesting to see you take a little teaspoon of your own medicine.

Originally posted by @sonship
I just seem to think it would be interesting to see you take a little teaspoon of your own medicine.

What "medicine"?

Originally posted by @divegeester
What "medicine"?

The medicine I give you to cure your hangover and upset tummy, tiger. Remember how I mix the medicine in PB so you’ll enjoy taking it? I know you wanted me to mix it in a pint of ale, but the pediatrician said, “Absolutely not.”

Originally posted by @romans1009
The medicine I give you to cure your hangover and upset tummy, tiger. Remember how I mix the medicine in PB so you’ll enjoy taking it? I know you wanted me to mix it in a pint of ale, but the pediatrician said, “Absolutely not.”

Anything substantiative to add to the Jehovah’s Witnesses update on child sex abuse?

What is your view, in general, of the JW faith?

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
Anything substantiative to add to the Jehovah’s Witnesses update on child sex abuse?

What is your view, in general, of the JW faith?

From the little I know of the JW’s, they deny the deity of Jesus Christ and therefore contradict the Bible.

I had a JW come to my door once, before I became a Christian. At the time I wasn’t interested in any religion, though I still believed in God and have since childhood.

We had a short conversation and she left. If a JW came to my door now, we’d have a much longer conversation and a lot of it would be about the first few chapters of Hebrews as well as the Gospel of John and Messianic prophecies from the Old Testament.

I have also heard/read disturbing reports of how JW leaders treat underlings as far as controlling them that remind me of Scientology but have no idea if the reports are true.