Flip-side News: A Response to the ARC's Attacks
- Note: Following are my thoughts on what took place at the Royal Commission and afterward. As I study the information more, I will add to this post.
First of all, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Herin referred to as the Royal Commission) is not a court hearing. It is the same as a Senate Committee or Commission in the United States. (Such as the PMRC or McCarthy era hearings, from which little appears to have been learned.) It is legislative, not judicial. Thus, anything coming out of the Royal Commission cannot serve to condemn Jehovah's Witnesses. It can only result in developing laws that affect how Jehovah's Witnesses and other organizations deal with the issue of child sex abuse. It cannot make rulings for or against any one organization or levy penalties on that organization except as that organization breaks laws related to its participation in the hearing.
The Royal Commission's findings are not subject to the rigors of a court of law, which is why the hearings lack much of the legal language found in courts of law. It is, in fact, for that reason that the hearing was called, for the fact that a court of law can do nothing. However, a public hearing can damage our reputation by presenting a mass of unsubstantiated claims and paint our rebuttals any way they like, just as Angus Stewart has done; things which a judge is not allowed to do and a prosecutor would not be allowed to do all the leading questions and twisting the story that he did in the Royal Commission.
Those performing questioning can do whatever they feel necessary to influence and even prejudice the members of the commission without clear evidence and even much supposition and conjecture, things normally frowned upon in courts of law. And certainly, much lack of evidence and force of mere speculation and volume of circumstantial or even fabricated evidence was allowed without adequate consideration of its veracity. The commission concerned itself with interpretation of scripture, which courts of law in Australia will all reject any such consideration, just as they do in America and the European Court of Human Rights.
If it had been a court of law, the only thing that would have mattered was what was actually written in our publications about procedures for dealing with child molestation and whether there were any procedures in action during 1982 and 1988 that would have led to the incidents that occurred. The knowledge of one man would not have been the basis. If it were only a matter of what we teach now, the cases in 1982 and 1988 would have been thrown out of a court of law. But because this was not a legal case heard in a court of law, there are no standards of evidence or prosecution except as relate to the Royal Commission's established rules of order.
Think: If our organization were such a "pedophile paradise", as our opposers cilaim, then would they not have been able to find more recent cases? It seems to be pretty slim pickings to go all the way back to the 80's, with just 2 cases separated by 6 years, for justification.
In fact, in his very opening statements, Angus Stewart broke from the tradition of previous counselors in the Case Study hearings and immediately went to assassinating the character of the organization as if we were being prosecuted. While in previous hearings the counselors were only concerned with facts and were conciliatory toward the operations of other religious organizations, Angus Stewart wasted no time in villifying the organization, painting it in the worst possible terms, which reflected the false claims of our opposers. In fact, he broke almost entirely from the purpose of the hearings to turn it into a kangaroo court.
Jehovah's Witnesses Do Not Make Or Enforce Law
The Royal Commission proposed the idea that Jehovah's Witnesses should somehow police its members so as to protect its membership without actually proposing or comparing a system by which such should or could be done. However, Jehovah's Witnesses are not a policing organization, but are a religious organization concerned only with helping individuals qualify for salvation as they believe is laid out in the Scriptures. Governments are responsible for prosecuting crimes. A religion can only go so far as to protecting the congregation from unrepentant sinners by shunning them. It is not the responsibility of the organization to guess at whether a person will commit a crime again except as they demonstrate a lack of repentance.The Royal Commission claimed that Jehovah's Witnesses did not do enough to protect the congregation from pedophiles, and yet decried our use of shunning as damaging to perpetrators and their families. Do we need to discuss the prison environment where people are physically removed from their families, robbed of freedom and subjected to exposure to more dangerous criminal elements?
Victim's Rights
The Royal Commission decried our use of elder men as judges in the congregation judging matters of molestation victims in which the perpetrator is a male, but fail to consider that many of Australia's court cases with male perpetrators of child sex abuse and rape are often tried by men without consideration for the victim's feelings.Just as the Submission on behalf of Jehovah's Witnesses to the Royal Commission, part 3.27, states, "It is the right of a parent to initiate or make a complaint on behalf of a child." Jehovah's Witnesses have never had a policy of blocking or punishing such action.
All questions asked should have been relevant to these two questions: (1) What can and should be done to better protect children from sexual abuse? and (2) What are, and what should be, the best responses to take when it occurs? However, the Royal Commission went off on tangents unrelated to those two questions and ultimately decried what actions we do take without proposing anything better.
In effect, it was a witch hunt seeking to make us look bad, assuming our guilt without providing a standard against which we should be measured, and without the legal authority to declare us guilty of anything, all based upon two cases that were not handled well by local congregations in the 1980's because little was known about the issue of how to handle child sex abuse cases at that time.
This is not to say that there have not been problems, but that there was no actual intent to help us adjust our policies as they stand currently, but to condemn us for failing to act according to modern standards in a time before the modern standards existed.
I can only hope that fair laws that do not violate our Bible-trained consciences are what result, and not some blanket banning on some aspect of our work in a continuation of a witch hunt, as so many other governments have done that have been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, the UN, the ACLU, and Amnesty International.
Similar Articles:
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Flip-side News: Opposers Want Ex-Criminals to Stop Confessing Sins
Comments
I am glad you wrote this post. The issue I had with the RC was primarily with the accusatory line of questioning Agnus Stewart hurled at brother Jackson, and how he (Stewart) had problems with our interpretation of the Bible. You could see the emotional appeals he tried to use when talking about a child getting baptized at a young age and having to "lose his family" if he decides he no longer wants to be a JW.
The problem there is the assumption that any young Witness will decide to leave, and the assumption (lie) that we baptize children without them understanding what they're doing, but brother Jackson quickly shot it down, by sharing his OWN experience of getting baptized at 13 and how he is now a member of the Governing Body, and how he knows many brothers who are still serving after become JWs while in their early teens.
Then there was Jackon's brilliant illustration about how a person CANNOT just walking into a Hall and asked to be baptized. This is a FACT. It is well known, and often lamented by our opposers, that potential members have to go through a study program so they can understand and incorporate Bible principles in their lives before becoming JWs.
I think the RC was out of line, with many of their questions for Jackson, because any informed Witness would clearly, CLEARLY see the apostate rhetoric that underlined Stewart's questions.
On the flipside, Jackson was absolutely respectful, and demonstrated superior Bible knowledge.
One thing the RC learned, don't try to out-wit us on the Bible. Steward became visibly irritated with Jackson because he consistently used illustrations, which repeatedly highlighted Stewart's deep ignorance of the Bible.
Now, I was born in the 80s so I was very young, but according to what I've researched and was told, child abuse from like the 50s till the late 80s was generally "hush-hush". During the July JW broadcast, Tony Morris basically admitted that it caught many people off-guard, and the sheer avalanche of abuse claims is the reason for that.
I think most of this is pure, unadulterated jealousy and hatred, that an "unorthodox" and unconventional religion could have a growth of 29 percent since 1990 in Australia while the overall population growth for them was 38 percent since then.
I mean, this is evidenced by the transcripts stating that it will be shown how Jws are "tightly-controlled", and "isolated" by men "sitting in judgment" of their fellow man.
This sort of inflammatory language is intended to illicit hatred and prejudice from society, as CJ pointed out. But this isn't surprising, as everywhere we are "spoken against". (Acts 8:22).
I have further thoughts to share later, but am limited by the character limit!
Thanks CJ for letting me vent, brother!
It seemed to me that the RC was more focused on trying to reform JWs than actually finding ways to prevent child abuse. Here is why I say this. The following questions are responses of mine based on what was asked of Brother Jackson:
(1) How does criticizing our policy of "shunning" adult members who are df'd prevent child abuse?
(2) What link is there between young persons becoming baptized at 13 or younger, and the prevention of child abuse?
(3) In what way does understanding how the Governing Body makes doctrinal decisions help prevent child abuse? It was asked did majority rule or not.
(5) Can focusing on what constitutes an "inactive person" as it relates to a "disassociated" person prevent child abuse?
(6) Can they prevent child abuse by understanding, in detail, how Governing Body members are appointed by the "Holy Spirit"?
(7) Is child abuse prevention predicated on knowing who actually sends the letters to the congregations?
...and many, many more.
My point is, and I mentioned this earlier and only want to stress the point, this was really an attack launched against JWs, and a means to try to reform us.
No, this isn't us using a "persecution complex" -- the evidence shows that the prevention of child abuse was primarily a front.
Many things in the response we sent back to the RC on November 9, 2015 were simply attacks on us.
In that 147 page document, the question repeatedly asked by Jehovah's Witnesses was "how does this relate of the issue of Child Abuse prevention?", or a variation of that.
Too many times did the document have to remind Counsel Assisting the purpose of the hearing, and of the limits imposed upon them by the Australian Constitution. In other words, the suggested findings by Counsel Assisting many times violated the Freedom of Religion of JWs.
This seemed to be more of a hearing designed to make reforms to the religious practice of Jehovah's Witnesses, not to merely prevent child abuse.
Of course, this is my opinion, but its formed based on what I've read concerning the hearing.
It was clearly evident they were trying to say the GB makes its decisions arbitrarily, while holding absolute authority over Jws, while demanding strict obedience to them, and not God. Jackson seemed totally prepared to debunk that nonsense, as he did.
Nothing there that relates to the prevention of child abuse.
"9.13 First, it is wrong to assert that 1,006 were “members” since, of those, approximately 200 persons were involved in child abuse, or were the subject of an allegation, prior to their becoming Jehovah’s Witnesses.61
9.14 Secondly, there is no evidence that 1,800 persons were, in fact, victims. An allegation does not mean that a person is a victim. It is well known that in parenting disputes in the context of family law, unfounded allegations of sexual abuse of children may be made.62 Not all such allegations are substantiated, nor are they necessarily true."
The reason why I am pointing this out from the transcripts CJ linked to, is because this is the hill apostates have chosen to die on. They repeatedly and wrongly claim that 1,006 members abused 1,800 children since 1950.
I just wanted to throw this out there, for the benefit of our readers.
So its wrong to not have "done enough" to protect the congregation, yet the steps we take to protect the congregation are "cruel". Can you imagine the backlash if we DID NOT shun pedophiles?
That should be more than enough evidence to show how much of a farce that hearing was.
Rodney Spinks was asked if women could serve as elders a couple different ways by the RC, with the RC stating that since societal norms change, or since science has shown us different ways to handle abuse claims, that we should reform our practice based on that, and not the Bible.
Brother Spinks basically explained to them why we will not appoint women as Elders; because it goes against a clear, scriptural arrangement. It goes without saying that the RC didn't want to hear that, however, brother Spinks went on to share how Hitler, the authorities of Taganrog, and Korea also didn't want to hear the that we would maintain a clear scriptural arrangement regardless of what they prescribed for us.
He also shared the many victories we gained in the European Court of Human Rights for maintaining that stance.
The points I took from our brother's explanation was (1), just because a Government prescribes a certain behavior based on what they see as a "societal norm" doesn't make that behavior right or moral (as demonstrated in his examples),(2), we as an organization will not compromise CLEAR scriptural arrangements, and (3), maintaining that stance has resulted in us gaining our religious freedom.
This no doubt gave the RC something to think about. Before they call themselves using the Law in Australia to force religious reforms on Witnesses thus resulting in their persecution, they need to consider the many wins and precedents set by our persistence, and also how they would be in violation of their own Constitution that guarantees religious freedom.
It could also backfire resulting in their own deeply held beliefs being violated.
I think they asked Jackson this question if I remember correctly: "Is there any chance this position could change?" in which he unequivocally answered "no".
I'm fairly certain critics would use that firm stance as evidence that JWs refuse to make changes that would "better protect children", but our stance of only men being appointed as elders has nothing to do with child abuse.
As Jackson stated, we would willingly comply if the Government mandated abuse reporting.
The RC seems to believe that making women elders is the cure-all, whereas mandatory reporting didn't seem to be on the table as far as I've seen.
Just think about America. When a candidate is running for office, they are never asked, nor do they talk about, child protection.
..but its easy to sit there and point the finger at Jehovah's Witnesses based on something that happened nearly 30 years ago.
I think Jackson was right to put the ball in their court like he did. That way if we never see mandatory reporting introduce, or perhaps similar legislation, they cannot say we didn't want to comply with reporting laws.
"The very serious task entrusted to the Commission is not lost upon Jehovah’s Witnesses and for that reason, amongst others, Jehovah’s Witnesses have not sought to criticise any person doing their job. Jehovah’s Witnesses consider, however, that some of the criticisms made by Counsel Assisting go beyond what is necessary to assist the Commission in fulfilling its task or what is required by the Terms of Reference. They appear to be unjustified attacks on Jehovah’s Witnesses as a faith and the individual members thereof. These attacks seem to be the result of misinterpretations of the beliefs and practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses and of the Bible and the law."
That basically sums up the hearing.
None of which addresses the responses to and prevention of child sex abuse. Stewart was completely sold on apostate lies.
The organization's statement was accurate and completely warranted.
But I do recall them saying he wasn't helpful. My guess is that because he didn't tell them what they wanted to hear, he wasn't helpful.
I do agree that they asked too many questions that had nothing to do with the purpose of the hearing. The Submission on our behalf repeatedly had to point this out.
In fact, we pointed out several occasions where the Commission made suggestions that were in clear violation of our religious freedom.
At times, I began to think the stated purpose of the hearing was just a smoke-screen in order to deliberately damage the reputation of Jehovah's Witnesses.
This is the go-to apostate retort.
How did the organization handle this argument?
To paraphrase them: "You cannot separate the lie from the content of the lie. By him lying about the abuse meant he was guilty of it."
This set the stage for gauging his repentance, which determines whether or not you remain in the organization. By him lying, he established his own guilt and his unrepentance, thus, validating his disfellowshipping. You can't be deemed unrepentant for a sin you didn't commit. So he was disfellowshipped for the child abuse, AND his unrepentance.
That's one I'm keeping in mind, because it destroys that argument made by apostates.
Another lasy reply, one also likely given to Steward by apostates:
"The failure of Jehovah's Witnesses to take into account the risk of reoffending when considering whether an offender is repentant...".
You know CJ, after reading that, I almost took Stewart for a complete joke.
How did we reply:
"If a person is truly repentant, then by definition, they are asserting that they are not likely to reoffend again. An assessment that someone is truly repentant involves an assessment of the risk of reoffending."
The opposite would be true: If a person is unrepentant, he doesn't recognize he was wrong, and thus would likey reoffend.
It doesn't take a scholar to know that contrition/repentance is one of many ways the legal system even uses determines the likelihood of reoffending.
Stewart was acting as if repentance and the likelihood of reoffending are mutually exclusive, but the more likely reason he tried to separate the two is because his logic and training as legal counsel took a back seat to his opposition to Jehovah's Witnesses.
- We don't have youth camps.
- We don't have sunday schools for children.
- Elders must travel in two's when conducting shepherding calls.
- We have an unsurpassed child abuse education network.
- Parents are expected and encouraged to take responsibility for their children's safety and safety education.
- We have a system in place that discourages unclean behavior through shunning.
- The elders assist with helping offenders come to repentance.
No matter how you look at it, this system works. The RAC would do well to consider it carefully.
This probably told the Commission that abuse isn't nearly the "problem" (Stewart's words) they claimed it was as that's about 1 allegation per month, and this definitely debunked the lie that we have a "policy of not reporting". It also proves that there are cases in which the choice not to report was that of the survivor as well, something the Commission seemingly deliberately ignored in 2015.
Yes, their silence was incriminating seeing how vocal they were nearly two years ago. They were probably afraid that since all the smoke cleared and emotion waned, people would see the facts.
- Don't have youth choirs
- Don't have youth brigades
- Don't have youth counseling
- Don't have gigantic churches
- Have intense qualifying process for elders
- Have intense moral training through Bible study and twice-weekly meetings.
If that were the case, and a molester moved to another congregation, no letter would follow him and there would be no way tract him. His name would be not entered into the central database. So our unity has this natural benefit because this knowledge is shared for the protection of all children no matter where they are.
Interestingly, I was just thinking about that statement. What's been happening recently are efforts to simply spread their false accusations through media outlets, and not surprisingly with one of the most loud-mouthed opponents, those efforts do not include the ARC's March findings.
So instead of coming with hard, irrefutable evidence, they are relying more and more on the testimony of ex-Witnesses giving interviews and making accusations, and lawyers interpreting superseded elders letters and WT articles from 20+ years ago. Logic would dictate (to me anyway) that findings from an investigative body would be much more convincing that just mere hearsay from prejudiced ex-members...well, unless those findings tell a different story.
I guess what I am saying is that as time has gone on and more information has come to light (as the case with the ARC), its become evident that we are not nearly as guilty as alleged.
That's what I believe is behind this smear campaign.
He's going to argue that it didn't catch us off guard because of articles dating back to 1981 which showed just how leading edge we were. He's going argue just what you said: We didn't solve the problem completely and should have to answer for that? What?
That's a stupid argument to make. So we are guilty for having the foresight (no doubt due to the influence of Holy Spirit) in protecting against child abuse.
What's probably being underestimated here the perception of fair-minded, thinking people. They will then know that we are ahead of the game in child protection, and will conclude that how can an organization that interested in child protection want to cover up child abuse?
That's a contradiction.
Other than that mentioned in our latest comments, there has not been anything.
Even those that were investigated of the other religions, only specific congregations or schools were investigated, and not entire religions, whereas Jehovah's Witnesses were investigated wholesale, not only in all of Australia, but throughout the British commonwealth, only to find that our numbers were still less than any one of the ones they did investigate.
However, one also should not be fooled by the numbers. The numbers they presented are not per capita for each religion, but simply a percentage of the whole that they reviewed.
I am confident that our numbers would remain the lowest compared to any other religion should they actually investigate them, let alone investigate them each as a whole religion rather than just single congregations or schools.
They gave Jehovah's Witnesses unfair focus to that which they gave the other religions because of the significant difference in methodology. When you compare one whole religion against just a few congregations or schools of another, there are going to be significant differences in numbers, and yet, we still ended up lower in number than all of them, though being one of the 10 largest religions in the world.
Here is the video.
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-16/justice-mcclellan-warns-churches-to-change-or-risk-illegitimacy/8529324?pfmredir=sm
Thanks for the link, Rob.
Also you start around the 12 minute mark, he breaks down the percentage of abuse survivors who spoke to them and what percentage of them belonged to each religion.
Fifty-nine percent of survivors were abused in a religious institution, 32 percent in a Government institution, 10 percent in a secular one.
Of the 59 percent, 37 percent were abuse in the Catholic Church (not surprising) 9 percent Anglican, 4 percent in the Salvation Army, 3 percent in other protestant churches, 2 percent in Presbyterian and reformed, 1.3 in the Uniting Church, 1 percent in Jehovah's Witness organization, 0.6 in Baptist Church, 0.5 Pentecostal, 0.4 SDAs, 0.3 Lutheran.
So we are percentage-wise according to these particular figures, among the lowest.
Ironically, McClellan claimed that we are among the worst with our response to child abuse. The ARC claimed that the co-called "two-witness" rule favored the abuser. They claimed we needed women elders. They claimed we should abandon or "revisit" our bible-based policies.
Yet, despite all that bluster and spin from the ARC and apostates, at least these numbers paint a totally different picture.
I was just baffled by that.
The point I want to make is that a chair person basically went off on an emotion-filled, finger-pointing tirade during one exchange, assassinating the man's character. And I can remember the negative emotions I had toward him after hearing that -- all while not having a single solitary fact establishing his guilt.
I think I speak for a LOT of people who heard/read the ARC hearing. People probably now carry hate and prejudice against us, with little to no facts, much like the majority of Russian citizens after the smear campaign carried out by the Russian government. In fact, one paper reported a poll that showed that 70 percent of Russians supported the ban, with half of them admitting to not knowing any facts of the case.
So you have tens of millions of people who are blindly prejudiced against a group of people whom they know nothing about because of public smear campaigns akin to the ARC, masquerading as a "fair hearing".
https://youtu.be/fJbEg9lLNzQ
https://bitterwinter.org/jehovahs-witnesses-and-sexual-abuse-1-the-australian-case/
"Was this a hearing meant to try force a reform of Jehovah's Witnesses?"
- It was meant to establish us as evil in the eyes of "orthodox" paritioners as borne out by our being singled out since.
"(1) How does criticizing our policy of "shunning" adult members who are df'd prevent child abuse?"
- That is a question for the ARC.
"(2) What link is there between young persons becoming baptized at 13 or younger, and the prevention of child abuse?"
- There is none.
"(3) In what way does understanding how the Governing Body makes doctrinal decisions help prevent child abuse? It was asked "did majority rule or not"."
- It was just another way of claiming that basing our decisions on an ancient "outdated" book is ignorant.
"(5) Can focusing on what constitutes an "inactive person" as it relates to a "disassociated" person prevent child abuse?"
- No. I cannot even comprehend the interest. Neither have any standing in the congregation.
"(6) Can they prevent child abuse by understanding, in detail, how Governing Body members are appointed by the "Holy Spirit"?"
- I suppose it goes to qualifications and maybe was being used as a means of opening the door to accusations related to appointment of individual members and the choices they would be likely to make. In the end, it only highlighted the spiritual qualifications of the Governing Body members and their deep concern for members of the congregation as individuals to Stewart's noticeable irritation.
"(7) Is child abuse prevention predicated on knowing who actually sends the letters to the congregations?"
- Again, probably just a fishing expidition. None of that questioning led to any revelations.
http://tj-defendidos.blogspot.com/2019/12/los-testigos-de-jehova-y-la-comision.html?m=1
(The article will translate into English)