Shunning; let’s get real about it
This is a real-world discussion about the effects and effectiveness of the Jehovah’s Witness practice of shunning.
“A good friend of mine DAd a few months ago because he’d moved in with his ‘worldly’ g/f and he was already partially being stalked by the local BoE. Since then his mother will have nothing to do with him, neither will his sister and her family. A few of the more real JWs that genuinely care about him have kept a level of contact up. He and his g/f came round to ours a few weeks back and we had a really long chat about the whole situation. She said she’ll never understand the shunning. She related that her b/f’s niece explained that it’s “because we love him that we won’t talk to him.” Obviously it’s a form of love she’s never experienced before getting involved with an ex-JW
At my meeting with 2 elders last Sunday I asked them how they will justify walking past me, my wife and our children in the street when they haven’t been able to show me from the Bible what I’ve done wrong against God. They showed me Hebrews 12 about God disciplining those He loves. They explained that by shunning me, they would be lovingly disciplining me.
In reply I said, “C’mon, let’s be completely pragmatic about this; do you honestly think that by walking past me in the street, ignoring me and my family, I’m going to think ‘yep, I wanna go back’?” They could only shrug and say, “That’s how we do it.”
My good friend mentioned at the outset told me that every single time he sees a JW shunning him, it just makes him more determined neverto return to the KH.
The reality about shunning is that it’s nothing more than a loyalty test provided by the GB to all JWs. It does nothing to help ‘errant’ ones return. And if it does cause them to return, they’ll be returning for the wrong reasons!”
