Someone emailed me this brief clip of Governing Body member, Stephen Lett, (below) lecturing the Bethel family about apostates and their lies.
First, I do not know why anyone would take exception to the word “permissive.” Has the Watchtower been permissive with pedophiles? Well, when elders are forbidden by the Watchtower from contacting the police or cooperating with them if a crime against a child is reported, is that not permitting an accused pedophile to go unpunished and un-exposed? Of course it is. When victims of child abuse are threatened with judicial action if they dare whisper a word about the crimes committed against them is that not being permissive towards pedophiles? Of course it is. When congregations are deliberately kept in the dark about a pedophile in their midst as a matter of policy, is that not being permissive towards pedophiles? Again, yes, of course.
Bill Bowen once said that JW-land is a pedophile’s paradise. He was right. Pedophiles gravitate to where there are children and where adults are naive and permissive. Like the Boy Scouts (which has recently filed for bankruptcy due to lawsuits stemming from being permissive toward pedophiles.) Like Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Secondly, Lett claims that apostates are making these false accusations. The question is: Who are the apostates? Untold numbers of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been spiritually sickened and stumbled by the Watchtower’s rank hypocrisy and lawlessness. Leaving the organization does not make one an apostate. We might say that some exJW’s are not permissive toward the Watchtower. They do not permit the Governing Body to get away with lies, such as the lie that Stephen Lett told.
The real apostates come from the leaders. Paul foretold that the apostasy must come first before the return of Christ. We should not suppose that those who leave the congregation can bring about an apostasy of the whole. At Jeremiah 23:15 Jehovah reveals the source of apostasy: “Therefore this is what Jehovah of armies says against the prophets: ‘Here I am making them eat wormwood and giving them poisoned water to drink. For from the prophets of Jerusalem apostasy has spread throughout the land.’”
The prophets of Jerusalem are the spokesmen for the congregation. Does not the Governing Body claim to serve as God’s mouthpiece and as a group, do they not call themselves the prophet-class?
The 32nd chapter of Isaiah has to do with the return of Christ —the king who rules for righteousness. And in harmony with what Paul said regarding the apostasy and the revealing of the man of lawlessness whom Christ will do away with by his manifestation, Jehovah says through Isaiah: “The senseless one will no longer be called generous, and the unprincipled man will not be called noble; for the senseless one will speak nonsense, and his heart will devise harmful things, to promote apostasy and to speak what is wayward against Jehovah, to cause the hungry one to go unfed and to deprive the thirsty one of something to drink. The devices of the unprincipled man are bad; he promotes shameful conduct to ruin the afflicted one with lies, even when the poor speaks what is right.”
As it stands now, do not Jehovah’s Witnesses regard men like Stephen Lett as noble truth-tellers —or faithful and discreet? Do not Jehovah’s Witnesses praise the Governing Body for being so generous? And yet Stephen Lett is a bald-faced liar who shamelessly promotes persecuting victims of child abuse.
At least by God’s word we know that the coming king of righteousness will no longer be permissive toward the apostates within Jehovah’s organization.
