Paus waarschuwt dat de mens en milieu met elkaar verbonden zijn

Kan het helpen als een kerkvader zich uitspreekt over een wereldse zaak? Misschien wel. In ieder geval is het hoognodig om werk te maken van onze verhouding met de natuur.

De nieuwe encycliek van de paus ‘Laudato Si’ kan hopelijk diegenen van de conservatieve gelovige kant welke de opwarming van de aarde willen negeren anders doen gaan denken.

"In de ‘Zorg om de schepping’ neemt de paus een duidelijk standpunt in. Hij beklemtoont het algemeen welzijn en de zorg voor de komende generaties. Het is een holistischne mens- en wereldvisie waarbij alles met alles verbonden is. Hij heeft aandacht voor mens én milieu. De strijd tegen armoede, zorg voor de natuur en ijver voor de menselijke waardigheid gaan hand in hand. Sociale en ecologische problemen staan niet los van elkaar.
Het knelpunt ligt volgens de paus vooral in de consumptiemaatschappij die de natuurlijke rijkdommen verspilt en opgebruikt en gericht is op winstmaximalisatie.

Het is opmerkelijk dat de paus niet alleen de problematiek in al zijn aspecten benoemt maar ook alternatieve benaderingswijzen en actieterreinen aangeeft.

Good and bad things in this world

There are many good things in this world, but also many bad things; Thee are also many things which may seem good but which are not so go for us. There are many tempting things which may bring us in situations where we are going to do things which are not always so good for us.

Those things which may bring us in temptation do not always show their true face. When we give in we call such an action sinning.

In the old times already warnings were given. Everything got notated in a Book of books, in which people could find advice and guidance.

We ourselves do have to be aware that we just can not be perfect, but also can not expect others to be perfect.  We also have to be careful how we look at others and do not judge them. By judging others we ourselves could be doing wrong. No man, except Christ Jesus was or is sinless. We may not have any illusion about that.

The one who makes us well and gives life was born long ago and after his death taken out of the dead, as an example to what can happen to us. To Jesus was authority given to to give eternal life.

We may wonder if we 'Can we not do what Jesus did?' but should know it seems to be impossible, but there is no reason not to try it.

It all started very early at the beginning of times, in the garden of Eden, when the fall of man pulled us all in a terrible situation and got many people doubted God's right to have dominion over us and to judge us.

Some may say that

a thing is good when on its own account it ought to exist, and bad when on its own account it ought not to exist. If it seems to be in our power to cause a thing to exist or not to exist, we ought to try to make it exist if it is good, and not exist if it is bad.

Though many try to bring things in existence which are not good at all. When a thing is good, it is fitting that we should feel pleasure in its existence. When it is bad, it is fitting that we should feel that there is something wrong with it. Somehow each person, like animals, has some inner feeling or instinct, of what is good or bad.

For many good means the same as desired, so

that when we say a thing is good we mean that it is desired.

 but man has many desires which are not at all good for him.Therefore we do have to be careful with such a definition of "good" and "bad".

You also might say

ethical preferences are a mere matter of taste,

and in a certain way they are and they can change by the standards of time. What might be considered the right way in one period of time may be considered the wrong way in an other period.

When people would listen much more to their inner voice, they would much easier know what is good and what is bad. Also when they would read the Bible and keep to its instructions there would be less difficulties in the world about the concern of doing good or bad, than everyone would have a correct guiding or measuring unit for goodness and badness.

This article is not meant to go deep into the matter, but is only provided to introduce the question and to present some interesting articles.

1. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 1
2. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 4
3. A Living Faith #4 Effort
4. Let not sin reign in your mortal body
5. No time for immorality
6. Integrity of the fellowship
7. Looking for something or for the Truth and what it might be and self-awareness
8. A voice and a Word given for wisdom
9. No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation
10. The one who makes us well and gives life
11. Authority given to him To give eternal life
12. We are redeemed; we are “bought with a price”
13. Can we not do what Jesus did?
14. Salvation and Righteousness
15. Atonement And Fellowship 4/8
16. Atonement and the race been bought
17. Missional hermeneutics 5/5
18. May the Lord direct your hearts to …
19. Cognizance at the doorstep or at the internet socket
20. What Is Sanctification?

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Jehovah’s Witnesses Shunning ex-members adverse effects on family relationships

pt: Salão do Reino das Testemunhas de Jeová, Portugal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Majority of former Jehovah’s Witnesses believes the organization’s policy of shunning ex-members has had adverse effects on family relationships.

When you meet Jehovah Witnesses mostly they say they do not have any schisms in their organisation. None of them seems to have ever done something wrong when a Witness of Jehovah. Before they became a Witness it might well be that they did something wrong, but the changed and when a baptised Witness from then onwards they do not seem to do bad things any more.

Though we can find many ex-Witnesses. From those who left the organisation we do find some who kept to the Most High and left because their own changed views or where asked to leave the organisation because of their other views. But we also do find lots of ex-JW who were put out of the organisation because their lifestyle did not fit a lifestyle of a Christian.

98% of the people responding to the questioning by JWAlumni.org said leaving the faith impaired or destroyed their relationship with their family. Though we do have to question what was destroying the family relationship really. In the 1950ies we also in Catholic families could find quarrels about attending or not the church services and having family members going out of the house wanting to have an other way of life. It is also not so long ago that in many atheist and Christian families gay people became excluded form the family, and it still happens in such families today.
Big problem with the JW seems to be what happens when one family member quiets the organisation and what the organisation then demands from the other family members.

According to the survey, 76 percent of former Jehovah’s Witnesses are being shunned (minimized or no association) by their families. 90 percent were told it was due to the respective member not being a Jehovah’s Witness any-more. Strangely enough not so much effort was or is put in trying to get them back into the flock. We wonder how much time is invested in trying to keep the person in the faith.

Whereas the Catholic Church encourages association with excommunicated members and tries to keep them involved in the community, JW.org (or the Watchtower Society) admonish avoiding former Jehovah’s Witnesses all together.

Shunning was introduced by Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1952, only five years after they had denounced excommunication as an instrument of “ecclesiastical power and secular tyranny” that is “altogether foreign to Bible teachings.”

Though we may not forget that also in many other religious groups excommunication exists and also brings problems in families making siblings not coming together any more under one roof or having children loosing contact with their parents. Certain social and gender reasons have also serious percussions in non-religious families.

JWalumni - Jehovah's Witnesses News asked former and active members

 “How have Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW.org) affected your family?”

in a survey* they conducted in May 2015 among 1,055 individuals in the USA, Australia, Canada, UK and Germany.

One of the bigger impacts for the JW members may come from them growing up in a religion where they are taught to centre their life around it. Everything is supposed to conform to specifications set out by the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. While the consequences are less drastic when it comes to recreation or one’s choice of entertainment, they are all the more dramatic in regards to association. Granted, the rank and file Jehovah’s Witnesses all have a measure of contact with Non-Jehovah’s Witnesses through work or school. But the average Witness will limit their contact with ‘worldly people’ to such unavoidable occasions. So when they leave the so-called truth, they are literally on their own and do feel the shock only when they feel the solitude once out of the group, because before that they did not socialise enough with others.

Misha Anouk, Founding Editor of JWAlumni.org and author of the german-language bestseller Goodbye, Jehova! in her book Goodbye, Jehova!  describes the hell she went through in the years following her departure.

According to her the  system of shunning is purposely used to let the doubting or leaving person feel the loneliness.

The ‘shunning policy’ relies on: emotional blackmail through social isolation which will eventually make you want to go back. And the strategy sadly works in one of three cases.

Experts call the silent treatment manipulative punishment – something JW.org condemns in their literature.

Steve Hassan, Cult Expert at Freedom of Mind and Author of Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults says:

“Information Control (all the others too: Behavior Control, Thought control, Emotional Control) is a major reason cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses disfellowship and threaten to disfellowship. They do not want people speaking with ex-members because they will start thinking independently. They will realize the phobia indoctrination (emotional control) is just that – people can leave and live a happy, spiritual life outside of the confines of the group. I do believe all totalistic cults need to stop violating their members fundamental human rights.”

When we look at the magazines and go to a Kingdom Hall meeting, at a service or at a Bible study meeting we can not ignore that the questioning- answering system has something of an indoctrination system. Often it looks like people are also not free to make their own opinion and to discuss their other view openly with others in the group.

Much too often we do hear that such person doubting or having questions about certain teachings do not want to receive the 'new light' or are not yet ready to see the light and should be more patient.

Very often families shunning other members of the family even do not want to see the real reasons of the other being disfellowshipped or why he or she wanted to leave the organisation voluntary.
Most of them added that the reason for them leaving the group had to do with what JW leadership commanded them to do.
We also cannot ignore that the organisation seems to victimize their members time and again, with horrific policies that hurt them when they stay and punish them when they leave.
The shunning often has had adverse effects on family relationships: two-thirds feel that Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine “destroyed or seriously disrupted” their family.

Shunning is an extreme form of excommunication (“disfellowshipping”) whereby a person who committed a sin according to the Watchtower Society’s standards or who has chosen to revoke their membership in the organization is then socially isolated by Jehovah’s Witnesses – including family members.The Watchtower Society, the corporation overseeing Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, promotes the policy of shunning former members. 

72 percent of families who shunned a disfellowshipped member did so because of what the Governing Body told them through the literature of JW.org. And 59 percent admitted that the reason for shunning their relative was the hope they would return to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Only 2 percent of Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses who are being shunned feel that the practice of disfellowshipping and isolating former members socially had no effect on their family.

In contrast, 52 percent stated that their Jehovah’s Witnesses family wanted “no contact at all”, with 17 percent only getting in touch when they “need something”.

The findings are not surprising, given the fact the not so family friendly shunning policy of Jehovah’s Witnesses has been called cruel and inhumane by cult experts like the Australian Psychologist Raphael Aron and is even categorized as psychological torture. Nonetheless, only 50 percent of Jehovah’s Witness families who are actively shunning a relative would welcome a change in policy, despite the fact that they have hardly any contact.

Read more about it >

Jehovah’s Witnesses ‘destroy or seriously disrupt’ Families due to their Shunning Policy, Survey finds

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Struggles of life

Roasted coffee beans Español: Granos de café tostado (natural). Bahasa Indonesia: Biji kopi alami yang telah disangrai. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Kanze Dena wrote

STRUGGLES OF OUR LIFE

Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn't know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot and ground coffee beans in the third pot. He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter.

The daughter, moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup.
Turning to her, he asked.

 “Daughter, what do you see?”

 “Potatoes, eggs and coffee,”

 she hastily replied.

“Look closer”,

 he said,

 “and touch the potatoes.”

 She did and noted that they were soft.
 
He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.
Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?”

she asked.
 
He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity - the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.
The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.
However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

“Which one are you?”

 he asked his daughter.

 “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

MORAL:

 In life, things happen around us and things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is how you choose to react to it and what you make out of it. Life is all about learning, adopting and converting all the struggles that we experience into something positive.

Wycliffe Associates supporting underground Bible translators

English: The study translation Bible 2009 Česky: Český studijní překlad Bible 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bible translation from the jesuit and professor for oriental languages Ignaz Weitenauer, printed at Joseph-Wolffische Buchhandlung, Augsburg 1783 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a region with nearly 1,000 languages, representing 280 million people, we find that many are without the Scriptures.

 Bible translators need technology, training, and resources to translate the Bible as quickly and effectively as possible.

Over the past year, 11 of the 28 Bible translators living and working in the Middle East and Central Asia, where there is a widespread, deadly presence of extremists, have been reported dead or missing.

Like everywhere in the world we can find extremist which do everything to get rid of those who do not fit their teachings or ideology.

Bruce Smith, President and CEO of Wycliffe Associates says:

“Given the realities of the world in which these translators live and serve, some people might think the best thing they could do right now is to go into hiding and lay low for a while.”

This would not be in line with Jesus his teachings. He asked us to go out in the world and not to fear man, but in the fear of God try to bring His Holy Name over all the world. Only by spreading the Word of God, people may come to find the Only One God and His only begotten son Jesus Christ.

Even when there are a lot of trinitarian translators and organisations working at bringing God's Word in other languages, this is an important work of the evangelisation. Even when those churches are bringing false human doctrines, by providing the people with a Bible translation in their own language they should be able to come to find the real True God.

Smith says these Bible translators want the Scriptures to be distributed by every possible means, and they

“want an audacious number of printed copies, which reflect their conviction that everyone who speaks their language needs to have God’s Word.”

Wycliffe Associates which empowers national Bible translators to provide God’s Word in their own language, partners with the local church to direct and guard translation work, harnessing their passion and desire for God’s Word, and engages people from all around the world to provide resources, technology, training, and support for Bible translation. It is currently raising $300,000 to equip these local translators with the technology and training they need to work more safely.

According to Wycliffe Associates

Of the 6,901 languages spoken worldwide, only 531 have a full translation of the Bible. A Bible translation is currently in progress for 2,195 languages, and 1,023 languages in the world have at least one book of the Bible. Wycliffe Associates is striving to achieve the goal of beginning the translation of God’s Word into every remaining language by 2025.