BREAKING NEWS | Supreme Court of Canada Rules in Favor of Jehovah’s Witnesses

[Cushi]

Even if he would have won his case, did he really think that he would have recovered financially and that the brothers and sisters would have associated with him? This guy has some screws loose.

[NW2020]

On ‎9‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 3:58 AM, digital_dreamer said:

I checked various threads and didn’t see it mentioned, but did anyone view the Supreme Court video? An excellent witness was provided.

Highwood Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses v. Randy Wall Supreme Court of Canada video

 

First 53 minutes: Co-counsel for Highwood Congregation, David M. Gnam (of W. Glen How and Associates! Talk about memories!)

 

Followed by short presentations by non-party Lawyers (interveners) representing the following:

Canadian Council of Christian Charities,

Association for Reformed Political Action Canada,

Canadian Constitution Foundation,

Evangelical Fellowship of Canada,

Catholic Civil Rights League,

Christian Legal Fellowship,

World Sikh Organization of Canada,

Seventh‑day Adventist Church in Canada,

Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms,

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints in Canada,

British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and

Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association

 

About 1:45: Co-counsel for Wall, Michael Feder.

Feder, although very capable in his presentation, delivered on the flawed premise that religious organizations need some legal oversight to guarantee that they play “fair.” A lot of what Feder spoke about was hypothetical and didn’t even relate to the actual case with Wall. I like that Feder was a good sport and acknowledged the difficulty of his premise. Like a good professional, he came up and shook Gnam’s hand at the end of the case.

 

2:47: The last 15 minute summary by Gnam was brilliant.

 

In the end, it was clear that private or non-public organizations are free to set their own rules without worrying about intrusion by judicial courts, so long as civil rights and property rights are not violated. 

 

Thank you so much for the link and the list of interveners

I watched this once - last year - into the wee hours of the night and so appreciated the procedure.

 

Thank you for pointing me back to it - so much to learn from it and although I am by no means short on things to watch I am glad to add this back to my play list.

[EccentricM]

Know what else I love in this news article?

 

Quote

they are permitted to speak only to immediate family members about non-spiritual matters

That they speak the truth about Disfellowshipping. So many apostates say "we break up families and prevent all contact". That we cause suicide because kids are abandoned by their parents and so on, or kicked out onto the street.

 

What they do is target parents who were perhaps OTT, anomalies in the congregation. The loud minorities which say "all JWs" are like this and it's a "doctrine" that JW families abandon and kick their DF'ed kids out the home, and then bring to light those very few who "did" act like that with their children. They target specific individuals who perhaps went "beyond what is written" or were overly righteous, and try to paint the organisation as being the same way.

 

So, it's nice to see in a news source of how we "actually" handle disfellowshipping matters and family units.

 

(The only time a parent or similar would rightfully stop all contact is if their DF'd family members were being "directly opposed and purposely destructive" toward their other family member's faith, aka apostasy, which the faithful family members would have a right and good reason to cut contact with, as directed scriptually).

Edited September 3, 2018 by EccentricM

[Ahuvah]

14 hours ago, EccentricM said:

 

 

(The only time a parent or similar would rightfully stop all contact is if their DF'd family members were being "directly opposed and purposely destructive" toward their other family member's faith, aka apostasy, which the faithful family members would have a right and good reason to cut contact with, as directed scriptually).

Just wanted to clarify the above wording if that's okay Matthew.

We are actually encouraged to stop all contact with ANY Df'd family members who are not minors or your spouse .. because their lifestyles are not in harmony with the scriptures - and this also extends to inactive ones whose lifestyles are in conflict with the scriptures.  There are some extenuating circumstances where some may be living under a parents roof, but they, I assume would have to be showing some effort in getting their lives into harmony with the scriptures and attending meetings. 

The exception to this would be RARE occurences revolving around serious illness, deaths of family members and necessary business dealings. 

Edited September 3, 2018 by Stormswift

[EccentricM]

55 minutes ago, Stormswift said:

Just wanted to clarify the above wording if that's okay Matthew.

We are actually encouraged to stop all contact with ANY Df'd family members who are not minors or your spouse .. because their lifestyles are not in harmony with the scriptures - and this also extends to inactive ones whose lifestyles are in conflict with the scriptures.  There are some extenuating circumstances where some may be living under a parents roof, but they, I assume would have to be showing some effort in getting their lives into harmony with the scriptures and attending meetings. 

The exception to this would be RARE occurences revolving around serious illness, deaths of family members and necessary business dealings. 

 

But essentially treating them like a person in the world, right? So, whilst they are still a household member, you'd not partake in their worldy ways, gatherings etc, or influences if living that life style willingly, as you say, like those in the congregation even still full members, who act wordly, contact becomes "lesser" as encouraged by the scriptures. In the sense that "bad associations spoil useful habits".

[Ahuvah]

1 hour ago, EccentricM said:

 

But essentially treating them like a person in the world, right? So, whilst they are still a household member, you'd not partake in their worldy ways, gatherings etc, or influences if living that life style willingly, as you say, like those in the congregation even still full members, who act wordly, contact becomes "lesser" as encouraged by the scriptures. In the sense that "bad associations spoil useful habits".

Not quite - we aren't to eat with or greet those who are disfellowshipped who don't live with us. Which means it's of a more limited association than even those of the world. To illustrate: We would probably sit down with a workmate and eat lunch together, or some prefer to take time alone - personal decision - but would one sit down with someone who is disfellowshipped and eat lunch with them?  The vast difference is of course, this disassociation with loved ones, *** is to one: show to them our loyalty is with Jehovah and two: we are hoping they return to Jehovah ... it's out of pure love that we don't associate with them - in fact intense love, because as you probably know, you don't stop loving someone ... you put it on pause and leave things in the processes from Jehovah.

 

*** Just wanted to say here, what a lot don't realize outside the organization that this severing is NOT done by the family in the truth ... but by the long term actions and attitudes of those who become disfellowshipped.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Stormswift

[jwhess]

20 hours ago, EccentricM said:

(The only time a parent or similar would rightfully stop all contact is if their DF'd family members were being "directly opposed and purposely destructive" toward their other family member's faith, aka apostasy, which the faithful family members would have a right and good reason to cut contact with, as directed scriptually).

Br. Matthew, the attached info is from the God's Love book.  This is the teaching we give to all who wish to be baptized.  Outside the home, NO contact spiritually and NO contact secularly unless it is an absolute necessity (legal signings, estate settlements, parents health-care decisions, funerals).

 

 

[EccentricM]

Understood   It was mainly in reference to the whole "kick your kids out onto the street and let them starve" mentality that I've seen some try to spread the idea about.

[Bob]

On 9/1/2018 at 4:50 PM, Brother Jack said:

Even if he would have won his case, did he really think that he would have recovered financially and that the brothers and sisters would have associated with him? This guy has some screws loose.

You're speaking my language. I think he does have some issues. Even IF he won, courts cannot force us to do deal with disfellowshipped ones if we don't want to. I was surprised the case was even heard, but I am glad it was heard because it basically just ruined all the apostate lawsuits waiting in the wings.

[Bob]

9 hours ago, EccentricM said:

Understood   It was mainly in reference to the whole "kick your kids out onto the street and let them starve" mentality that I've seen some try to spread the idea about.

Yeah. I can't find the WT right now, but parents of minor DF'd children are not told to kick them out. In fact, if you noticed in our video from the 2016 convention, the DF'd  adult sister was not asked to leave until she was negatively affecting her brother. So even with adults, as long as the person isn't poising the minds of family members, they are not automatically told to leave because of being disfellowshipped. But at the same time, parents have to protect their own spirituality and that of the rest of the believing family.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Bob

[Cushi]

4 hours ago, Bob said:

I was surprised the case was even heard, but I am glad it was heard because it basically just ruined all the apostate lawsuits waiting in the wings.

 Yeah I was surprised that it was heard too. So this would affect cases pending in the U.S and not just Canada?

[Sylv]

18 minutes ago, Brother Jack said:

 Yeah I was surprised that it was heard too. So this would affect cases pending in the U.S and not just Canada?

Foreign court rulings have no binding precedent. So while a US court could consider this decision, they do not have to follow it, while a Canadian court has to follow any rulings made by courts "above" theirs. So it is precedent-setting for Canadian cases only.

[jwhess]

4 hours ago, Bob said:

Yeah. I can't find the WT right now, but parents of minor DF'd children are not told to kick them out. In fact, if you noticed in our video from the 2016 convention, the DF'd  adult sister was not asked to leave until she was negatively affecting her brother. So even with adults, as long as the person isn't poising the minds of family members, they are not automatically told to leave because of being disfellowshipped. But at the same time, parents have to protect their own spirituality and that of the rest of the believing family.

In line with my note in post #33 (with the God's Love clip, here is the paragraph prior to the one cited before.  It is about minors living at home.

 

 

[Bob]

48 minutes ago, Brother Jack said:

 Yeah I was surprised that it was heard too. So this would affect cases pending in the U.S and not just Canada?

Sylvia beat me to it. It is not binding in the US. But trust me, Canadian lawsuit-mongering lawyers and their apostate clients were closely watching the arguments in this case.

 

They were waiting for anything precedent-setting so that they could hit the ground floor suing us.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Bob

[Bob]

7 minutes ago, jwhess said:

In line with my note in post #33 (with the God's Love clip, here is the paragraph prior to the one cited before.  It is about minors living at home. 

 

 

Thanks bro!

[sunshine]

I am skimming through the high court decision and it seems to me the judges keep returning to the point that they can ndeed insist ghat a member  of a religion has been treated fairly... but "fairness" is subjective, isnt it?  if we are not speaking legally, I cannot understand how it is their business to ensure a regoius committee is fair (I know ours is but what if there was a religion called "The brotherhood of arbitrary Decisions" and one of the tenets was "you get no hearing,  our God tells our leader who to expel and this can be for no reason" would an ex-member be allowed to sue? ...

[Sheep]

On 9/19/2018 at 8:12 AM, sunshine said:

. . . what if there was a religion called "The brotherhood of arbitrary Decisions" and one of the tenets was "you get no hearing,  our God tells our leader who to expel and this can be for no reason" would an ex-member be allowed to sue? ...

If that ex-member knew about the tenets of that religion, and freely chose to be part of it anyway, then, No. He could not sue. By becoming part of that religion even after knowing of a teaching like that, it would mean he accepted and agreed with those tenets. If he leaves that religion later and starts disagreeing with it doesn't change the fact that he accepted it at the time. He would not have a legal leg to stand on.

 

It's the same among Jehovah's Witnesses. Before Mr. Wall was even baptized, he received a copy of the book "Organized to Accomplish Our Ministry," which explained, among other things, the role of the elders, judicial committees, disfellowshiping, etc. Before being baptized, before the three elders would have gone over the questions with him, he would have to say he understood and agreed to those standards as coming from God. If he did not agree he could not be baptized. He knew the consequences beforehand that if he carried on some serious sinful conduct after his baptism and was unrepentant, he would be disfellowshiped. Mr. Wall, knew, accepted, and agreed with all of that before his baptism. His ultimate loss before the Supreme Court of Canada had already been decided.

 

 

Edited September 21, 2018 by Sheep

[sunshine]

Indeed I agree entirely with you brother Eric and that's why I found the High Court Judges questions a little disturbing.  Even though they came to the right decision it seemed to me that they were saying as long as a person is given notice and a fair hearing we have no place to interfere, which implies that if an individual is not given due notice and a hearing where he can defend himself they (the court) can intervene.  The closing comments from our brother (?) were pertinent, the procedures we follow are religious, it is"fair" according to our spiritual standards and as such are entirely outside the courts jurisdiction. In short it's not because we judge  things "fairly" in the eyes of common law but because however we judge them and administer that justice is outside the realms of the law.

Edited September 21, 2018 by sunshine

[sunshine]

On 9/21/2018 at 6:15 AM, Sheep said:

He knew the consequences beforehand that if he carried on some serious sinful conduct after his baptism and was unrepentant, he would be disfellowshiped. Mr. Wall, knew, accepted, and agreed with all of that before his baptism. His ultimate loss before the Supreme Court of Canada had already been decided.

 

 

True!  Iove the part when the Judge asked, what if Mr Wall no longer agrees with the tenets of your faith, what can he do.  And our lawyer said, "Leave and start his own religion if he wants"... Boom !!