Outside the Camp

Oh my! I had to do a double-take in read­ing this Ques­tions from Read­ers from the Novem­ber 15, 1952 Watch­tower. As bad as it is being dis­fel­low­shipped for “apos­tasy” and shunned by my fam­ily mem­bers, at least they can’t kill me. Hope­fully there won’t be any “new light” on this.

“We are not liv­ing today among theo­cratic nations where such mem­bers of our fleshly fam­ily rela­tion­ship could be exter­mi­nated for apos­tasy from God and his theo­cratic orga­ni­za­tion, as was pos­si­ble and was ordered in the nation of Israel in the wilder­ness of Sinai and in the land of Palestine.”

“Being lim­ited by the laws of the worldly nation in which we live and also by the laws of God through Jesus Christ, we can take action against apos­tates only to a cer­tain extent, that is, con­sis­tent with both sets of laws. The law of the land and God’s law through Christ for­bid us to kill apos­tates, even though they be mem­bers of our own flesh-and-blood fam­ily relationship.”

–Novem­ber 15, 1952 Watch­tower “Ques­tions From Read­ers”. Empha­sis is mine.