Link – Jehovah’s Witness two-witness rule examined at royal commission
All the more reason that victims should go to law enforcement. Do not allow a church, workplace, school, or even a college, “investigate” what is criminal activity. The rules they follow are not the same, and crimes should be investigated, and tried by the legal system, not some group who’s main interest is not justice, but protecting the organization.
“Timothy 5:19: demands followers “do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses”.
It’s a message echoed in Matthew 18:16: that reads, among other things, “ … at the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter may be established”.
The two passages became the focus this week of a royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse within the Jehovah’s Witness church in Australia, of which there are 65,000 followers.
Having adopted a number of recommendations in the name of greater transparency, there was only one thing the church refused to change: a 2000-year-old protocol requiring two witnesses before a child sexual assault allegation be investigated.”
