Apostates and what scholars say?

 

Apostates and what scholars say, about apostates in general?

Contributed by: Justin Tyme - Tuesday, October 15, 2019.

The following are a few comments made by Apostates Experts from the Sociology, Professors of Religious Studies, and the Religious Scholars field please pay attention to their findings and understandings...!

Bryan R. Wilson, who was a professor of Sociology at Oxford University, writes that apostates of new religious movements are generally in need of self-justification, and seek to reconstruct their past and to excuse their former affiliations, while blaming those who were formerly their closest associates. Wilson utilizes the term atrocity story, [a story] that is in his view rehearsed by the apostate to explain how, by manipulation, coercion or deceit, he was recruited to a group that he now condemns. Wilson also challenges the reliability of the apostate's testimony by saying that "the apostate [is] always seen as one whose personal history predisposes him to bias with respect to his previous religious commitment and affiliations, the suspicion must arise that he acts from a personal motivation, to vindicate himself and to regain his self-esteem, by showing himself to have been first a victim, but subsequently a redeemed crusader."

 

Religious scholars have routinely found the testimony and public statements of apostates to be unreliable.

In his book "The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movement", Professor David Bromley, Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Virginia Commonwealth University, explained how individuals who elect to leave a chosen faith must then become critical of their religion in order to justify their departure. This then opens the door to being recruited and used by organizations which seek to use their testimony as a weapon against a minority religion. "Others may ask, if the group is as transparently evil as he now contends, why did he espouse its cause in the first place? In the process of trying to explain his own seduction and to confirm the worst fears about the group, the apostate is likely to paint a caricature of the group that is shaped more by his current role as apostate than by his actual experience in the group."

 

John Gordon Melton is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently a research specialist in religion and New Religious Movements with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While testifying as an expert witness in a lawsuit, said that when investigating groups one should not rely solely upon the unverified testimony of ex-members, and that hostile ex-members would invariably shade the truth and blow out of proportion minor incidents, turning them into major incidents. Melton also follows the argumentation of Lewis Carter and David Bromley and claims that as a result of this study, the [psychological] treatment (coerced or voluntary) of former members largely ceased, and that a (perceived) lack of widespread need for psychological help by former members of new religions would in itself be the strongest evidence refuting early sweeping condemnations of new religions as causes of psychological trauma.

Individuals are usually expelled (disfellowshipped/excommunicated) because of apostasy or gross sexual misconduct (God's moral standards have never changed, though man's have)!

In the link below are two prominent individuals, who were expelled from the Christian congregation on the grounds of gross sexual immorality, but, that is not told by the media, as they have their own agenda, biased and one sided!

Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses reveal how they escaped church Kingdom Hall | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Extract from a spokesperson from JWs:

"The Child Sexual Abuse Royal Commission found that not a single abuse case was reported by the Jehovah’s Witness Church to secular authorities despite there being 1006 alleged perpetrators investigated by the elders since 1950. The church refutes this. Tom Pecipajkovski from Jehovah’s Witnesses Australasia tells news.com.au: “Any suggestion that Jehovah’s Witnesses shield perpetrators of abuse, or prefer to deal with it in-house, is false.” He claims that, of those 1006 case files, 383 were reported to the police at the time they had happened, and 161 had resulted in convictions. “Unlike most religions, Jehovah’s Witnesses take steps to remove from the congregation any who make a practice of engaging in sexual misconduct.” Mr Pecipajkovski also said: “Jehovah’s Witnesses are well-known for their educational work of sharing the positive message of the Bible. “Jehovah’s Witnesses have distributed billions of copies of Bibles and Bible-based literature without charge and in more than 1000 languages. Accessing this information does not obligate a person in any way to become a Witness."

“We do not coerce people into changing religions as we recognise that faith is a personal matter. Furthermore, each individual believer has the right of free will to make personal decisions." 

End

NB: Some individuals become spiritually weak and walk away, or they allow themselves be enticed by what this world has to offer, others leave for personal reasons, they may not have done anything bad, wrong, they are not shunned, avoided, but, treated with like any other ordinary person, they problem is that, when they engage and begin to practice immorality or become apostate and start to propagate their views and conduct themselves contrary to bible standards, and refuse to listen to sound biblical council, then for the good of the Christian congregation and to keep it morally clean in Jehovah God's eyes, they are expelled from that congregation, this is the bible standard for God's people and has never changed, as God's moral standards have never changed, though man's moral standards have degraded to the point where the world is like Sodom and Gomorrah, no rules, anything goes and other so-called life-styles are tolerated and many church leaders have condoned such a thing and turned a blind eye to it!

What merits disfellowshipping from the congregation? Those who promote a Sect, cause divisions within the congregation, those who are practicers of adultery, fornication, homosexuality, gross sexual misconduct in other ways, thieves, liars, greedy persons, apostates, extortioners, drunkards, spiritism, those who become idolaters, liars...! 1Co 5:9-13; 6:9, 10; Tit 3:10, 11; Re 21:8. 

Those who are unrepentant sinners, who were at one time "Christians" the apostles Paul and John said very clearly:

1 Cor 5:11 NASB "But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or a greedy person, or an idolater, or is verbally abusive, or habitually drunk, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a person."

2 John 9, 10 ASV "9 Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son. 10 f any one cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, receive him not into your house, and give him no greeting" 

For those who show sincere and manifest genuine repentance, they may be received back into the Christian congregation, this protects the congregation from being over-reached by Satan, Christians must not condone wrong doing, turn a blind eye to it, as we see in apostate Christendom, with her more than 30,000 fractured sects, also, it would be counter productive to go to the other extreme and be overly harsh and not be forgiving!

2 Cor 2:10, 11 NET

"10 If you forgive anyone for anything, I also forgive him—for indeed what I have forgiven if I have forgiven anything I did so for you in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we may not be exploited by Satan for we are not ignorant of his schemes."

"...Satan for we are not ignorant of his schemes."

Satan could not destroy the Christian congregation from without, so he used and still uses another tactic, corrupt it from within and two of his tactics is apostasy and immortality, and the whole world lying in his power is full of it!