Tolerance, a (Sometimes) Dirty Word

I am a Quality Professional in my vocation. It's not something I love, but it has its curiosities. While it's of little interest to people in the consumer world, except at the warranty level, it has a great deal to do with how they live their lives and the reliability of the accouterments they employ. 

Engineers and designers often establish manufacturing tolerances (acceptable deviations from nominal values) to dictate how much slop they can accept and still have the construct work as intended. They are generally divided into Minor, Major, and Critical categories. The higher one escalates, the greater the chance of failure being catastrophic. Keep that in mind the next time your mechanic says that your brakes need replacing. 

Tolerance has also been used to express the acceptance of alternative lifestyles, religious views, political positions, ad infinitum. This is generally considered an admirable quality and paints people who are 'tolerant' as amenable to circumstances in which they would rather not participate. Whatever context is falls into, it encompasses the quality of knowing that there is a finite and accepted value for something, that it has not been met, and is still acceptable. Keep this thought in mind for the following.

A new story is emerging from the UK about Harry Holt. This grandfatherly looking chap to the right was an elder for many years. It has recently come to public attention (I emphasize 'public' because Watchtower was quite aware for many years) that Mr. Holt had sexually molested young women from his congregation throughout his life. He appeared before a judicial committee to face the accusation from one of his victims. He admitted to his dealings and was removed as an elder. Sometime later, it appears that he was reappointed to the position.

As the years progressed, he molested more girls, but it is only recently that he has been found out and is facing secular prosecution for his actions. The charges include crimes that span four decades.

Accusations have become almost commonplace among Jehovah's Witnesses. Predictable stories of child abusers facing only the lightest of punishments are punctuated by the rather comical assertion from Watchtower that it abhors the crime and sin of child abuse and does not cover it up.

Okay, I'll play along. Let's say that Watchtower doesn't cover up child abuse. I their October, 2012 Letter to Elders, Watchtower directed all elders learning of child abuse accusations to contact the Watchtower Legal Department for advice. This advice would expressly include information on mandatory reporting requirements for their locality. It should be noted that this letter has been removed from most public sources after Watchtower cited copyright infringement. However, it is not hard to find and it is troubling. 

Additionally, congregational audits that were to be conducted by December 31, 2015 included instructions on the destruction of Elders' personal notes about 'particular individuals', except those added to the congregation file. To their marginal credit, the Elders' manual (Shepherd the Flock of God, 2010 (abbreviated ks10)) does instruct in Chapter 2, p16 that reports of child abuse, proved or not, "should be placed in congregation's confidential file and marked "Do Not Destroy" and kept indefinitely". This unfortunately loses all credibility when you reach Chapter 5, p39 where they are instructed that if the accused denies allegations (even in the presence of the accuser), or the accused or accuser declines to meet with elders and there are no other witnesses to the alleged crime, the matter is dismissed and left to Jehovah. 

I temper the following paragraph by citing ks10 Chapter 12, p19 which says that reporting child abuse to authorities is the victim's "absolute right" and it should not be suggested otherwise. However, there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to establish that this advice is not always followed. 

Child abuse, however, in every measurable way, is a felony and deserving of a proper investigation by trained and legal authorities. By not reporting it to authorities, or by suggesting that "personal disputes" not be placed in front of secular authorities (ks10 12:22), they are implicitly tolerant of it. They know, without doubt, that it is a behavior that does not meet the established criteria (i.e. criminally offensive) and have explicit instructions on how to accept it.

Inasmuch as Elders are completely intolerant of multitudes of other non-criminal behaviors, their continued tolerance of crimes against children is genuinely baffling. As entire government entities begin to investigate mishandling of child abuse by Watchtower, we will begin to see more defensive behaviors. Time will tell how great the lengths they will go to to defend their corporation will be. I imagine it will be extensive and insufficiently humble. 

Previously I mentioned tolerance as necessitating and understanding of the finite and accepted value for something. There are few who would deviate from the finite and accepted value for child abuse being absolute zero. It is despicable to think that there is any community leader, religious or otherwise, who would not seek prosecution of crime against a child to its fullest extent.

This meets every conceivable definition of a "critical failure". The exceptional reach and scope of damage that child abuse does is staggering. It is destructive to individuals abused, their families, their relationships, and often their own children. When any single victim is protected with every measure afforded to those in a position to help (Elders), the protection encompasses a multitude of people. 

Jesus said that "to the extent you did it to least of these my brothers, you did it to me". Every time Watchtower fails a child, they fail their Savior. 

Every time...

I wonder how long they would tolerate that?

Family Matters

My Grandpa George "Shug" Machuga...

I feel a particular pain in even writing his name. It's partly the pain of loss because of what he meant to me. It's also partly the pain of realization that his faith would have precluded me if given the opportunity.

That uncomfortably juxtaposes certain things that I've written about him, all of which are still true of course, but they all carry the caveat that they were conditional, contingent on faith. My faith, not to put too fine a point on it.

It's genuinely difficult to even explore this topic, but the harsh reality is that being a Witness was a complete commitment to him. I have to respect that, if nothing else. However, I don't have to feel good about it, and I won't.

My cousin pointed out to me in a conversation about her shared faith that, if George were still alive, I'd already be dead to him. This is a true statement. I can say with out bias or reservation that he would certainly feel this way. As one of Jehovah's Witnesses, he would take my dissent and free thought as apostasy. It is, of course, and this I don't contest.

Shunning would follow, which is in part why I don't share my complete thoughts with other family members. This hallmark of cult activity is one that I've been exposed to over and over without batting an eyelash. For some reason though (and it's quite clear to me why, but too difficult to voice), I find the admission that he would turn his back on me to be impossible to stomach with quiet dignity. Even so, I cannot deny it would be absolute.

I remember the first time I was chastised for speaking, or attempting to speak, to a disfellowshipped person. His name was Bob Hauserman. He'd been disfellowshipped since before I had been born. If he's even still alive, I'm sure that he still is. He faithfully attended meetings with greater regularity than many who were in good standing. Exactly what his rift with the elders was, I'll never know.

On one Sunday, when I was about five years old, my family and I walked to the Kingdom Hall as our family car was not working and we only lived a few blocks away. We walked on one side of the street, and with no small sense of irony, Bob walked on the other. I didn't yet understand his status, but I knew his face. So I waved. He smiled back at me and said nothing. My mother explained, poorly, that I couldn't talk to him.

As I grew older, I began to understand what an abstraction that was. Nothing prevented me from actually speaking with him. There was no physical malady, magical force field, or kill-switch implant in my brain that would actually stop it from happening. It was the idea.

The lines painted on the roadway and the lights at intersections operate in the same way. They are only effective if they are observed and we respect the ideas they are meant to represent. The boundary between you and a traffic accident is imaginary. So is the divide that separates Witnesses from Apostates. Parents from children. Brother from sister. Me from my grandfather.

Unfortunately, I don't have any way to frame this except as a mental handicap. Being unable to recognize a viewpoint alone as one's proof of impossibility is called a 'intellectual scotoma'. Scotoma is a Greek word that means 'blind spot' or alteration in a area of one's field of vision. The concept of intellectual scotoma has been demonstrated by psychological experiments in which people under hypnosis receive the suggestion that common objects are impossibly heavy. Under this suggestion, they find themselves unable to move them even though there is no mechanical reason they cannot. Their brains, however, convinced of their physical inadequacy, counteract productive muscle movements to create the effect that is expected. Thus, the blind spot becomes the malady that prevents action, rather than anything tangible.

Whether this is a cognitive choice or not is something of a debate. However, the Effect cannot be overstated. I, a human being of descent from the bloodline of Machuga, am a real person. I am of the same temperament, mental acumen, and moral fabric as I have ever been. To have been blocked by the intellectual scotoma of religious indoctrination did not diminish me in any way. That I am less because of my philosophical disposition is an abstraction. A fault laden abstraction.

It cuts me to the bone that a man I love(d) so much could be so myopic as a matter of choice. But that is how he would be. Of that I have no doubt. To me, family matters in the same way it did when I was a child. I was taught to love freely and to forgive plentifully. I didn't learn that there were qualifying conditions until much later, and as such, I feel it was a bit of a bait-and-switch.

I learned to love the people I did without exception, and once I was completely comfortable that I was indispensable, as much as they were to me, I found out that I would have to keep that faith or risk losing everything I knew. I, ME, Aaron Machuga, was not the object of intrinsic value. It was my belief. My faith was the only thing to which the people that I loved would be enamored.

I was not part of the equation, except as a vehicle for that which they desired. In that respect, I am no more than a vessel. Spiritual tupperware.

I value myself more than that.

I value myself more than that.