Vårt Land
By Jor Hjulstad Tvedt
January 12, 2024
Jehovah’s Witness board member about cutting contact: – Up to the individual family
COURT: Kåre Sæterhaug, board member for Jehovah’s Witnesses, explained himself to the court on Thursday and Friday. Here he claimed that the religious community has no rules for contact with expelled family members – completely contrary to the state’s claim.
(BOARD MEMBER: Kåre Sæterhaug (in the back of the picture) explained himself on Thursday and Friday.)
How contact with excluded members is practiced is up to the individual and the individual family, depending on how they interpret the Bible’s principles. Kåre Sæterhaug, board member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, explained this to the court on Thursday. The background for the statement is that the state has asked Sæterhaug to submit a party statement in the ongoing dispute case in the Oslo district court. This means that Sæterhaug must take a seat in the witness box and spontaneously answer questions from the judge and both parties’ lawyers. The questioning started on Thursday afternoon, when it was the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ own lawyer who asked the questions. On Friday morning, the party’s statement will continue, as it is planned that the state and the judge will ask their questions. The statement is almost directly at odds with what the state has previously claimed.
Provide evidence
On Tuesday this week, the state gave its opening statement to the court. Here, government lawyer Kristin Hallsjø Aarvik presented what the state believes is evidence for a strict set of regulations regarding how excluded members and people who have left the religious community should be “shunned” by the congregation. This means that you must distance yourself from former members, to the extent that you must not even greet them in the street. The state claims that the regulations also mean that members must cut all unnecessary contact with former members of the immediate family, if they no longer belong to the same household. If members do not comply with the regulations, the state believes that this will be met with sanctions, and in the worst case, have consequences for their own membership. The state believes that the practice of avoiding former members prevents free withdrawal, because members who want to leave the religious community may feel forced to stay, in order not to lose contact with family. They also believe that it involves negative social control and psychological violence against children, because baptized minors can be excluded and sanctioned in the same way as adults. To substantiate the claim, the state referred to several articles in Jehovah’s Witnesses’ journals, handbooks, informational videos and independent research literature.
Up to each individual
In court, Sæterhaug claims that this is not true. In front of the court, he explained that the religious community’s practice of excluding members who practice serious sins is founded on biblical principles. At the same time, he pointed to other scriptures, which express other principles, including the responsibility one has to take care of one’s family. According to Sæterhaug, it is up to the individual to weigh these principles against each other, and assess how the principles should be applied in the individual situation. – If a minor is excluded, you of course have an obligation to still be mother and father. It continues if you move away from home. Much will be different from family to family. Do they want contact? There are many factors that are up to the individual’s conscience.
Don’t want to risk being excluded
When asked by the judge whether members can be sanctioned for maintaining contact with excluded or deregistered members of their own family, Sæterhaug replied that this is not something the congregation intends to do. – How can I go in and say how much contact someone should have and what is necessary in a family? This is about their own relationship with God.
The judge then asked: – Does that mean that there are no sanctions against those who have a more liberal attitude towards the excluded? To this, Sæterhaug replied that the way in which contact is practiced afterwards will be different, and that sanctions will only occur if someone says that they fundamentally disagree with the scheme. The judge then asked what will happen if a mother continues to have the same contact with her child, even if the child joins another religious community. – It is up to her conscience. She does not want to risk being excluded, said Sæterhaug.
No great part of the exercise of faith
Sæterhaug also said that he does not feel that the court fully understands their way of thinking. Furthermore, he pointed to chapter 22 of the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus is asked what was the most important commandment in the law. According to the Gospel, Jesus replied that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. This is also the basic attitude of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sæterhaug explained. – The witness statements we have heard show that members have slightly different views on how to deal with excluded people. We think that the elders should not be police, but shepherds and helpers. Sæterhaug also said that the trial may create the impression that exclusions play a large role in the religious community, but that in reality it is a very small part of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ practice of faith. –
Extremely rare
Towards the end of Ryssdal’s questioning, the board member was asked if there were many exclusions, to which Sæterhaug replied that, according to him, “there were relatively few”. Ryssdal then followed up with an issue that has previously been raised by the state, namely the situation of excluded minors: – Is it a question of a large group of minors who “opt out” and are excluded? asked the lawyer. – No, I think it is important to talk about realities. I am not aware of any cases of minors being excluded today. It is extremely rare, answered Sæterhaug. He also said that children of excluded people are not denied contact with grandparents. His impression, however, was that it is sometimes those who stand in the middle – i.e. the parents – who stand in the way of contact.
Was pressured by the government lawyers
On Friday, it was the state’s lawyers’ turn to ask questions. They were keen to confront Sæterhaug with the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ own publications, and what role these play in the religious community. Sæterhaug was asked, among other things, what role the Vakttårnet (Watchtower) magazine plays in the congregations. Sæterhaug explained that one of the two weekly parish meetings usually involves discussing a study article in the magazine. The state also took up examples from the handbooks “Shepherd the Flock of God” and “Keep yourselves in God’s love”. All publications are published by the Supreme Council of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and are the same for the whole world. Here are several examples of situations that lead to exclusion, and how the congregation should deal with excluded people, The government lawyers asked Sæterhug whether this was not to be considered rules, and whether there was room for local assessments. To this, Søterhaug replied that the doctrine of exclusion, and that excluded members should as a general rule be “avoided”, is an established doctrine.
(THEIR TURN: Government attorney Kristin Hallsjø Aarvik (left) and state prosecutor Liv Inger Gjone Gabrielsen were in charge of the questioning of Søterhaug on Friday)
According to Sæterhaug, there is no room for local adaptations, but that there is room for personal assessments. This is because each individual must assess how the principles are to be applied in their own life. – It is not a rule book, but it is a guide for those who want to have a clear conscience towards Jehovah.
Acknowledged that contact may lead to exclusion
Time and again, Sæterhaug was pressed on whether there is no “correct course of action”, and whether continuing to maintain contact with excluded family members does not entail consequences. In the end, Sæterhaug admitted that there could be consequences if one repeatedly defied guidance from elders in the congregation. But as “the elders do not function as any kind of police”, such a contact, as it becomes widely known, must also express a “rude and disrespectful attitude”. Sæterhaug assured equally that there “will never be a sentencing committee set up for contact that takes place within a family”.
(NOT MERCIFUL: Former elder Rolf Furuli was very critical of Sæterhaug’s testimony)
Harsh criticism
The next witness was former elder Rolf Furuli, who has been excluded for criticizing the current leadership of the religious community. He used harsh words to describe Sæterhaug’s testimony: – It’s pure rubbish! There is no individual decision, everyone follows it as the Supreme Council has decided. What they decide is followed to the letter, said Furuli. When asked by the judge, Furuli answered affirmatively that he himself had helped to exclude members that wanted to have contact with excluded family members.
Correction, 12.1 at 1.30 p.m.: In an earlier version of the case, it was stated that Sæterhaug said that “children of excluded persons are denied contact with grandparents”. The correct thing is that Sæterhaug said that “children of excluded people are not denied contact with grandparents”.