AUSTRALIA
news.com.au
THE Jehovah’s Witnesses will only compensate survivors of sex abuse if God tells them to, a royal commission has been told.
SENIOR church figure Geoffrey Jackson told the sex abuse royal commission that any changes the Jehovah’s Witnesses made to their rules and doctrine had to be informed by God.
Mr Jackson said God’s word is accessed through the Bible and the church’s first-century interpretation of it.
Chief Commissioner Peter McClellan asked him on Friday if the church would be willing to take part in a joint scheme with other institutions to provide financial redress to abuse survivors.
Mr Jackson told him the church would need to see that “nothing was scripturally against us doing that”, but it was something that was not totally out of the “option pool”.
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