I was raised in the
Watchtower cult. I considered baptism when I was eleven and changed my mind,
then in my preteens and early teens I thought Jehovah's Witnesses were fanatics
and was unconvinced of their religion, but I went along with things out of
respect for my parents. I was eventually convinced and was baptized in that
religion in 1979 when I was 16 and later disassociated myself in 1985. Over
time I realized that, although there are good people among the Jehovah’s
Witnesses, we were no better than the people we condemned; we were just trained
to look at the Watchtower Organization through rose-coloured glasses.
Watchtower theology is
much like a house of cards. When a JW sees that the Watchtower Society is wrong
on a point, even an insignificant point, he is likely to see through other
errors. When I was a Jehovah's Witness, I eventually decided that the
Watchtower Society is not God's channel of truth, but this did not happen
overnight. Over time various things happened or came to my attention to make me
reconsider the belief that Jehovah’s Witnesses have the only true Christian
religion, and I would like to share a few examples.
Watchtower publications
teach that love among themselves and respect for the Bible proves that
Jehovah’s Witnesses have the only true Christian religion. As time went by, I
observed that I usually got along with non-JW relatives, schoolmates, and
workmates better than I did with most JWs, and it became increasingly obvious
that JWs put words of men above the Word of God. The Watchtower Organization is
all about control, by Watchtower leadership and local elders, in every area of
a JWs life, even areas where no Bible truth or principle is at stake, and this
also helped me to see through the façade.
The Watchtower magazine
included articles to be studied in one of the congregation meetings each week.
A few months after I was baptized a Watchtower study article taught that it is
wrong to doubt the Watchtower Organization or question teachings and policies
and condemned independent thinking. This bothered me since the truth can
withstand questions and criticism, and over time I was often accused of
independent thinking though I tried to hide this and ignore my doubts and
questions. This also contradicted what was taught in the Watchtower book “The
Truth that leads to Eternal Life” (A Watchtower book used for conducting Home
Bible Studies) in the chapter about the importance of examining one’s religion.
In 1981 a Watchtower
article included the change in policy that people who voluntarily disassociated
themselves were to be shunned the same as disfellowshipped persons. It bothered
me that, whether the individual was right or wrong, there was no honourable way
out.
In my studies I often
looked at older Watchtower publications, not to be critical but to find
information and knowledge, and looking at older Watchtower publications would
make me wonder how the truth could change so often. JWs explain changes in
doctrine and policy as “New Light.” One of my peeves was that whenever there
was New Light it always seemed to be something inconsequential, like the name
of one of the meetings or the exact interpretation of some obscure passage of
Bible prophecy, and I would wonder why it was such a major issue. I also observed
that all too often the New Light did not illuminate or expound upon the Old
Light but disproved or replaced the Old Light altogether, and often the New
Light was a reintroduction of Old Light that had been previously discarded as
false. A Watchtower study article pointed out that the truth does not change,
and I thought this was ironic coming from the Watchtower Society, and when
Watchtower leadership discouraged us from looking at older Watchtower
publications I could not help wondering about the motives behind that.
In the early 1980s a
Watchtower study article on sexual morality said that certain sex acts (oral
sex, etc.) were immoral even in marriage and that married JWs guilty of
willingly participating in those kind of sex acts with their spouse would be
subject to a judicial hearing and would be disfellowshipped if unrepentant, and
it struck me that this was getting too much into private lives. I figured a
married couple could be happy without those kind of sex acts and I could see
the point if this was dealing with abuse or coercion or something dangerous,
but the article was not dealing with abuse or merely advising against something
but was making a judicial matter out of things a married couple might mutually
and willingly choose to do in private. While I still believed that the
Watchtower Organization is the truth this did help make me look at things more
critically.
There used to be a lot of
JWs who were policeman, but then in the early 1980s The Watchtower said that
JWs could no longer have guns for self-defense and JWs who were policemen could
not continue to work for a police force if the job required them to carry a
gun. I noticed that they were using the same proof texts that were used to
teach that it is immoral for a Christian to join the armed forces for any
reason. I began looking at those proof texts in context and began to realise
that they did not condemn military service or using weapons for self-defense.
Around that time an aunt's husband, who served in the US Army in WWII, explained
to me that a soldier merely doing his duty is not a murderer. While this did
not change my mind right away, I did think seriously about points he made.
It used to be that
Watchtower publications occasionally taught cautions about young relationships
but did not condemn teenage marriage. Then in 1983 a study article in The
Watchtower said it is wrong for people to date or marry till their twenties
because First Corinthians 7:36 says they must be past the bloom of youth
("flower of age," KJV). This interpretation of First Corinthians 7:36
was especially noteworthy to me because both of my parents were JWs when they
married, and my mother was a teenager when they married. Throughout history
most women (and many men) married in their teens. If this interpretation of
First Corinthians 7:36 was correct it would have been noted in the annals of
history that first century Christians forbade teenage marriage.
I remember that at a
convention it was mentioned in one of the public talks that celebrating a
religious holiday such as Christmas or Easter is a disfellowshipping offense
because this is apostasy, and I began to wonder what was so wrong about setting
aside a day to honour Christ and worship God. I started to seriously question
(in my mind) just how setting aside a day to worship and give gifts and enjoy
fellowship made someone an apostate.
In a public talk at a JW
Convention in 1983 the song “He Ain't Heavy He’s My Brother” (The Hollies) was
mentioned as a good example or description of the love Jesus talked about in
John 13:34-35, and this got me to seriously wondering about the Watchtower
teaching that John 13:35 is an identifying mark of the only true Christian
religion as this was not what I observed. I observed that non-JWs were often
easier to get along with than other JWs, among JWs I could not be sure who my
real friends were or trust JWs to be honest, some teachings with which I was
not allowed to disagree were obviously debatable opinions, and “new light”
often involved things that were trivial or inessential, such as the exact
interpretation of some obscure passage of Bible prophecy or the name of one of
the weekly meetings, or intrusive rules with no Scriptural basis. The
Watchtower Organization did not seem to me to be quite what it claims to be and
didn’t seem to be better than people and groups we condemned, but I would pass
this off as misunderstanding on my part or the Devil trying to deceive me.
In the early 1980s The
Watchtower magazine, in a study article, stated that the Watchtower Society
never predicted that Armageddon would occur in 1975 and that a lot of Jehovah’s
Witnesses merely misinterpreted what was said. I was old enough to remember the
1975 disappointment and had been passing this off as a mistake or a
miscalculation on the part of the Watchtower Society, so that statement
bothered me for a long time because that is not how I remembered things. Along
with things I remembered reading in Watchtower publications I remembered that
there were a lot of people who quit college or promising careers, delayed marriage
or delayed having children, sold their houses to move where pioneers or
missionaries were needed, and otherwise made sacrifices to devote themselves to
proselytizing work in the remaining years and months till Armageddon. For a
long time, I tried to convince myself that this was just a misunderstanding or
misinterpretation of what was said and refused to believe the Watchtower
Society would lie.
Eventually, in 1984, I
visited the Kingdom Hall library to look at pre-1975 Watchtower publications to
see if my memory was wrong or not and I found in pre-1975 Watchtower
publications that the Watchtower Society predicted 1975 quite clearly. Further
research revealed that in previous decades the Watchtower Society had predicted
dates for the end of the world and later denied those predictions. In the
Kingdom Hall library was a copy of “The Finished Mystery,” a 1917 Watchtower
book which the Watchtower Society pointed to as one of the reasons Christ chose
the Watchtower Organization to represent him in 1919, as it was the primary
book used to dispense truth and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (as they are now
called) were the only religious group preaching the truth. Merely browsing over
this book made me start to wonder why Christ would choose a group to represent
him based on such absurd interpretations.
At that time I was a
Regular Auxiliary Pioneer (A JW committed to 60 or more hours per month in
witnessing work), and while doing door-to-door witnessing I met a nice couple
who asked why Jehovah’s Witnesses believe they have the only true Christian
religion. I explained this the way it was taught in Watchtower publications,
that the Bible teaches that there is only one true Christian religion, and that
the Bible teaches identifying marks of that religion. It started bothering me
that I was teaching this when I was not fully convinced that the Watchtower
Organization measured up to those identifying marks. One evening I decided to
resolve this issue in my mind by considering pros and cons and I took a notepad
and divided a page into two columns, one column for reasons it is the truth and
the other for reasons it is not, and by sunrise the next morning one column was
full on both sides but the column for reasons it is the truth was blank because
I could not honestly and objectively point to a solid concrete reason to
believe it is the truth. I then decided that it was time to leave, and later I
formally disassociated myself from the Watchtower Organization by writing a
letter to my congregation in 1985.
I was burnt out on religion
and avoided church for a long time, but I still wondered if there was a
denomination that is the true Christian religion, and sometimes considered
going back to the Watchtower organization for the sake of family. Once in a
great while I see where someone says JWs practice shunning out of love to
persuade ex-JWs to return, which is interesting to say the least. For a couple
years after I disassociated myself I occasionally considered returning and
getting reinstated, but experiences involving JWs killed that idea. Let me
share just a few examples: A few months after I left the organization a friend
and I were eating at a Shoney's restaurant when a group of JWs I once
considered friends came in and the hostess took them to a table near us. When
they sat down one of them said very loudly "I wonder what Arnold is doing
here with that guy?" and another said, also very loudly, "maybe he
couldn't get a woman and decided to turn gay." My friend was offended and
wanted to fight but I persuaded him to ignore their stupidity, and I thought it
a bit ironic that people who act that way think I'm a bad guy to be shunned.
When I fell on hard times and found myself without a vehicle, JW relatives
living nearby would not give me a ride anywhere even if I would buy the gas and
even if it was on their way. Seeing relatives and former friends snub me and
give me angry looks as they drove by while I walked in the rain or the cold
certainly did not make me feel like they wanted me back. I could give more
examples, but these should suffice.
Eventually I learned that
salvation is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and I was born again on
January 4, 1987.
As a new convert I
believed it is not possible for a genuine born-again believer to be deceived
into joining a cult like the Jehovah’s Witness or adopt such obvious heresies
as Bible truths, but eventually I realised that the warning of Second
Corinthians 11:3-4 is addressed to genuine born again Christians.
Not long after I was
saved I read in a Christian book about cults that the typical cult recruit or
initiate comes from a religious background in a mainstream denomination, and
since then I have read other books and studies that say the same. My own
experience or memory is that Jehovah’s Witnesses that were not raised in the
Watchtower religion usually came from a religious background in a mainstream denomination
(Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, Catholic, etc.). I believe the major factors
contributing to this are:
·
Widespread neglect of, indifference
toward, and criticism of the Holy Bible in churches.
·
Widespread neglect of religious education
of children at home.
·
Widespread neglect of personal Bible
study.
·
The widespread tendency to major on minors
in Christian circles.
If you are seriously
considering whether Jehovah’s Witnesses have the truth or if the Watchtower
Organization is a Christian group that you might want to join, I ask you to
prayerfully consider if JWs really do measure up to the marks that they say
identify them as the only true Christian religion, and I ask you to apply these
questions to Watchtower teachings:
·
Can this be verified with Scripture? Is
this what the Bible teaches or is this what someone thinks the Bible ought to
say? Have you examined the context of Watchtower proof texts? What would be your
response if an unbeliever asked why you believe this? (Proverbs 3:5-7; Matthew
15:3, 8-9; 22:29; 1 Corinthians 1:20; 2:5; Colossians 2:8; 2 Timothy 2:15;
3:16-17)
·
How important is this in relation to other
matters and what Bible truths and principles or standards apply? (Ecclesiastes
7:16; Matthew 23:24; Romans 14; I Timothy 1:5-7)
·
Was this true in the distant past and will
this still be true in the distant future? (Psalm 33:11; 119:89; Proverbs 19:21;
Ecclesiastes 1:9-10; James 1:17; the Watchtower Society has a history of
continually changing teachings, “the truth,” with which JWs are not allowed to
disagree.)
If you are a Jehovah’s
Witness reading this for whatever reason, you do not have to take my word on
any of this. Study and research to see for yourself and remember that the truth
can withstand questions and critical analysis.
For more information:
Help For Ex-jehovah's Witnesses
HOW TO WITNESS TO JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
EVERY JEHOVAH'S WITNESS SHOULD BE ASKED THESE QUESTIONS