I was raised in the Watchtower cult. I considered
water baptism when I was eleven and changed my mind, and 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.
In 1978, when I was 15, in their weekly Book Study the Jehovah’s Witnesses
began studying the Watchtower book “Is the Bible Really the Word of God?” and I
started thinking I may have misjudged the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was baptized
in that religion in 1979 when I was 16 and later disassociated myself in 1985.
In a typical church it is normal to find or observe
that 5% to 20% of the regular active members are the walk-the-walk variety of
worshippers and the rest are the talk-the-talk variety. Jehovah’s Witnesses are
taught lump all other churches into one group (Christendom) and focus on the
negative aspects while overlooking or ignoring the inconvenient realities of
the Watchtower Organization, and besides, if a religious group teaches
salvation by works you can expect the members to work more and if a religious
group practices shunning you can expect the members to put forth a greater
effort toward putting on a facade. 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 Jehovah’s Witness sees that the Watchtower Society is wrong on a point,
even an insignificant point, he is likely to begin seeing 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 the
Watchtower Society is God’s channel of truth, and I would like to share a few
examples.
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 even
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 people. It bothered me that, whether the
individual was right or wrong, there was no honourable way out. Second John 10
was given as a proof text, and this was problematic to me because I knew that
home or house in the New Testament often refers to a congregation because the
early Christians usually assembled for worship in private houses, and Second
John 10 is obviously a standard for church membership and discipline. If Second
John 10 is not a standard for church membership and discipline but is a
restriction on who a JW may speak to or receive into his private home, then why
is this interpretation of Second John 10 only applied to ex-JWs and not applied
to non-JW family and friends? The same article also taught complete shunning of
disfellowshipped people based on the Watchtower interpretation of chapter five
of First Corinthians. While chapter five of First Corinthians outlines limiting
association with professed Christians that persist in gross sins, where is
there an indication of strict shunning or application to family members?
In my studies, I often referred to older Watchtower
publications to seek information and knowledge. Reviewing these older
publications led me to 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 and what eternal difference it will make. 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 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 the private lives of married couples. I figured a married couple
could be happy without those kind of sex acts and I would not have seen a
problem if this was dealing with abuse or coercion, 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 held on to the belief that the
Watchtower Organization is the truth this did make me look at things more
critically.
There used to be a lot of JWs who were cops, 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
the use of weapons for self-defense. For example, Watchtower publications used
Isaiah 2:4 and similar passages to say it is immoral to join the armed forces,
and over time I began thinking that it is a bit unreasonable (even foolish) to
base decisions and plans on things we obviously do not and cannot know, such as
the timing of the fulfillment of Bible prophecies. 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 teenagers to date or marry and people should not be allowed to date
or marry till their twenties based on their new interpretation of First
Corinthians 7:36. 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. Throughout history most women (and many men) married in
their teens and most mothers bore their first child while in their teens. If
the Watchtower 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
wondering what was so bad about setting aside a day to honour Christ. 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. Romans 14 kept coming
to mind. (The Bible does not command you to celebrate Christmas or Easter, but
the Bible does not command you to drive a car or wear a watch ether.)
In a public talk at a JW Convention in 1983 in Macon,
Georgia, the song “He Ain't Heavy He’s My Brother” 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 and among JWs I could not be sure who my real friends were or
trust JWs to be honest. The Watchtower Organization did not seem to me to be
quite what it claims to be and did not seem to be better than the 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.
Around that time, I decided to convince myself that
Watchtower teachings are Bible truths by reading in context all the Bible
passages cited in the Watchtower book “You Can Live Forever In Paradise On
Earth.” I was not even half-way through when I left the Watchtower
Organization, and I challenge anyone else to do this with a Watchtower
publication to see for yourself that they are reading into Bible passages ideas
and teachings that are not there.
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 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
bought 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 was walking in
the rain or the cold certainly did not make me feel wanted. I could give more
examples, but these should suffice.
Eventually I learned that salvation is a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ, and I repented and believed and was born again
the night of January 4, 1987.
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 but is not well-grounded in faith or
Bible knowledge, 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. I believe the major factors contributing to this are:
• Widespread neglect of, indifference toward, and
criticism of the Holy Bible in churches and by professed Christians.
• 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 long history of
continually changing teachings, “the truth,” with which JWs are not allowed to
disagree.)
How should a Christian deal with Jehovah’s Witnesses
that come to his doorstep or that he meets in various situations? Look for
opportunity to tell him what the Lord Jesus Christ means to you and share your
testimony and then ask him to tell you about his personal experience with Jesus
Christ. This will throw him off track. If he gives you some sort of testimony
this is a good sign, and even if he gets angry or upset and leaves you alone
the Lord can use your testimony to work on him. Be friendly and polite and DO
NOT be hostile or argumentative. Be extremely patient and do not expect to
convert anyone overnight.
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.