Regardless of the reason, the shunning technique doesn’t help anyone with their issues. There is no attempt to work through why the person might have behaved the way they did, or to help them find their way back. It’s just a kind of “our way or the highway” approach to spiritual growth. Families believe they are in line with the will of God to completely cut them off. Barbaric. Those who are cut off have multiplied their problems exponentially. As I mentioned before, I have seen a lot of damaged people.

On the elders question – these are usually just whatever men there are in the congregation that are sufficiently involved and aren’t in trouble for one reason or another. They don’t study Hebrew, Greek, psychology, counselling, ethics, theology, or even the history of their own religion. However, everyone is to defer to them – absolutely. Last year’s assembly topic was about submission – not to God, but to the Society and the local elders. You misread me if you think I was advocating that anyone should be in a position of that much authority!

Abuse of power and bad treatment from elders is a common theme in the emails I receive from people asking for advice or help, and I’ve seen it myself. As in other religions that glorify the role of men over women, there is a fair amount of sexual abuse as well as regular old physical abuse.

I agree with you about evidence. When the molested or abused person is told not to go the police, evidence won’t be collected. When a person is told that Jehovah will take care of it, or that therapists are part of the worldly Satanic system of things that is going to be destroyed, who do they have to turn to? Where will this “evidence” come from? As for “not believing” these claims, feel free to check out the JW guidelines – which are pretty clear even on the Watchtower PR site, although they’ve been rewritten with an eye to the legal system. JWs handle things internally, and they discourage outside involvement. That’s why predators such as the recently disfellowshipped JW pioneer and ministerial servant who is currently on the U.S. Marshall’s 15 Most Wanted List, can molest small children for 20 years – the children don’t talk or aren’t listened to, and don’t trust anyone outside. Incidentally, I was in Ralph Heroux’s congregation, and remember that my mother wouldn’t let me anywhere near him. He was never an elder that I remember, however. As for evidence – there was enough that he molested his step-daughter and her male cousin for him to plead guilty and do jail time. He’s back now, and conducting bible studies.

On the matter of abuse generally, the Society has spent an awful lot of money on lawyers to represent them in a wide range of cases. I recommend you Google the topic – silentlambs.org is a good place to start, but there are a lot of other resources.

My own experiences with elders suggest that the power can easily go to their heads, but my question is why they would be given such power and responsibility over other people in the first place. True spiritual counsel is rare – they aren’t trained to listen and help, but rather to discover and chastise. Occasionally there is a really good elder – there were one or two in my congregation – but on the whole these are just guys with no particular calling, training, or inclination to compassion. They just follow and enforce the rules.

The best book I’ve read recently is by a college professor named Joy Castro – The Truth Book: Escaping a Childhood of Abuse Among Jehovah’s Witnesses.

In most religions, excommunication of some sort is a very extreme measure. One doesn’t get cut off for a trivial offense in most religions. A related side point – JWs don’t really have measures to deal with prioritizing offense, with the result that sometimes people have no sense of the relative weight – you may as well have sex if you kiss, what’s the diff since you’re already doomed. Might as well do heroin if you have a cigarette. Imagine the effects of this lack of discernment – but it’s all the same – once you transgress, you transgress. You might as well hit bottom, go all out. So that when someone spins out, they can spin out pretty hard.

In most religions, shunning is reserved for an extreme situation. Then, once you are excommunicated (the JW “disfellowshipped” is clearly just an alternate word that means the same thing), it’s really not an option to come back. So the JWs are unique as far as I know in that they dish out something like the rook treatment* – all the while saying that they don’t judge but only “keep the congregation clean.” Tell that to the people whose families can’t speak to them anymore, until they repent and kiss butt enough to return. One elder testified in court that he could bring hundreds of people forward to testify that disfellowshipping is the best thing that ever happened to them. I wish he would have done so – I would have been there to request a psychiatric evaluation of those who did. I suspect he just lied, however, as part of the “theocratic strategy” (google the phrase).

So there is huge disconnect for me – sexual predators and abusers are protected (and possibly emerge from situations that help to create their pathology) – but others are shunned by their families for trivial offenses.

*from the folktale (truth value unknown) that a parliament of rooks will sometimes encircle a lone rook and collectively stare at it until it dies.

It’s been a long time since I actually picked up a WT, but I do remember that now and then they featured study articles that talked about the number of people d/fed in a given year relative to the total number of active JWs. Some people don’t consider those statistics acurate, although I don’t know how they arrive at that conclusion or where the get their own statistics (often I believe they just make up numbers in their head that sound “good” relative to their personal JW-negative viewpoint).

Some antis make the claim that “most” JWs are d/fed for having an opinion on some matter that is different than “Brooklyn’s” view. I honestly don’t know what personal experiences these people have had. For myself, I find it largely unbelievable that people are being d/fed simply for thinking some viewpoint expressed in the literature is wrong. Myriads of antis make the claim that they were d/fed or were “involuntarily disassociated” just because they questioned some point of the ideology. Frankly, I’ve seen absolutely NO evidence to support that. In fact where I have seen some actual evidence, the conclusion I reach is that there is quite a bit more going on that a simple difference of opinion.

When I was active people were d/fed. Some just became inactive and were never heard from again. One or two voluntarily disassociated. You’re right, some do return. I have yet to hear anyone actually make the claim that they would be “attacked by demons” for leaving the WT, although I’ve heard many opposers throw the claim around.

“To me, the issue is larger than just JWs. Although they don’t protest against wars, they don’t fight in them. The extremism and absolutism we are seeing from several other evangelical and fundamentalist groups is probably worse.”

I am no supporter of the WT.. I fashion myself more a challenger of the “classic” anti-JW opinions mostly because I find most of them to be wanting. However I agree with you on this point strongly. I too see much worse coming out of many of the other Xtian religions and the various Xtian organizations such as the “Christian” Coalition and many of the extremist factions under men like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

However I find that the opposition faced by JWs is much more virulent and focused than the opposition faced by those I just mentioned…

“My beef is with the leadership who refuse to allow conversation and debate, or actual study (outside their dubious publications), who put people into positions of unquestioned authority (and without any recognizable training or pastoral background!), who tell abused women and children that Jehovah will sort it out and not to trust worldy authorities such as the police or any therapist, who let people think that God keeps track of their hours in service and that this is what will save them from a God who loves them but will otherwise kill them, who censure having a beard or smoking a cigarette or accepting a blood transfusion or voting – but who promote behaviors that have deeper consequences (especially on families).”

I don’t know whether or not you have personally experienced any of what you claim here. Most of it is the exact opposite of what my personal experiences were during my time as an active JW and what I was taught by my parents. I’m not so narrow minded as to think that it is impossible that some people have had experiences that lead them to the conclusions you make above, I just find a lot of it far-fetched considering my personal experiences.

On the point of telling victims of rape and abuse not to go to the authorities or consult with qualified therapists, I’ve heard this claim a number of times yet I’ve never heard it backed up by any tangible facts. I suggest you read the transcript of the Vicki Boer case which you can find at silentlambs.org. She made the claim that her abuse was “hushed up” and that she was told not to go to the authorities or to seek any sort of professional help because of that abuse. According to the evidence presented, which is discussed in that transcript, none of those charges are true. I suggest it as reading because I’ve yet to see any other case of abuse on the part of a JW where the actual evidence is discussed. I am somewhat familiar with the Paul Berry and Ralph Heroux cases, but no source I’ve seen actually discusses the evidence against them which in a case where there is talk of abuse I think actual tangible evidence is the most important aspect. While the JW system may accept the word of “two witnesses” I think that some sort of actual proof of abuse should be more important.

On the point of “pastoral training,” I submit that other religious bodies struggle with many of the same problems that the WT does- the Catholic Church has its own “tiny” problem of abuse by priests and the coverup of such abuse, yet they have “pastoral training” unmatched in the religious world. What sort of training do you believe someone should have to be put in a position of (as you say) unquestioned authority?

And on that point, I don’t believe that the elder positions are positions of unquestioned authority, though I will agree that those positions are often abused or held by men who fall into the category of cruel and unloving.

And given my own experiences I think abuse of power and bad treatment by elders is a strong motivator for one to leave the JW religion (it was in my case). However some stories of elder abuse are just so unbelieveable. One poster to a forum I frequent made the claim that the elders forced his wife to leave him because he “simply decided he didn’t want to be a JW anymore.”

I don’t believe claims like that.

I have no reason to. I have no evidence that what is being claimed is true. And given the JW stance on marriage, I find it highly unlikely that a person would comply with such a demand even if it were given.

Perhaps each generation has to wrestle with some version of it – the temptation to power and control, the temptation of handing yourself over to power.

To me, the issue is larger than just JWs. Although they don’t protest against wars, they don’t fight in them. The extremism and absolutism we are seeing from several other evangelical and fundamentalist groups is probably worse.

JWs have contributed to the history of civil rights – but that’s why it is so strange that their own members have no idea of rights within the group, only with regard to the outside world, which they believe is controlled by Satan.

Yes, I knew some very kind and loving JWs. I tend to think of the rank and file Witness as breaking down into the usual per/100 or so of: 1 or 2 outstandingly wonderful people, 2 or 3 outstandingly pathological people, and the rest somewhere in between.

My beef is with the leadership who refuse to allow conversation and debate, or actual study (outside their dubious publications), who put people into positions of unquestioned authority (and without any recognizable training or pastoral background!), who tell abused women and children that Jehovah will sort it out and not to trust worldy authorities such as the police or any therapist, who let people think that God keeps track of their hours in service and that this is what will save them from a God who loves them but will otherwise kill them, who censure having a beard or smoking a cigarette or accepting a blood transfusion or voting – but who promote behaviors that have deeper consequences (especially on families).

I hear what you’re saying – and there is of course a wide range of personal choice – but as you know JWs are indoctrinated for 4-5 hours a week, and have the constant pressure to associate only with other JWs. Most people don’t actually understand the percentage of their members who are disfellowshipped at some point. Many come back. Many of those who do leave do so under the fears (at least for a while) that God hates them and that they will be attacked by demons and all sorts of other things. Some of them become the “evil Ex-JWS” and do just the opposite of everything they did before. I’ve seen lots of damaged people. There are some who pick up some other path (maybe not as wide) – to cobble together their own sense of religion, or to join some other community of belief, or even to disavow religion altogether. I’ve simply tried to honor my own religious experiences and sense of ethics as best I can. It’s ok with me that it’s not perfect and that I can’t claim absolute knowledge. For a number of reasons (not just my experiences concerning JWs), I have become very wary of those who try to claim these things.

Your view seems to basically be a libertarian one, where people are judged as though they existed in a place of freedom and equality and should be able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and make decisions on these things for themselves. All I can say is that some people can, and some people can’t. Some people will, and some people won’t. Sometimes I can provide a tip or two for those who want to and almost can, or who can and kinda want to who but have real fears and face real consequences.

Most of the people I’ve met who thrive after leaving do so because they had something else outside the JWs in the first place – whether curiosity, reading, some other interest, friends, something. That’s not to idealize someone just because they did leave.

Outside of any question of personal responsibility, the leadership intentionally controls people to an extent that puts it firmly in the category of a totalitarian regime.

JWs share some of these characteristics with some other fringe religious or pseudo-religious elements. When everything you know is framed in the JW mindset, it’s hard to find another way to be and think.

The debate we’re having here would have regular JWs disfellowshipped – JWs must be completely obedient to the local elders and to the (changing) dictates of the guys in Brooklyn.

What I meant is that people are what they want to be…

I can understand that…

I have a different viewpoint on it- obviously our experiences have been different, as mine have led me to quite a different place…

I don’t consider the ideology to be the problem as much as I consider the way people make that ideology their own. My personal experiences with different JWs showed me that all of them run with that ideology in a certain way, which makes generalizations such as referring to them as “the Borg” seem incredibly oversimplified, silly and completely wrong all at the same time. Individuals who were cruel and generally unloving used the JW ideology to further their cruel and unloving ways whereas kindhearted and loving JWs used made the ideology seem kindhearted and loving…

I wouldn’t say that for me the JW experience was ever what people would call “fun.” However there were times that it was not all that bad. Conversely there were times when it was downright awful. It depended what other JWs I was dealing with and whether or not they fell into the cruel and unloving category or the kindhearded and loving category. I’m sure that in your experience there were some who at least tried to make the experience of being a JW more enjoyable for those around them and those who made it something completely unbearable. And again, this I believe is because that certain people have cruel and unloving personalities. I don’t think that the JW ideology made them that way or that it makes anyone that way. I think people are what they are and no matter what belief system they adopt their true selves will always shine through it…

In the flesh my experiences with anti-JWs is somewhat limited; I’ve only known and intereacted with six of them (both before and after they left the organization). But they were people who I knew extremely well. Spending time interacting with and listening to them, as well as listening to the things anti-JWs online have to say I’ve found that with few exceptions (I typically avoid generalizations, and I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule, but this is something that I’ve spent quite a bit of time analyzing) the exJW turned anti-JW crowd falls into two categories:

1. Those who were at once the most hardcore and devoted JWs. And they usually fall into that cruel and unloving category- the kind of people that make being a JW a miserable experience then later end up opposing the faith strongly.

2. Those who were never really strong JWs… You know, people who just don’t want to be a part of it but get involved or stay involved because of pressure from “loved” ones or a desire for approval from “loved” ones.

Of those six exJW turned anti-JWs I know personally, five fall into the first category and one into the second. And the 1 is a rather unloving individual with ever having embraced the ideology…

You describe JWs in this way:

“It is so drummed in that you must never think for yourself – not even to become closer to God, not even to let your spiritual gifts (whatever they may be) grow and thrive, not even to discern better ways of handling situations. JWs are not allowed to think or grow – they are only allowed to be submissive sheep, ready for Jehovah (the abusive father) to tell the older brother (the elders) to whip them again and again. But no matter how often they are whipped, they can never be good enough – hence the pervading sense of unworthiness, which is not to be confused with genuine humility or meekness.”

While I agree that it can be such for a person who has dealt with a JW of the cruel and unloving variety, I blame that individual for that behavior, not the ideology.