Ex-JWs: Use What You’ve Got

First off, there is a very humorous treatment of growing up as a JW in a new book by Kyria Abrahams called I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing. It’s on my wishlist, and I’ll let you know what I think of it once I’ve had the chance to read it. It looks promising as a bit of comic relief.

Given that Abrahams is now a stand-up comic and spoken-word poet, it makes perfect sense to begin her very funny memoir with her performance debut at the Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Kingdom Hall, at age 8 (her presentation was about freedom from demon possession). She describes the children’s books she read as a child as a cross between “Dr. Seuss rhymes and tales of how sinners would scream and gnash their teeth at Armageddon.” In her world, Smurfs were “little blue demons” and yard sales were enticements from Satan. As a bored teenager with OCD, she didn’t know what to do with herself or how to make sense of the world. On the verge of 18, she married a 24-year-old part-time college math teacher because, even if his interest in her was, at best, halfhearted, she wanted a boyfriend and didn’t know any other Jehovah’s Witnesses who liked her. Anyway, she reasons, “this is what adults did, and I was an adult.” It wasn’t long before she longed to be out of the marriage.

Author Lisa Foad writes in a fractured, variable, and somewhat surreal style – trying to say the unsayable takes you on some funky roads sometimes. She thinks her approach to writing might be a side effect of her Jehovah’s Witness upbringing.

“After an assembly where they were talking about the folly of music,” Foad recalls from her early childhood, “I went home and broke records with my dad. We broke Led Zeppelin, Cream. But I had this Wham! record I really liked. I didn’t want to break my Wham! record but then he reminded me that in the paradise I would have a pet tiger, a pet lion. What are you going to do? It was a trade I was willing to make. There’s so much fodder in that.”

Check out her book: The Night Is a Mouth

In other, depressing but illuminating JW book news, get a child’s eye perspective on Jehovah’s Witnesses by reading William Coburn’s The Spanking Room: A Child’s Eye View of the Jehovah Witnesses.

I had stopped vomiting, but still shook and sobbed. Mom returned to the room to sit on the edge of my bed. Again she asked, “Billy what’s wrong?” “That was my bus route,” I whispered when I could get words out. “What if someone I knew came to the door?” “So?” “They’d find out I was a Jehovah’s Witness.” Mom’s hand met the side of my head in a flash of brilliant white light and an explosion of pain. I collapsed onto the mattress while she flailed at me, her rage-clenched fists thudding into my eight-year-old body. “How dare you?” she shrieked. “You awful, rotten child! How dare you be ashamed of Jehovah? I hate you! I hate you!”

The Spanking Room is the true story of a young boy’s upbringing, and how the unorthodox doctrines of the Watchtower Society encourage violence against its most helpless members–the children.

Artist Lindsay O’Leary’s piece “Pedaling Backwards, Moving Forward: How to Lose 100 pounds in 365 days” is part of an exhibit in the opening of “Gestures 13″ at the Mattress Factory. She has created a scaled model of her childhood home that is controlled by a stationary bicycle to represent her “old self and old habits.”

“Inside my childhood home, there’s a silhouette of me praying,” O’Leary says. “All of the silhouettes of me (except the biking one in the garage) are of me when I was obese. I was a Jehovah’s Witness from birth to (age) 21. We had to pray every day and attended five ‘meetings’ at the Kingdom Hall each week.

“It’s a really strict religion, so, to say that it has had a huge impact on who I am today would be an understatement,” she says. “From not being able to recite the Pledge of Allegiance throughout elementary school to not celebrating birthdays to being forbidden from participating in any competitive sport, again, the imprint it has had on my life was/is massive.”

O’Leary says the real irony is in where she has found her new home. The Mexican War Streets is where Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the precursor to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, lived and preached.

Media Talk

Katherine Jackson has been taking Michael Jackson’s three children to the meetings at the Kingdom Hall (of Jehovah’s Witnesses) to “help them deal with the death of their famous father.”

Michael stopped being a Jehovah’s Witness 1985 but reportedly resumed attending the Church’s meetings throughout his child molestation trial. Katherine and the eldest child Rebbie are the only two remaining Jehovah’s Witnesses in the family.

I would prefer to remember Michael for his music and performances, and his work to help fight AIDS. I wish I’d gone to talk with him as I felt called to do.

Oh, and this season of Big Brother features a former JW, Kevin.

He is a 30 year old graphic designer who was excommunicated at 21 from his Jehovah’s Witness raising. Therefore has lost contact with his family and friends. However, he has chosen to work through it instead of letting it tear him down. He is of Japanese/ African-American heritage. Adversity is something he is used to overcoming so the prediction is he will do well in the house.

Murder

The most horrific story in the news right now has to be about the Texan JW Otty Sanchez, 33, who decapitated, dismembered, and partially cannibalized her 3-1/2-week-old baby, Scott Wesley Buchholtz-Sanchez. She claims the devil told her to do it. She told him Scott W. Buchholz, the infant’s father, that she was schizophrenic a week before the slaying. She was diagnosed, however, with depression. Buchholz, who said he is schizophrenic, has announced that she said that she was going to leave him, and he wants her to receive the death penalty.

McManus, who appeared uncomfortable as he addressed reporters, said Sanchez apparently ate the child’s brain and some other body parts. She also decapitated the infant, tore off his face and chewed off three of his toes before stabbing herself.

In Bielefeld, Germany, an 82-year-old man who blames the Jehovah’s Witnesses for making him lose contact with his daughter, stormed a gathering of some 80 Jehovah’s Witnesses. He was wearing a mask and was armed with a machine gun. No-one was injured; the gun didn’t fire. He was seized by two congregation members as he headed back to the car. Officers also found a samurai sword, three clips of bullets and a knife in the man’s car, parked nearby.

In the tiny hamlet of Porth Kea, near Truro in England, Jonathan Cock – a 24-year-old RAF veteran from Moor Vue Fram, Penzanze – murdered his girlfriend’s Jehovah’s Witness father (41-year-old Adam Hustler) and shot her mother (Amanda Hustler) in the back in revenge for ending the couple’s “forbidden” love affair. Ex-girlfriend Danielle Hustler, 20, (are they for real with these names?) had a minor injury in the arm from a bullet graze. Mr. Cock was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Jonathan Cock blamed Jehovah’s Witnesses Adam and Amanda Hustler for thwarting his romance with their daughter Danielle because the religion bars relationships with outsiders…. The court heard Cock and Danielle fell in love while working for her dad’s drain clearing firm. He converted to her religion, but she later split with “controlling” Cock. He carried out the killing three weeks later.

Estranged JW husband Michael Smith, 37, is on trial for first-degree murder of Eugena Smith. Eugena had written a letter of disassociation from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, saying that her decision was final. The letter, which was read aloud to a trial jury, was found by investigators “lying among a pile of clothing on the floor of Eugena Smith’s bedroom, shortly after the 33-year-old St. Thomas woman was found murdered.”

The Crown argued in an opening statement Tuesday that Eugena Smith was trying to leave both her husband, and her church, just days before she died on June 7, 2007. Michael Smith, the Crown says, thought she was having an affair.

After JW William Redman murdered his 12-year-old daughter, he told a 911 operator that she was dead because that was “…the way Jehovah does things.” Evidently he “fell on her” with a knife.

Police arrived at the Roadrunner RV park to find the father covered in blood in front of the home, the mother, Rosemary Redman, screaming, “What did you do to my baby?” Inside, their daughter was lying in a pool of blood, a knife lying under her chest and her neck deeply gashed.

Sexual Violence / Pedophilia

New Hampshire resident JW, Robert Matheson, pleaded guilty repin Salem Superior Court to four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14. He had been planning to run away to Plum Island with a girl he had been molesting at his beach house for the last three years. The JWs alerted authorities (this must be a state where it’s required to do so).

Matheson told police that he began molesting the girl during a time when he was struggling with unemployment and disconnected from his faith, and said he was “persuaded” by Internet pornography. The sentencing was pushed to Friday in order for Matheson to face sexual assault charges on a “compatible case” in New Hampshire.

Wigan Today reports that Daniel Simonetti, a 31-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, let himself into the home of an 89-year-old woman and brutally assaulted her. He denied rape, which was dropped, but admitted assault by penetration. Jailing Simonetti indefinitely, Judge John Roberts branded him “dangerous to vulnerable females.” Simonetti had previously assaulted a 4-year-old girl, for which he was never prosecuted.

Francis Gandhi a Jehovah’s Witness elder/ministerial servant (the article says “pastor”) was detained at the Kailahun Police Station for the alleged rape of an 11-year old student of the SLMB Mission in Kailahun.

On 4th of April 2009, she said that they came home from work and discovered that the girl has not returned home and immediately they contacted her grandmother who told them that the young girl had left for her home around 5pm. “We went in search of her moving from one place to place, relatives to relatives we could not find her and we returned home as it was getting close to 10pm” she said while in bed somebody knocked on her window and when asked she heard the voice of her daughter. “I jumped out of my bed and enquired from her where she was coming from only to tell me that she was in the room with a man of God.”

Robert Edward Bill, 54, a former teacher, businessman and “senior Jehovah’s Witness” attempted to abduct a five-year-old and was sentenced to six years in prison.

He has been found guilty at separate trials of the attempted abduction of the girl in Holywell two years ago, of indecently assaulting a seven-year-old 10 years ago, and of possessing 730 pornographic images of children. … Mr Medland said Bill of The Roe, St Asaph, Denbighshire, had been driving slowly around areas where he was likely to come into contact with children that same day. He’d claimed that he was trying to fix a mechanical problem with his car.

His wife and son were also sentenced:

Jacqueline Bill, his 51-year-old wife, received a suspended six-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to trying to pervert the course of justice by destroying a laptop hard drive, and must do 250 hours unpaid work. Bill’s son David, 24, of Mount Road, St Asaph, must do 150 hours unpaid work after also admitting that he tried to pervert the course of justice.

Thirty-five-year-old JW Shane Thomas Thorne had a child pornography collection of more than a thousand images, many of which involved children as young as five years old. He was sentenced to two years, but is due to be released on November 16, 2010.

Evidence was heard that Thorne grew up in a violent family environment and was sexually abused as a teenager. …”There is nothing to indicate that he has acknowledged the injury caused by his actions,” Mr Johnson said. “There is no realisation expressed or reported of any acknowledgement of the harm done to children in child pornography.” He told Thorne that a sentence must be imposed that would reflect the community horror and the disgust for the use of children for sexual gratification.

Selective Clampdown on Freedom of Religion, or “The Persecution Justification for Claims of JW Righteousness”

Novoshakhtinsk prosecutors from the Rostov region in Russian have sent case files to an investigative body to consider a criminal prosecution local members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization for preaching in public places, propagating the exclusivity and supremacy of the Jehovah’s religious doctrine above all others and promoting refusal from civil duty, voting at elections and serving in the army. The regional prosecutor also asked the Rostov regional court to order the closure of the organization in Taganrog for extremist activities, including the incitement of religious hatred and human rights violations. This situation is heating up…

The deportations of four lawyers since March strike at the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ already pressed defence against attempts to ban their literature as extremist, one of those deported, Mario Moreno, has told Forum 18 News Service. The lawyers – two Americans and two Canadians – were defending in four out of seven simultaneous local extremism cases against Jehovah’s Witnesses. A recent police detention allegedly involving torture and a raid on a Sunday service – after which one worshipper had a miscarriage and another was sent to a children’s shelter – suggest the law enforcement agencies continue to view Jehovah’s Witnesses as religious extremists even without a ban.

In Israel, the Human Rights Report for 2008 shows that police needed to be reminded (again) that it is their duty to fully investigate crimes against minority religious communities:

Members of Jehovah’s Witnesses reported an increase in assaults and other crimes against their membership in 2007 and during the year and noted the difficulties their members faced convincing the police to investigate or apprehend the perpetrators. Between September 2007 and September, members of Jehovah’s Witnesses filed 46 criminal complaints against antimissionary activists, most of whom belong to the Haredi antimissionary organization Yad L’Achim. The crimes ranged from harassment to assault. Police responded to 15 of 35 calls for assistance during the same time period, according to the Jehovah’s Witnesses legal department. The JIJ noted a similar increase in crimes and violent assaults against members of the congregations it represents.

JW Disappearance

Eridania Rodriguez, a 46-year-old married mother of three, disappeared from her night job as a cleaning woman in Manhatten. Police found her cleaning cart on the eighth floor and her street clothes and purse in her locker.

“I think she was kidnapped,” said Figueroa. She said she was suspicious of a DOT worker who her mother often saw on the eighth floor. “She was really terrified of him,” she said.

Rodriguez’s brother, Cesar, 28, ruled out the possibility of a jealous lover. “My sister is not like that,” he said. “She does not have a boyfriend. She is a Jehovah’s Witness.”

Money, Money, Money

Securities industry regulators report that say Kenneth George Neely, a Jehovah’s Witness stockbroker from St. Peters, MO ran an eight-year ponzi scheme in which he swindled brokerage customers, fellow church members and a cousin. It seems that Neely ran up some bills buying dinners and drinks for clients and friends at his country club just at a time when his personal income had declined.

“It was during this period of personal financial stress that (Neely) conceived and effected his ponzi scheme,” FINRA said in its order. He invented the “St. Louis Investment Club” and the equally phony “St. Charles REIT,” promising 20 percent returns. He made up investment “certificates” for the club and REIT to give to clients. His first investor was a cousin who invested $30,000, expecting returns of up to 10 percent.

Neely portrayed membership in the investment club as exclusive. He told a retiree, a longtime friend and fellow church member (Neely is a Jehovah’s Witness) that he would tell her when “openings” occurred in the club. “Seven or eight” other church members invested in the scam, said James Shorris, executive vice president at FINRA.

Maxine Kennedy, the JW school secretary for Scotlandville High School in Lousiana, ran amok with the school’s credit card. For some 28 months, she bought groceries and furniture, paid bills, and got cash advances. She also allegedly allowed her daughter, Toni, to use the card, including for large cash advances, and a Jehovah’s Witnesses convention.

Legal News

Lawrence Hughes abandoned his Jehovah’s Witness faith to fight for a blood transfusion for his daughter, Bethany, who had acute myeloid leukemia. He has since lost his daughter and been disfellowshipped. But he’s still fighting, even after divorce and bankruptcy.

What it most clearly does not say is that Mr. Hughes is necessarily wrong in claiming that his daughter received problematic advice from lawyers working not just for her, but also for a religious body intent on seeing her denied the blood she needed. “If I was advising [the Watchtower Society and its lawyers] I would now say, ‘At some point, this is no longer going to work out for you,’ ” Ms. Woolley says.

When Bethany Hughes died in the summer of 2002, her story was national news; the girl, just turned 17, had been diagnosed earlier that year with acute myeloid leukemia, but had fought, legally and physically, blood transfusions prescribed by doctors on religious grounds, her resistance abetted by lawyers from a firm that, by all available evidence, is a branch of the Watchtower Society itself, retaining the church as its primary client – a “captive law firm” as one judge described Glen How and Associates, employer of Bethany’s lawyers David Gnam and Shane Brady. The firm is even located within the Watchtower Society’s Georgetown, Ont. compound.

Armageddon’s Gonna Git-choo

A sweet blog post on the moon landing reminds us that on the day in 1969 in Chicago, 38,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, who had crammed into Comiskey Park, saw the landing as “a sign that our universe is in its last days.”

I get the sense that there has been a serious effort towards positive PR. To a current JW, this must be a little bit humorous, in a macabre sort of way. Here’s the new approach:

JWs “don’t mean to scare people,” they say, but just to “provide believers with a revelations roadmap. A spiritual survival guide to emerge from Armageddon intact.” The May assemblies offered guidance on how to “avoid Satan’s snares. Because we know that the goal of Satan is to hamper people from surviving.”

The summer assemblies deny that JW’s approach Armaggeddon in a “fanatical way” but only to use “careful judgment in everyday life.”

Along with spiritual gains, he added that avoiding negative behaviors has very real benefits: money can be spent in better ways and a greater focus can be on family, for instance.

“People are being barraged all the time by different viewpoints of morality, different concerns for the economy,” West said. “We know by trusting God that we can cope with the most difficult situations in life and it gives us a positive hope in him.”

By lunchtime on Friday, the thousands of Witnesses and others who packed the Convocation Center, Northern Illinois University’s sports arena, had just finished listening to the keynote speaker. Darien Hanson called on the group to be “watchdogs” and to be alert to the signs of Jesus’ presence. A slackening of Christian expectations, he said, is detrimental to this.

Hanson also announced a very exciting offer: A DVD on creationism was being released that weekend, and each family in the audience could take home a copy. This is what Jean West was most excited about, as it would help illustrate God as a creator, she said.

“It tells us we have a maker who’s intelligent,” her husband added.

Though the Bible teaches that God both created the world and will someday end the world, neither the 24th chapter of Matthew nor Jehovah’s Witnesses know when that will be.

“We feel that there is going to be this change,” West said.

As written in Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples that preceding this time will be wars, famine, false prophets and the like. This makes the 2009 district convention theme very “timely,” West said, noting how much has changed since the onset of World War I.

Research

The Pew Forum comparative study on religious beliefs and practices is very interesting and worth a read.

I had never seen Pastor Russell preach before, and now I can understand how liberating and authentic it must have seemed at the time.

Today’s post really got to me, so I’m posting the video from YouTube. Historical photographs are set to a group of people singing the Kingdom Song “Take Sides with Jehovah!” (Exodus 32:26). It almost brought me to tears. It must have been so different back then. The song never sounded like that at my Kingdom Hall. For one thing, no-one was trained to sing the harmonies anymore. Music with spirit was almost entirely gone. It’s still a very basic song, but it would have made those long meetings a lot more bearable if we could have created a beautiful sound of praise – with feeling and beauty – rather than a cold dirge. I remember people almost glaring sometimes at the few people who really sang. So sad.

Watchtower Image Trumps Ethics, Again; or, What Part of “Women and Children are Less Important than Men” Don’t You Understand?

Sask. church failed to report sexual abuse: Victims

After telling each other about the abuse, the two sisters informed their parents. Their father confronted the man, who did not confirm or deny what had happened, and the matter was subsequently reported to church elders, Zerr said. “There was no report to the police at that time.”

Instead, the man received a lecture from the elders, and many in the community rallied around him because he regularly attended church meetings – while the girls were “treated like troublemakers” and encouraged to let the whole thing go, one of the victims wrote. Their father and their abuser later became “dear friends, and would go for coffee daily,” a situation which continues to this day, she added. “We were trash-talked and slandered throughout the community . . . the religion abandoned us.”

ColdHeart: More Than a Little Ethically-Challenged

Friend of man accused in San Ramon real estate financier’s killing testifies

Two days before real estate financier Kashmir Billon was found shot to death in a San Ramon business park, the business associate charged with his murder allegedly offered a lifelong friend $50,000 to kill an unnamed man. Police found Billon, 42, of San Ramon, dead in the street next to his smoldering BMW late Sunday, April 27 after a hotel employee found him slumped over and pulled him from the vehicle. Robinson, a 31-year-old El Sobrante resident, is charged with murder, solicitation of murder and three felonies related to a real estate scheme prosecutors said was a motive for the killing.

Rogers, a contract home inspector with past felony convictions on drug and gun charges, said he has known Robinson his whole life because their parents were members of the same church for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Rogers said that in 2006, he offered for $20,000 to kill a man suspected of committing a home invasion robbery at Robinson’s house, but that Robinson declined the offer. Robinson asked Rogers in person on Friday, April 25 to kill a business associate on a Richmond property. Rogers claimed Robinson told him he had previously asked someone else to do the killing, but that person did not want to do it in Richmond. Rogers said Robinson wanted it done in Richmond because the target could be lured to the property under the pretense of tree work that needed to be done.

No Part of Satan’s World

Total Service Objectors Doubled During A Decade

In Finland, in theory all men between the ages of 18 and 60 are subject to military service. Approximately 82% of all young men do military service and around 7% do alternative non-military service. Members of the Jehovah Witnesses were exempted from both forms of service under legislation that came into force in 1987. According to the newspaper Keskisuomalainen, the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations and the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe have called Finnish legislation discriminatory in this respect and said that the preferential treatment accorded to Jehovah’s Witnesses should be extended to other groups of conscientious objectors.

Jehovah’s Witnesses canvass for God instead of votes

Since his religious conversion at age 30, Brooks holds the Witness viewpoint – that not voting emulates Jesus Christ’s example of avoiding political involvement. … Housner, like many Witnesses, thinks the only perfect government is God’s kingdom, which ultimately will reign over humanity, he said. That kingdom’s approach will be augured by signs that the world is in its last days, said Derrick McCraw, a property manager and Witness in Norfolk.

“Items that are on the front page of the newspaper parallel what the Bible says about our time: food shortages, war, disease,” he said. In addressing the current global financial crisis, McCraw said, “Being in the last days, people will be lovers of money.”

Nonetheless, “God allows governments to function in the meanwhile, before his kingdom comes,” Housner said. “We need to have some form of government – otherwise, it would be anarchy.” By avoiding politics, Witnesses avoid a source of internal division and escape being beholden to any politician, he said. The global, 7-million-member Witness community also avoids friction caused by nationalism.

Jehovah’s Witnesses transform West Palm Beach’s ‘leaky teepee’ auditorium

It has been 10 years since the city transferred its auditorium to the Jehovah’s Witnesses in a controversial $12.5 million sale. Although most of the public hasn’t set foot this decade in the building that once housed the county’s major concerts and events, the crumbling structure known derisively as the “leaky tepee” has been transformed into a state-of-the-art beacon for a religion that is 1 million strong in the United States. … It was a great deal for the Witnesses, who have converted the auditorium on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard into the Christian Convention Center. The Witnesses bought the land for $12.5 million, then sold much of the property, including the baseball field, recouping a good portion of the initial cost. Since then, the building has been completely remodeled at a cost of about $13 million. ….In 1998, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were looking to buy a building that would become their largest enclosed gathering place in the world. West Palm Beach was a logical location because Florida has a sizable Jehovah’s Witnesses community, and the group was already the auditorium’s top tenant.

Dragging to the Kingdom Hall: No, not Children! Cars!

Pro Tow, which has a contract to enforce parking at Shady Glen Mobile Home Park, began towing and booting vehicles parked along the street or in the grass near homes Tuesday night. On Wednesday, at least four tow trucks patrolled the neighborhood, pulling roughly 15 vehicles to the nearby Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, where owners had the option of paying $300 or losing their vehicles temporarily. … The towing also angered elders of the church, who filed a trespassing warning against Pro Tow for using the hall’s parking lot. The elders said they had granted permission for the lot to be used to temporarily store a broken down vehicle and, the next thing they knew, 15 towed vehicles showed up.

Experience Bringeth Wisdom

Time Magazine: America’s Unfaithful Faithful (a Report on the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life)

An even more extreme example of what might be called “masked churn” is the relatively tiny Jehovah’s Witnesses, with a turnover rate of about two-thirds. That means that two-thirds of the people who told Pew they were raised Jehovah’s Witnesses no longer are — yet the group attracts roughly the same number of converts. Notes Lugo, “No wonder they have to keep on knocking on doors.”

Theocratic War Strategies (Sanctioned Deceptions)

Is God Really Going To Destroy Everyone But Jehovah’s Witnesses?

There are almost 7 billion people on Earth and of that number there are about 7 Million Jehovah’s Witnesses. So, if Armageddon came today, approximately 1/1000th of the population would survive according to what the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach. … Do you think God would really butcher nearly 7 billion people and save only the Jehovah’s Witnesses? I don’t. So once again I am led to question the validity of anything the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses says.

Watchtower 9/1/1989, p. 19:
“Only Jehovah’s Witnesses, those of the anointed remnant and the ‘great crowd,’ as a united organization under the protection of the Supreme Organizer, have any Scriptural hope of surviving the impending end of this doomed system dominated by Satan the Devil.”

JW Blogger Discovers He Was Directed by the Governing Body to Lie about Watchtower Affiliation; or, Did you know that all those service reports to the Watchtower Society don’t count after all?

… publishers do well to avoid representing themselves as agents or representatives of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., or any other corporation used by “the faithful and discreet slave” to advance Kingdom interests (February 1989 Our Kingdom Ministry, page 3)

Not Affiliated with “Any” of the Bible Societies; or, JWs, Step Right Up! Buy Your Not-Affiliated Watchtower Supplies Right Here!

This one just cracks me up (Thanks M). We didn’t have all this fancy stuff when I was out in service – you kids! get off the lawn!

Do you sell return visit books?
We don’t sell anything for “just” return visits. However, we do have some ideas for these:
1. Our theocratic monthly planner has several pages at the back to record your return visits, as well as a handy chart to keep track of magazine routes
2. We also have several service organizers, such as the all-in-one service organizer, magazine and tract tote, and pioneer portfolio which have specially-designed slots to hold the house-to-house slips where you can also note return visits and other activity.

How are you affiliated with the Watchtower?
There is a vast distinction between our faith and our business, which is a commercial enterprise and is not affiliated with the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in any way. Therefore, we do not sell Bibles or Bible literature. We make custom leather products, specializing in protective covers for Bibles and Bible literature, including the New World Translation, among many other versions and translations. Ministry Ideaz is a commercial enterprise and is not affiliated with any of the Bible societies that distribute the Bibles mentioned on our site. These societies are not-for-profit organizations.

How many “Bible societies” was that again? Can we get a business card to hand out when they come to the door?

Service supplies for Jehovah’s Witnesses
New World Translation Bible Covers
Watchtower and Kingdom Ministry Foldersand more!

Thinking Still Forbidden? Absolutely

The Watchtower says you MUST Obey them in ALL Areas

Click to view video

A Selection from the “Ask a Former JW” Mailbag

These writers prefer our conversations to remain anonymous. This is just a sampling for illustrative purposes, edited to ensure privacy. If you have a question, you can contact me here. If you approve, I will post our entire exchange (with or without names) – or I may use non-identifying bits like these to show some of the recurring issues that I see.

I disassociated myself and cut all of my immediate family and friends that I had. This is all I have ever known. I have a spiritual void but can’t seem to find a church. I search but they all have crosses and the pit of my stomach aches and my mind tells me Babylon the Great. How do I get past this and how do I find a church. Please help.

She is a JW and I am not. … She eventually moved … and became distant with myself and many of her other good friends. While I’ve tried to keep in touch with her, she never returns my phone calls or emails me. I just found out last night that she got married this spring and I am utterly shocked. … I am still going to call her and let her know that I love her and will always be there for her. I am the most upset because we had always talked of how our wedding days would be and they were always inclusive of each other no matter what. I really just needed to get that out, as it has been a very emotional day for me. I pray that one day she will be strong enough to think for herself.

Did this little girl CAUSE herself to be abducted from her home and raped because she went “Trick or Treating” ie: “Celebrated the Devil” (Her words in quotes)? When she told me this I freaked out a bit and said “NO” but….she looked square at me and said “Well, that’s what (her parents) said” and when I said “Uh..no…that couldn’t be what they said” she interrupted me with a VERY indignant “Well, read your Bible.” So how did her “un-holy” behavior CAUSE the Devil to do that to her? I guess that I can agree that if I am a bank robber-or I beat people up and mug them, well, if my life always feels full of fear-and on the run-and i have bad relationships with people, and problems and strife, well-I guess I can see how my “un-righteous” behavior CAUSES “bad” things to happen to me, but; What in “Jehovah’s Witness” religion says that “celebrating the Devil” causes you to be raped?

His biggest concerns revolve around the ideas (facts according to him) that the bible according the JW has prophecized a lot of what is happening now – fall of capitalism, global warming, etc. I am not well versed in the bible and no little about JW. Is any of this true? It is very hard for him to even consider other reasoning because he has been taught that the things happening now have supposedly so clearly been already prophecized. Can you please point me towards more information or a person for him or I to speak to that can help him get past this fear of the end of the world?

Okay, this might sound like a really stupid question and I know you’re not here to play agony aunt, but I’m somewhat desperate. My ex-boyfriend is a Jehova’s Witness and that’s the reason I broke up with him – I just couldn’t take it any more .. no meeting his family, no sex, total secrecy etc. I’ve tried talking to him, he just won’t listen. Is there ANYTHING I can do? I miss him and I just wish he’d give up his freaky religion. What made you change your mind? Do you think I can do anything at all?

I was told that he had been reported by one person as a pedophile, and that there were others who were abused as children that were not coming forward about it. I was also told that the act of disfellowshipping was done not necessarily because of the act committed, but “because the person is unrepentant”. … in many ways I see no difference between sexual abuse of a child and murder, as it was the murder of a child’s spirit. I guess I’m asking your help to help ME to focus on what needs to be done next. I cannot let this man just be out there in the community.

I was a jw for more than 20 years. I’d like to know what your opinion is regarding dating (?) . I mean, as a jw it’s more serious, you have marriage in mind – but, I’ve noticed that that’s not the case in the real world… do you have any suggestions as to how to view dating or go about it??? just feel a tad lost, to say the least.

Hello, i am a former JW, left about 12 years ago. My mother, father (an elder), and sister all completely shun me. Even after all this time, i still feel like an orphaned child, with much anger inside for how i’ve been treated by them and all my childhood friends. I need advice on how to cope with such stupidity.

We live in an area with a large concentration of JW’s. They’re on our street every weekend but have never knocked (in 5 years) until last Saturday. I’ve decided that if they come knocking on my door, maybe the Holy Spirit is knocking on their hearts. I want to witness to these people effectively but I want to better know where they’re coming from. I am a champion of debating and can argue with a hole in the wall (and win), BUT I realize that “winning” isn’t the goal if it leaves the JW confused, intimidated, angry, hurt, etc. I want to share the gospel WITHOUT arguing, if possible. I’ve looked at your recommended reading page and I was already considering purchasing a couple of those books, but I want to know what would be most useful, from your perspective, to know. I already have a fair grasp on the fundamental doctrinal differences, but that’s not enough – I need to reach these people where they are: in the prison of a cultic way of thinking. What specific books would you recommend as the most effective?

Bates City Church Explosion Kills One
Saturday, 26 Jul 2008

Investigators searched the scene of an explosion at a Jehovah’s Witness’ Kingdom Hall in Bates City, Mo. on July 26, 2008.

A bizarre explosion at a church east of Kansas City killed one man on Saturday afternoon.

ATF agents said the explosion at the Jehovah’s Witness’ Kingdom Hall on Foggy Bottom Drive was intentionally set, and that the person who died appears to have committed suicide.

Witnesses described large amounts of smoke pouring out of the building, which they said was just recently completed.

The source of the explosion remains a mystery, but investigators found evidence of accelerants in the debris.

The victim was the only person inside the building

Kingdom Hall in MO

I am sure that I’ve missed several additional items, but I’ve become too sad to do more than this today.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, you call yourselves “sheep.” If you must have a shepherd, why not seek a more loving one than the harsh caricature constructed by the publishing empire of the Watchtower Society? I grieve for you. I grieve for you.

14-year-old Dennis Lindberg Refuses Treatment for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia and Dies

• Dennis’s story

Doctors said he needed treatment that included blood transfusions; most children with this form of leukemia recover. However, Lindberg was a Jehovah’s Witness, and transfusions go against the teachings of his religion. He became a Witness while in the care of his aunt, also a follower, who became his legal guardian after his biological father was jailed for drug possession.

• Boy dies of leukemia after refusing treatment for religious reasons

Parents and classmates of the boy, who had lived with his aunt for the past four years, cried in disbelief at the judge’s decision. Wherry fled the courtroom in tears.

• 
  Sound Off

Anemic 22-Year Old Emma Gough Dies After Giving Birth to Twins

• 
  Mother dies after refusing blood transfusion

As she suffered severe blood loss and her life ebbed away, medical staff urged her husband, Anthony, and her parents, all of whom follow the same faith, to overrule her decision and allow a transfusion which could have saved her, but they refused. She gave birth naturally and all appeared well as she cuddled her baby son and daughter, but she suddenly began to haemorrhage. Her condition was complicated by the fact she was anaemic.

• Mum Aged 22 Dies for Jehovah
• Jehovah Hubby: I Blame Doctors
• Mother dies after refusing blood
• 
  Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to die for a blood ban that their elders might one day declare to be unnecessary

The latest pronouncement on the topic from the Watchtower authorities said that anyone using blood products, even in life-saving surgery, would be “disfellowshipped” – or expelled from the Church. This usually means being shunned by friends and family. However, if “true repentance” is shown, they can be readmitted to the Church. This change was introduced to take some of the heat out of the bad publicity that followed the hundreds of deaths of Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world because of the blood ban. The authorities are reluctant to lift the ban completely — even though there are suspicions that they would like to — because they fear being sued by families who have lost loved ones to the policy which, in the end, would have turned out, after all, not to be the fixed and eternal word of God, but the demands of mere, deluded mortals.

• Mother who died after refusing transfusion ‘did the right thing’

Jehovah’s Witnesses defended yesterday the decision of a young mother who died after refusing a potentially life-saving blood transfusion, having just given birth to twins. To agree to a transfusion would have been a transgression comparable to adultery or sexual immorality, a spokesman from the central office of the British community of Jehovah’s Witnesses told The Times yesterday.

Really? That’s odd, because “sexual immorality” is quite common among Jehovah’s Witnesses. Acceptance of a blood transfusion, even to save a life, is taken more seriously – exponentially so. It’s considered the ultimate test of your faith.

• 
  Tragedy of a Religion that Lets People Die

Her right to refuse treatment was respected, enshrined in law, upheld by the establishment – but what of her children’s right to a mother’s love?

What, moreover, of the doctors’ and nurses’ right to do the utmost to save her life? What of our right to decide that any religious belief that condemns its devotees to death is dangerous, pernicious and does not deserve reverence or respect?

Most religions freely allow the breaking of their most solemn laws if human life is at stake. Muslims, if they will starve to death otherwise, may eat pork. Jews, if the situation is life and death, may break the Sabbath or eat and drink on the Day of Atonement.

Should a religion that sits by and allows a healthy young mother to refuse life-saving treatment be afforded the same deference as religions which recognise that human life is paramount?

Ex-JW Rachel Underhill Recalls her Own Brush with Death

• Another sacrifice paid in blood

“I went into premature labour… [and] was told I would need an emergency Caesarean but it wasn’t until very late that night that my consultant noticed I was a Jehovah’s Witness and what that meant. I’d grown up as one, so even as a child I’d known that I wasn’t allowed a blood transfusion. But never in my wildest dreams did I think that I’d ever need one,” she said.

“When I was in labour… no way was I in any physical or emotional state to say that I might have wanted a transfusion… I’d have been cast out of the religion, which at that point was the last thing I wanted. I needed the network that being a Jehovah’s Witness gave you. Plus it’s a very controlling religion, and I didn’t even think of challenging it.”

She eventually cut her ties with the church. This means she is now free to speak out on issues such as blood transfusions. “I think that in extreme cases, doctors should be able to override a Jehovah’s Witness’s wishes,” she added.

If Blood is So Sacred…

• Jehovah’s Witnesses are hypocrites about blood transfusions

…Jehovah’s Witnesses do use many fractions and components of blood, so if it’s “sacred” to God why the hypocritical contradiction?

They also use blood collections that are donated by the Red Cross and others but don’t donate back . . . yet more hypocrisy.

The Watchtower promotes and praises bloodless elective surgeries. This is a great advancement indeed. But it’s no good to me if I am bleeding to death from a car crash and lose half my blood volume and need an emergency transfusion.

The reason that Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood is because of their spin on the Old Testament of the Bible from 3000 years ago.

Modern medicine will eventually make blood donations and transfusions a thing of the past. But when this technology happens it won’t vindicate the Jehovah’s Witnesses and all the deaths that have occurred so far.Their rules against blood transfusions will eventually be abolished (very gradually to reduce wrongful death lawsuit liability). Even now most of the blood components are allowed. In 20 years there will be artificial blood and the Red Cross will go on with other noble deeds.

None of these changes, however, will absolve the Watchtower leaders or vindicate their twisted doctrines. — Danny Haszard

On Sexual Abuse and Predators

Studies in the US suggest they have proportionally four times more sexual assaults on children than the Catholic Church.

JW molester met 8-year-old girl at Kingdom Hall

51-year-old JW Rigoberto Flores faces 3 Felony counts: sexual assault, sexual conduct with a minor, and child molestation of an 8-year old girl.

• Buckeye man charged with molesting 8-year-old
• Alleged molester met 8-year-old girl in church
• See this video for a contradiction of the JW claim that he had not been a Jehovah’s Witness at the time.

A man who identified himself as Flores’ brother tells ABC15 their family is very upset with the 8-year-old’s family. He said it, “was her fault too… she pressured him.” … Flores lives across the street from Buckeye Elementary School.

She was “askin’ for it” – right?

67-year-old JW Elder in Quebec Convicted: 7-year Sexual Abuse

He got nine months of community service… she was 11 when it started…

This is a translation:

Found guilty in December 2006 of acts of sexual abuse of a minor – acts which took place between 1985 and 1992 – Marcel Simonin, 67 years old, formerly an Elder among the Jehovah’s Witnesses of Châteauguay at the time of the crimes, has been sentenced to serve 9 months in prison. He will serve the sentence in the community.

Simonin received his sentence last Wednesday at the Châteauguay Court House. At the time of the initial incidents of assault, the victim – a young girl – was only 11 years old.

The mother of the young victim met the individual – who at that time was an Elder, that is to say that he was a speaker during congregation meetings – at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Châteauguay. He taught the precepts of their way of life and spiritually supported members of the congregation.

After gaining the confidence of this woman and of her daughter, he proceeded to engage in multiple incidents of intimate contact with the adolescent. The incidents included simple touching and full sexual intercourse.

During those 8 years, the assaults took place in several locations; notably, in the defendant’s home, in his car, at the home of the young girl and in the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Châteauguay.

In her verdict, Judge Linda Despots – of the Criminal and Penal Chamber of Court – noted that the victim had lodged a complaint at the age of 16 or 17, but later withdrew that complaint as “she felt pressured by the community and by the threat of being disfellowshipped. It was another Elder, in the Québec region where the mother and the complainant had moved, who persuaded her to write a letter to the authorities of the Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses concerning her experiences with the accused.

Following receipt of that letter, Simonin telephoned his victim to apologize for the events, after having admitted the truth of the accusations. The complainant, allegedly, then forgave him.

However, when in 2003 the young girl again saw the accused during an Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses at the Olympic Stadium in Montréal, his presence re-opened her wounds and caused her to re-live the feeling of guilt that she experienced during the years when she had been victimized by the molestations. The young girl then had some difficult years during which she made 3 attempts at suicide and submitted herself to psychological treatment.

In 2005, in order to continue her therapeutic progress and to free herself, the young girl decided again to file a complaint against the accused.

Jehovah’s Witness Elder Wendell Willick Sexually Exploited Underage Psychiatric
Patient

• Willick sentence expected on Friday

After his wife went to bed, Willick gave the girl a beer. He then kissed, fondled, undressed her and had intercourse with her, Bains said. The victim, now 25, recalled during the preliminary hearing that she was wearing Mickey Mouse underpants at the time. She said the advance began without warning and she did not know what was going on, Bains said.

• Jehovah’s Witness elder gets three years for a 4-year relationship of “sexual exploitation” that started when the girl was a 14-year old Psychiatric Patient

Wendell Willick, 47, was counselling the girl at the behest of her parents – who were friends of Willick through their church – during the period of the abuse, which began in 1996, when the girl was 14. The court heard during a sentencing hearing that Willick first had sexual intercourse with the girl when she was visiting his home on a weekend pass from a hospital psychiatric ward. The victim, whose name is protected by a publication ban, was in the midst of a troubled adolescence. She had once run away from home and had repeatedly cut herself. … The girl’s trust and spiritual beliefs were shattered, she said in a victim impact statement that was read during the sentencing hearing. “It made me feel like a person of no value with no voice. . . . Parts of myself are missing,” she wrote.

Michael Porter Case to Be Reviewed

• Paedophilia and the Elders

The Crown Prosecution Service is to review the sentence of Michael Porter, the elder in the Jehovah’s Witnesses who was sentenced to a mere three years’ community rehabilitation after admitting abusing little boys (one a baby of 18 months) over 14 years. The leniency of this sentence caused outrage at the time . It also focused attention- as in some other churches’ cases in the past – on the dangers religions run when encouraging undue reverence for senior figures. … I can find no comment on the Watchtower website about the Porter case, or policy on this subject, but a page of warnings against internet chatroom predators.

• Paedophile sentence under review

Judge Tom Crowther opted not to jail the self-confessed paedophile after hearing he had undergone therapy. Dan Norris, Labour MP for Wansdyke, Somerset, and a former child protection officer, welcomed the Attorney General’s decision. “A relieved public will greatly welcome this common sense decision to review this wicked abuser’s sentence,” he said.

Fruits of the Spirit…

• 
  Love is a Lie for Children Molested by Jehovah’s Witnesses

When someone commits the sin of literalism, they grip the letter of the law so tightly that they squeeze out the intent with which it was written. …

Anyway, since the child molesters and child-rapists generally don’t attack their victims in front of two witnesses, all the Elders do is ask the perpetrator if he did it. If he says no, then they close the case. So, the pervert goes on preaching door-to-door, telling people how to be righteous, and when he gets another chance, he molests another kid. Then he molests another. Then he molests another. The Elders know. When the kids turn 13 and begin to act out sexually, as traumatized children will, then the Elders punish the kids for being “rebellious.” By punish, I mean cut them off from all friends and family. …

So, you may ask why I wrote this. Haven’t I gotten over it now that I have my own thing? Well, a lot of us have trouble moving on, what with bipolar manic-depression, insomnia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, mommy-issues, daddy-issues, and dysfunctional romantic relationships. These betrayals strike at the throat of our lives, because we’ve been taught that all the other churches follow Satan, and this is the Church of Love. Every other word is Love. But if the word love means anything, it means compassion and mercy for women and children, victims and helpless.

Ex-JW Barbara Anderson Still Fighting – Court Documents on National Television

• Ex-JW child sex abuse activist Anderson interviewed about church allegations

According to Anderson, she has amassed nearly 5,000 pages of court documents that are presented on a digital CD titled, “Secrets of Pedophilia in an American Religion, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Crisis,” for the general public to examine. After reviewing the CD, NBC apparently became interested in her efforts to substantiate her claim that although church headquarters kept track of sexual abuse cases in a data-base, their rules hindered reporting accusations of child abuse to the authorities. As mentioned in the MSN article, Anderson contends that Witness policies “protect pedophiles rather than protect the children.”…

“The court documents on the CD are full of dialog and documentation exchanged between opposing counsels in 12 different alleged child molestation cover-up cases,” she said. “Shortly before these cases were scheduled to go to open court trial last April, where evidence would expose the responsibility of Jehovah’s Witnesses for secretly allowing molesters to hold positions of authority within the religion, the defendant, Watchtower, secretly settled out of court with 16 plaintiffs paying as much as $12,500,000 in total.”

NBC News reported that it obtained a copy of one of the settlement documents in which an alleged victim in one of the nine cases involving 16 victims received $781,250.

“By absolute insistence of the defendant Watchtower’s attorneys, all of the plaintiffs and their attorneys were required to sign a conditional ‘do not ever talk about this to anyone’ confidentiality order,” says Anderson. “Then the Watchtower organization walked away without admitting any liability,” she said.

Anderson says some of the court documents she was able to obtain “were intended by defendants to be buried for eternity.”

• See the documentation website Watchtower Documents

NBC – JW Abuse Settlements, Watch Tower Society Knew Of Molesters:

• Woman Says Church Covering Up Sexual Abuse – see video

“If the victim couldn’t prove their accusation, they were threatened with ex-communication. That’s what kept this secret in this group for all these many, many years,” she said.

That meant losing touch with family and friends.

“I knew that children here in Tennessee were being molested. I knew of many right here in the area that I live, in Tullahoma, but nothing was being done about it,” she said.

Anderson said years of frustration caused her and her husband to leave the church. She said she hopes speaking out about the issue now will help protect other children.

“They left dangerous men in their position who could then go on and molest more. I read letters and evidence that some congregations who had as many as 30 or 40 children molested,” she said.

The Andersons said they no longer have a relationship with their son, who is an elder in the church.

They haven’t seen their 8-year-old grandson in five years.

No Lack of Watchtower Cash – 300-unit residential building, a 400-space parking garage and a new recreation building planned for Town of Shawangunk

• Watchtower Farms plans millions in expansion

The farm is exempt from property taxes, according to town officials. If the property was taxed, the bill would be about $2 million. … Such religious and other groups are under heightened scrutiny from town officials. A recent court ruling allows governments to reject the property tax exemptions in some cases. Assessors will be taking another look at some organizations as a result, Schoeberl said.

Already on Probation, Jehovah’s Witness Goes on Drunken Rampage with Baseball Bat

• Former smoker attacks smoking guests

She said Roth is deeply involved in a Jehovah’s Witnesses church and “lost his standing” in the church as a result of the charges. He wasn’t allowed to participate in all church activities, although he continues 25 hours of volunteer work a week with the church, she said. …He was fined $350 for breaching a probation order not to drink. On Sept. 23, police saw him urinating in front of a restaurant on University Avenue in Waterloo.

25 hours of “volunteer work” a week? That’s about 100 hours a month, which translates to status as a top pioneer (missionary). Exactly what standing did he lose? How would you like to be talking to this guy about God at your door?

Possible JW Involvement in the Missing Maddie Case

• Up-to-date articles at The Sun on the Madeleine McCann abduction case
• Collection of coverage posted at Anorak news
• 
  Witnesses place expat outside Maddie flat

The mystery woman knocked at the door and said she was a Jehovah’s Witness. She was accompanied by a man. Sixsmith said: “I can’t get it out of my head that it may have been Mr Murat and his girlfriend.”

• 
  Maddie: police ignore claim suspect’s girlfriend was seen with missing child

Witnesses have identified Michaela Walczuch as a woman sighted with the young girl, first in Portugal two days after she disappeared and then in Morocco 41 days later.

• See the 100-day video tribute to Maddie
• Football stars Cristiano Ronaldo and John Terry have made appeals for the return of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann.
• Wellwishers tie yellow ribbons around railings in Rothley, Leicestershire, the home town of missing three-year-old Madeleine McCann.

JWs who write to me as part of a spiritual exploration, questioning and/or crisis usually do not want to share their thoughts on these matters with others. They are justifiably afraid of the repercussions if a fellow JW were to discover their communication and report it.

I am deeply honored by this kind of contact. It is the most significant validation I could possibly have and I am well aware of the level of trust that is required. It tells me that at least sometimes I’m on the right track. (Thank you.)

I hold as sacred the confidentiality of those who wish to remain unidentified for this reason. Often these communications are held between that person and myself.

In this case, I have permission to post this in an edited version. Names have been deleted and a couple of other details have been changed to protect the innocent. Thank you for allowing me to post it; it is my hope that this will also help others.

I came across your website today after looking for news reports about the Follow the Christ convention I recently attended, and read your blog concerning it with immense interest. I am writing to you as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in crisis. I am sure you receive many emails a day from people with problems, and I may be just one more! I am feeling quite nervous but I don’t feel I can talk to anyone about my feelings and concerns with regard to my faith (yes, as you know, asking questions is discouraged). I really identify with your position and cannot ignore my doubts anymore. Your blog really hit home with me.

I was brought up in the faith, much like yourself, and my parents got divorced when I was 14. Dad was disfellowshipped as a consequence, and I wasn’t allowed to see him until he was reinstated (over 2 years) which helped me slide into depression, and when I questioned this, I was given a Watchtower reference to cuddle up to, and deal with it. Real comforting. I never got a ’shepherding call’ from the elders regarding any of this, not even from my uncle who is also an elder. In contrast, I was visited by the Circuit Overseer when I started seeing a girl in High School who wasn’t a Witness, who attempted to barrage me with scriptures and ‘reason’. I thought this was a real double standard – being offered no support when I was in dire need, conversely being slammed when I put a foot out of line.

My mother, a stalwart Witness, taught me to keep a humble attitude and accept all of this, assuring me it would all work out in the end. It is only now that I’m 23 and I’m starting to see all the damage this system causes to people, myself included. I have deep-seated self worth issues, and constantly wonder if I’m going to make it through Armageddon because I feel like I keep screwing up. It’s a constant cycle.

I look around at brothers and sisters in the Kingdom Hall, wondering if they all live in this same constant fear, all the while keeping a firmly fixed ‘kingdom smile’ (which to me sometimes looks slightly disconnected and delusional) to ensure everything appears to be just fine.

Honestly, I could go on and on. I just really needed to get some of this off my chest and talk to someone, and I really appreciate your reading my rant! I am still attending meetings, but I seem to be finding more and more excuses not to go. I know I will have to make a decision eventually, but it will be quite a gradual process I think… I guess I feel like I’m in no-man’s land right now, neither here nor there. I would really value any thoughts or suggestions you might have, and would love to hear about your experiences too!

Again, I thank you for considering what I’ve written here, I feel like weight has been lifted from my shoulders just writing about it.

I look forward to your reply! Regards,

My reply:

You are exactly right that the process of expressing your feelings has value in itself! You might think about keeping a (well-hidden) journal (perhaps a password-protected file on your computer).

The main thing I want to express to you is that you matter. You are not a stamped-out robot off some assembly line. You are a unique person – the only one of you in the entire history of the cosmos. There is nobody else exactly like you. (I know that might sound like a Mr. Rogers song, but what of it?) You are special. Millions of potentialities and synchronicities and actualities combine, moment by moment, to construct you. You have a mind, a body, a spirit – all of which are changing imperceptibly, all the time. The universe plays with you, and earth is your home and your school. As Alan Watts used to say, “the earth peoples.” To some extent, you can choose your direction, your flavor, your habits. You look, you see, you interpret, you act, you think.

Trust yourself. Listen to your heart. You sound very intelligent to me. You sense the wrongness in the air. The self-worth problems (yes, we all have them – it’s one of the most destructive aspects of the group) are hard to overcome. You may find that you bounce back and forth between feelings of worthlessness (you’ll never measure up) and an overinflated ego (self-righteousness, superiority to non-JWs).

Explore the possibilities in-between – the aim is to find your balance point. For myself, I have found that a focus on something else helps a lot for self-integration. Work on yourself, but also help others. Work on a project that you really care about. If you paint or do karate or play the piano or build things or sing or have any kind of skill like that where your mind, body and spirit have to learn to meld together seamlessly in order to do it well, you will see what I mean. Cultivate that. Practice it. Pay attention to the way the habits form and draw on that process of mind/body/spirit memory on other occasions.

At this point, I would advise that as you feel the desire and/or duty and/or pressure to attend, you continue to try to get what spiritual help you still can from meetings and so on. There are some good things, here and there. I don’t recommend a big public break anyway, unless it becomes unavoidable.

While you’re at meetings, though, pay attention to your own perceptions about what “doesn’t fly.” You have identified a lack of meaningful spiritual counsel, heartlessness and lack of compassion, fear-based worship, aggressive intervention for rule-breaking, the fake, fixed smile, so on. Notice more. You don’t have to react, just observe. Pay attention to how these things make you feel about yourself and others. Think that through a little. In the privacy of your own mind, replace what you are observing with more caring, loving alternatives. Actively imagine – and visualize – what it might look like, feel like, if your imagined alternatives were the reality. Change the look on someone’s face, the tone of voice.

Take note of the truly kind people you know and have known there – appreciate them. If you feel moved to do so, praise individuals for specific things. “That was a kind thing to do, helping her out of the car.” They rarely hear authentic praise, and it helps you too. Don’t limit this to JWs, either.

If you pray, pray more. If you feel comfortable talking to the God they have named “Jehovah” – do that (I never was, but that’s just me). However you address God, think about love – and reach in – and reach out – to love.

Orient yourself toward a god who truly loves you and would never want to hurt you (or anyone else). Imagine a love that is so big that it encompasses everything that could ever be, and yet a love that is so unique to you that only you can tune in to its meaning for you. Imagine cosmic arms comforting you, holding you, telling you that it’s all going to be all right. All our words about God are metaphors anyway – use what you can from your own archetypal imagination until it feels like God should feel, until it feels right.

Whether you imagine the metaphors of kingship or fatherhood or motherhood or a protective hen or a quiver through the strings of the cosmic dance, you’ll know it when it feels right. Think of tuning in a station on an old beatup radio. It’s not a matter of “creating your own God,” but of stumbling around until you start to get a glimmer of what a God that is Love itself might be like. Listen for the deep centers from which the spirit of love speaks within you.

Learn about what humility really means (and trust a bit less in the “traditions” of these men in Brooklyn). But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were. There are many helpful, loving things that you have learned, too. Build on what rings true (hold fast to what is fine and caring and good). Silently let the destructive aspects start to flow over and around you – harmlessly. Picture them just sliding off of you.

These are things to help you start to turn fear (or anger or helplessness) into something more constructive that will help you find your own way, whatever that might be. These things I am suggesting may seem small, but small habits start to grow and flower in their own way. Some small changes along these lines (explore others too) will be good preparation for you to step into your own path with authenticity and integrity. Research. Think. Feel. Explore. Be kind.

My own experiences are buried in comments and posts. You can read some of my poetry here, and there is a long page of advice to “recovering JWs” here.

I am deeply honored to hear from you. If any part of what I’ve written seems “off” to you in any way, please disregard it. Everyone is a little different, and what helps one person may not be at all useful for another.

Would you mind if I posted a version of this letter to the blog? I would not mention your name, and I could delete any part of this that would in any way identify you. If you like, resend the letter, taking out any part that you don’t want me to post. And if you are not comfortable with my posting any of it, that’s perfectly fine too.

In any case, I’m here for you. There are others, although I would advise some discretion. Some are very damaged, and will be for a long time, maybe always. I’m among the more fortunate ones. I think my curiosity and love of reading went a long way…

Thank you so much for replying so quickly to my email. I have read it over and over, you don’t know what it means to me that someone has taken the time to help me with what I’m going through! And if I may say so, you have a beautifully eloquent style of writing, a pleasure to read! I take a lot from what you have written. You may post a version of my letter if you wish, I only ask that my name is removed. I think I may email you again in the future, and for now wish you the best. Kind regards,

I have some idea of what it means – still just trying to be the caring friend I wish I’d had. I don’t invoke discourses of blessing easily, but I must admit that I do feel blessed (and healed) every time someone out there seems to be hurting a little less because I could help in some small way.

It’s a form of service that returns threefold … or tenfold … or (a) manifold.

(I have a pretty good idea of who might be laughing each of those.)

We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results. ~Herman Melville

I can’t believe it. Brenda Lee has done what I’ve fantasized about doing since I was 12. I’ve spent a fair bit of time trying not to think about it, for fear that I might actually do it.

A mildly disrespectful, gum-snapping Brenda attended the Jehovah’s Witness Memorial Service (their annual memorial of the Last Supper, at which almost no-one partakes of the “emblems” of wine and bread) and she…PARTOOK!

SHE DID IT!

Excuse the capital letters, but my heart is still racing in empathy.

It’s so nice to know that I wasn’t the only one to think of doing it. Now that someone has done it, maybe it’s time to let go of that particular fantasy (don’t worry, I have others).

Of course, my fantasy continued after that point. I imagined that I would stand up and say that everyone there should partake of the bread and wine, that to refuse the communion made a mockery of the entire ceremony. It reinforced the idea that almost all Jehovah’s Witnesses were unworthy to share in the spirit – at the same time that they thought they would be the ones sheltered from their loving God’s wrath during the Last Days and through the Apocalypse. Yeah, I thought I’d get a chance to preach a little sermon of my own.

I’m in shock. If you haven’t had any involvement with Jehovah’s Witnesses, it will be difficult for you to fully comprehend the transgressive nature of what she did. The only ones that are supposed to partake are of the 144,00 thousand destined to rule in heaven “as kings” with the Christ (Jesus / the Archangel Michael) after Armageddon. Among other things, they don’t mention any “queens.” I’ve never seen anybody partake. Not anybody.

I had recently ordered another copy of Brenda Lee’s book to send to a friend, but when I saw that she had inscribed the book with a message (Truth, love + light… Brenda Lee), I couldn’t bring myself to part with it. I sent my older copy instead.

After finishing my previous post, I clicked on the Technorati tag at the bottom of the post to check on how things were going with Brenda Lee. I came across the video that way. There is a decent (if a little flippant) introduction, and then – with the help of two accomplices – she filmed the whole thing. And here it is:

Click to view video

I was screaming out to John. As much as I’ve tried to convey the effects of having been raised a Jehovah’s Witness, I think he still has a little trouble understanding. I don’t often feel obvious effects of it these days, partly because the work I do trying to help others is extremely healing to me. His own upbringing involved a kind of lukewarm semi-involvement in one of the major protestant denominations, and he’s in the agnostic/atheist camp now. Lately, watching what right-wing fanatics have done in this country, and seeing the daily slaughters over questions of religion in the news, he is even less likely to engage in discussions about spirituality. He smiled mildly at me (yelling “look at this! look at this! She’s doing it! She’s doing it!”) and… well… I guess it’s just one of those things. You had to have had certain kinds of experiences to fully understand. You had to be there…

I somehow thought that if I ever did that, lightning would strike in some way. I would be dragged out by a passel of elders. People would go berserk. Something. Man, she took her time munching that wafer down – very noisy – and gulped down three good swallows of the wine.

And nothing happened. It didn’t even look like anybody said anything to her.

The public is invited to the Memorial, so she was – technically – invited to be there. She wasn’t intruding on a private ritual. A lot more people attend the Memorial than go to the five weekly meetings, or go door-to-door. It’s a chance (as you can hear in the video) for them to preach to newbies, or to family members that aren’t yet JWs, or to the ones that drift in and out.

Of course, they would consider her an apostate for writing a book about her experiences as a JW, and if they had known who she was, they wouldn’t have let her enter. When they print those memorial statistics, just know that one of the memorial partakers is actually an “apostate.” I wonder if they’ll really count her?

I think in a way it was worse for her than for me, because her mother converted when she was a kid. She had already celebrated Christmas and birthdays and all – and then it was taken away. I think that would have been worse than never having known any other way.

I am not baptized according to the doctrine of any religious group. I did participate once in a christian communion – but the circumstances were very unique. At the time, I did feel very moved by the ritual. To me, it’s almost a kind of suggestion, a mind placebo. Or perhaps it’s a kind of witchcraft. I wrote a whole chapter in my dissertation comparing communion and vampirism. When you grow up as a Jehovah’s Witness, you can’t help but think about the symbolism of blood and spirit.

I am still very spiritually driven – I think spiritual independence is one of the aspects of my freedom that I most value.

Still, I feel like whooping in laughter – yes, a kind of mildly wicked kind of whooping – imagining sitting there next to her, and – not being to overcome the expected behavior – whispering, “All right, all right, quit fidgeting! Do you have to chew the gum like that?!?!” and then realizing, and losing my composure, and laughing, laughing, laughing. I would probably have become somewhat hysterical. Even now, I’m not sure that the whole experience wouldn’t have been too traumatic for me to take.

The last time I went to a meeting, many years ago now in my home congregation in Massachusetts, I was hemmed in by older women, then confronted by an elder. And that was before I ever had a web site or anything like that. They just somehow had heard that I was in an MA program in religion. That was enough. I get a shiver even driving by a Kingdom Hall. It’s hard for others to understand. Somehow, at the door it’s different. Everywhere I’ve lived I’ve had multiple visits from JWs, and gradually I’ve gotten to the point where I have conversations, even somewhat enjoyable ones. But I don’t think I could sit through another one of those meetings ever again.

I can’t help wondering if the entire congregation was staring her down. The elders didn’t even corner her later?!?!

Yeah, I’m expecting some expressions of disapproval in the comments. It was a transgressive sort of thing, kind of like having sex on a church’s consecrated alter (Abelard and Heloise found it rather exciting), but she didn’t really disrupt anything in a major way. Heh-heh. She didn’t make a scene. Considering everything, she showed self-control.

I’m sorry, but on this one I have to laugh. I can only laugh. Oh……oh. On the way out, she advised some JW teens to hang in there – someday this would all be over. That congregation is going to be gossiping about this for a long time to come.

I don’t think I would be able to follow through on going to the Memorial and partaking, because I don’t think I’d be able to resist being a little more… theatrical. Knowing that I would have a hard time resisting the temptation to be very vocal and disruptive, I wouldn’t do it. So, no worries, dear rank and file JWs. You won’t be seeing me at the Memorial. You don’t want me to be there, and I don’t want to be there. It’s too traumatic for me. Even Brenda Lee showed some signs of anxiety and stress as the moment approached.

Of course, if hundreds of other people all over the world all decided to do it at once… hmmm.

My adrenaline levels are still high. I can’t believe I’m sitting here. I think I’m going to go outside and giggle helplessly to myself.

Brenda, sweet girl, more details please! Swing by and comment, I beg of you! Send me your phone number immediately! We’ve got to talk!