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Truth Be Told – in Atlanta Oct 29th

Truth Be Told – in Atlanta Oct 29th

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Gregorio Smith has announced the Atlanta premiere of his controversial documentary film about growing up a Jehovah’s Witness, TRUTH BE TOLD. Due to the recent publicity of several child sex abuse cases against the religion, this film exploring the oppressive hold the Watchtower Society has on its members is particularly timely. TRUTH BE TOLD will be screened exclusively on Tuesday October 29, 2013 at AMC Phipps Plaza 14. Get your tickets now!

TRUTH BE TOLD – a new feature-length documentary – lifts the veil on the seemingly benign Jehovah’s Witnesses religion to expose a profit-driven, isolationist culture characterized by fear, totalitarian corporate leadership, intellectual & spiritual intimidation, suspension of critical thinking, failed prophecies, doctrinal inconsistency and improper handling of physical and sexual abuse allegations within the church.

See former Jehovah’s Witnesses candidly discuss growing up inside the religion. They reveal experiences including the effects of proselytizing door-to-door, shunning non-observant family and friends, suffering the discouragement of pursuing dreams like gaining a higher education, missing other societal holidays and customs. Ultimately the film reveals why Jehovah’s Witnesses have the lowest retention rate of any religion with only 37% of those raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses continuing their affiliation with the religion.

This exposé – the title of which refers to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ perception that their beliefs are ‘the truth’ – is the first feature-film directed by Gregorio Smith.

Trailers, excerpts, production stills and other content are available on the official TRUTH BE TOLD website: www.hereliesthetruth.com
Direct link to trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4nqYtzDaGE
TRUTH BE TOLD on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hereliesthetruth
On Twitter: @TRUTHBETOLDDOC
About the Filmmaker
Gregorio Smith is an independent filmmaker and writer. His work has been featured in the Staten Island Film Festival, Anthology Film Archive, Dallas Video and Film Festival, Denver Underground Film Festival, Bowery Poetry Club and other forums. His work has also been covered by The New York Times, Boston Globe and other media outlets. He is a graduate of Baruch College and a member of the International Documentary Association.
Mr. Smith was born and raised a Jehovah’s Witness. He describes TRUTH BE TOLD as ‘immersive, informational, expository and controversial …an honest glimpse into the culture of growing up in the Jehovah’s Witness religion.” TRUTH BE TOLD is the director’s sixth film and first feature.

See details and trailer here (http://www.tugg.com/events/5867).

Truth Be Told

Grief for a View of the God-Character

Grief for a View of the God-Character

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I remember the primal anguish that is born out of the belief that God is the source of both love and pain.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve observed that the feeling toward the universe it engendered is very similar to that of a hostage, a victim of abuse, a prisoner. Instead of creating a subjectivity of love in freedom, of caritas and kindness, and peace, it seemed to create an obsessive and paradoxical longing and fear that felt so meaningful that it was difficult to release.

The first stage of exit was pure rage, in my case perhaps only because of some hard-wired sense of self-preservation. If I hadn’t become angry enough, I never would have left. Yes, I also wouldn’t have spent years in college, or racked up student loans, or seen my career path veer off into something I never expected, but I also wouldn’t have had anywhere to stand, wouldn’t have slowly reconstructed a space in which I could live.

I’ve been thinking about the pathological aspects of religion for many years now. Talking with others who left the Jehovah’s Witnesses has been very healing, and I’m so very happy that such discussions have been made available. I was alone, it seemed, at first. As much as our conversations mutually heal, there are still times when the raw feelings burst through. Yes, even now when it seems that early experience shouldn’t matter anymore, I look around at our cultural landscape and see all the similarities to the dynamics that I felt way back then. The stated arguments, then the cruelties beneath them. It’s part of the reason that I follow politics so closely.

When you’ve lived in a space where justice is proclaimed, but unkindness rules, you feel things. I’ve always been too sensitive to that difference, to the unfairness, and it’s only expanded into more understanding of structural, institutionalized unfairness. For that reason, I was never able to reach that enlightenment space that some highly-evolved religious people sometimes reach, where you’re in tune with the love of the cosmos and shine out in peace and love because of that.

I am amazed at people who first question God because of logical arguments – it’s why I was first interested in philosophy and theology. I never expected answers, I was just fascinated that anyone could ever manage to think clearly about an embedded belief system. For me, the questions just keep getting better and better.

But first, I had to step away from the thing that felt so inherent to my soul. It helped and hurt that I was a woman, and one gifted with both imagination and intelligence. I was rewriting stories all the time.

Throwback moments are still powerful because I still recognize them. If they ring true, they can almost call me back. Some versions of religion look nice, but they don’t address this hard-core total involvement of the person. The pathological edges of religion do – and this, I think is both their advantage and their biggest threat. They encourage power distortions – masochism and sadism, entwined, enthrallment and rebellion, entwined. Fanaticism has incredible payoffs. I understand.

When I saw the song below performed, I didn’t know the words. I didn’t have to know them, although they do fit (a bit strangely so).

What I saw was a priestess exorcising her demon. It was so powerful that I was shaken for the rest of the night.

Every time I hear it, like I accidentally did over my morning coffee, I feel it punch the solar plexus of my soul. I cry every time, and I always remember, I remember how it felt.

This was how I felt about God.

Although I haven’t been in that particular space for many years, it still has a power, and as much as I remind myself of the path of forgiveness and kindness and peace, as much as I am more lovingly attuned now, I still lack the total transformation that would make this song just a song like any other.

Music is a personal thing. Everyone projects onto music to some extent. This is not meant to be a song about God, but it resonates there for me.

For you. In remembrance, in grief. To sing, to exorcise your demons, and perhaps to be able to voice some aspect of the experience that conversation can’t really ever address. But, lovelies, sing something sweet afterward… If you can grok it, this one takes strength to hear.

Alanis Morissette, “Sympathetic Character”

I was afraid you’d hit me if I’d spoken up
I was afraid of your physical strength
I was afraid you’d hit below the belt
I was afraid of your sucker punch
I was afraid of your reducing me
I was afraid of your alcohol breath
I was afraid of your complete disregard for me
I was afraid of your temper
I was afraid of handles being flown off of
I was afraid of holes being punched into walls
I was afraid of your testosterone

I have as much rage as you have
I have as much pain as you do
I’ve lived as much hell as you have
and I’ve kept mine bubbling under for you

You were my best friend
You were my lover
You were my mentor
You were my brother
You were my partner
You were my teacher
You were my very own sympathetic character

I was afraid of verbal daggers
I was afraid of the calm before the storm
I was afraid for my own bones
I was afraid of your seduction
I was afraid of your coercion
I was afraid of your rejection
I was afraid of your intimidation
I was afraid of your punishment
I was afraid of your icy silences
I was afraid of your volume
I was afraid of your manipulation
I was afraid of your explosions
I have as much rage as you have
I have as much pain as you do
I’ve lived as much hell as you have
and I’ve kept mine bubbling under for you
(repeat 2 x)

You were my keeper
You were my anchor
You were my family
You were my saviour
and therein lay the issue
and therein lay the problem

Jehovah’s Witnesses: Ritual Murder of Grandson, “Good Man” Rapist

Jehovah’s Witnesses: Ritual Murder of Grandson, “Good Man” Rapist

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So sad…

Kiev, August 7, Interfax – 66-year old resident of Kiev conducted a ritual murder of her 9-year-old grandson. She hit the boy with an iron and completed the crime with a rope, Ukrainian issue of Komsomolskaya Pravda daily writes on Thursday.

Then a woman carried a boy to the sitting room where she had everything prepared beforehand including candles and a brochure with “a prayer to enter paradise” given to her by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Neighbors told that on the eve of murdering her grandson she spoke about religion and soon apocalypses. Jehovah’s witnesses convinced the woman the Lord would come on 2014 and raise the dead, then all the righteous will go to paradise and take their children with them.

The Kiev Prosecutor’s office initiated a criminal case on the incident. Forensic psychiatric expert examination acknowledged the woman was criminally insane.

more…

And in other news, JW rapist called “good man“:

A Williamstown man was sentenced in Vermont District Court in Chelsea to three to 20 years in prison Wednesday for molesting and raping a female relative but not before friends and family members – who acknowledged his crime – also told the court that he was a “good man.”

…
She said the Jehovah’s Witnesses “all love him, and they still love him,” though Jolene said Leonard has lost his fellowship with the Jehovah’s Witnesses because of the conviction.

Jolene said Leonard “got involved in looking at pornography on the Internet, and that’s why he let his mind dwell on something he shouldn’t have.”

She said she thinks the family could have sat down with counselors and worked things out instead of this “vendetta” that was taking place.

Roya pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting his victim, at times using a gun or knife, over two years starting in 2004 when the victim was a minor.

more…

Feedback on JW Jokes

Feedback on JW Jokes

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It’s good to hear from former Jehovah’s Witnesses, although it also makes me very sad to hear the familiar narratives of abuse and shunning. Thank you for writing, Aella Brenna, and I’m glad that you got some distance and healing through laughter. Thrive with light and love.

i’m an ex-JW who has since become a pagan because the beliefs make more sense to me. i found the humour about JW’s on your site refreshing and amusing as I left three years ago and have consequently not heard from my parents or little sister for three years.

So i just wanted to say thanks for the healing to my soul that your jokes provided.

Especially since I was abused when i was growing up both emotionally and physically and watched my mother and sister being abused to, and my abusive dad backed his actions up with the bible and was an elder in the local congregation whom everyone looked up to and thought well of. Of course they never saw what he was like behind closed doors and I was too terrified to tell anyone.

i also didn’t ever like the fact that the bible said one thing but the watchtower said another and that the organisation had taken the place of God to most people. If only they’d read their bibles properly they would see that things have become overly complicated. So i’ve gone back to the old religion.

Just wanted to say thanks for the jokes.

Aella Brenna (it means Whirlwind daughter of Raven)

Calling Canadian JW Abuse Survivors

Calling Canadian JW Abuse Survivors

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Silentlambs is asking for any French-speaking JW or ex-JW abuse survivors from Canada to come forward for a possible interview with key media in Canada.

If are such a victim or you know of such a victim who can assist, please contact info@silentlambs.org for more information.

JW Child Sex Abuse Cases Settled with Gag Order!

JW Child Sex Abuse Cases Settled with Gag Order!

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Press Release:


Sixteen Child Sex Abuse Lawsuits Against Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Settled
Largest Deal Ever in Denomination’s History Includes Controversial Gag Order

One of the Predators is A Fugitive & Was Profiled on “America’s Most Wanted”

Two Organizations Urge All Faith Groups To Stop Requiring Secrecy in Settlements

The Nation-wide Support Groups Prod Witnesses & Victims To Come Forward & Get Help

WHAT:
At a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims will disclose and discuss a child molestation settlement (allegedly in the millions of dollars and the largest-ever) against the Jehovah’s Witnesses. One of the predators was recently on ‘America’s Most Wanted.’

They’ll also discuss a nationwide outreach effort to find and help more men and women who have been sexually abused by Jehovah’s Witness officials, and publicly urge all faith groups to stop requiring abuse victims to sign gag orders.

WHEN:
Thursday, May 10, 10:00 a.m.

WHERE:
Outside the Davidson County Courthouse (in courtyard), 200 James Robertson Parkway in Nashville, TN

WHO:
Several clergy molestation victims and advocates from five states, including – a Kentucky man who is the founder of a nationwide support group for Jehovah’s Witness victims & Tennessee leaders of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,
SNAPnetwork.org)

DETAILS:
Over a five day period in February, 16 civil child sex abuse lawsuits against Watchtower (the Jehovah’s Witness headquarters in New York City) were quietly settled in three states (CA, TX and OR). The victims involved were essentially coerced into signing ‘gag orders’ that prevent them from discussing the cases. (Copies of the 16 dismissal notices and of 1-2 of the actual lawsuits will be provided.)

One Jehovah’s Witness elder who was sued was long time San Diego resident Rick McLean who was featured on America’s Most Wanted in March. He is suspected of molesting more than 30 children.

http://www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=35566

http://www.silentlambs.org/rickmcleanamw.htm

Victims groups and veteran clergy sex abuse attorneys (like Jeff Anderson who has filed 1,500 such lawsuits in the past 20+ years) are highly critical of gag orders because they keep the identities of predators secret and make it harder for victims to heal from the devastating effects of childhood trauma.

Attorneys for the victims in these cases are Greg Love and Kimberly Norris of Ft. Worth Texas (817 560 5600). Jehovah’s Witness officials JR Brown and David Semonian and church lawyers Philip Brumley and Mario Moreno can be reached at 718-560-5600 or
845-306-1100.

The denomination was prompted to settle the cases because of an adverse court ruling last October in California that would require them to turn over deeply-held secret records about abusive Jehovah’s Witnesses.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20070125.html

A similar news conference is being held today in San Diego at 1:00 p.m. (Pacific time) outside a downtown courthouse there. (For details: Mary Grant 626 419 2930, Paul Livingston619 847 3998)

Six years ago a Kentucky man – William H. Bowen – reported to fellow Jehovah’s Witness church officials that another elder was in fact a confessed child molester and remains a Jehovah’s Witness in good standing to this day. Bowen was then ostracized
by fellow church members, went on to start a now 6,000 member support group for those abused and silenced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. That group, SilentLambs.org, now has 6,000 members.

http://www.silentlambs.org/NationalPresspacket.htm

Contact: William H. Bowen of Paducah KY, founder of SilentLambs.org 270-703-2257 cell, 270-527-5350

Mary Grant of Long Beach CA, SNAP western regional director 626-419-2930 cell

David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP national director 314-566-9790 cell

Statement by Bill Bowen:

Sex abuse survivors through litigation have forced Jehovah’s Witnesses to admit their policy on child abuse is not working. Watchtower policy has silenced thousands of victims and continues to strangle their ability to cry for justice and healing.

One month ago, we were informed about settlements in some of the more than forty recent civil sex abuse lawsuits against the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We learned that 16 victims were paid the largest settlement in history of Jehovah’s Witnesses but forced to sign a gag order that forbids them from speaking about their abuse. We find this bittersweet. On one hand, we’re glad a few victims are finally getting some financial help. On the other hand, we’re sad and worried because they’ve essentially been forced to give up their right to protect others by speaking out about their abuse to the public.

In 2002, US Catholic bishops publicly promised that the church would never ask for gag orders when compensating abuse survivors. Five years later, Jehovah’s Witnesses do just the reverse. They keep putting innocent kids and unsuspecting families at risk of horrible crimes because they value their secrecy and reputations more than they value children’s safety. Jehovah’s Witness kids that experience abuse need to have freedom to speak. It is time to step up and do the right thing instead of protecting the reputation of the church.

Watchtower’s secrecy and recklessness gives dangerous men like Rick McLean continued access to youngsters. McLean was recently featured on America’s Most Wanted as one of the 15 most wanted fugitives in this country. Four of his victims were part of the sixteen lawsuits recently settled and silenced by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Because Watchtower officials never reported McLean and his crimes to law enforcement, he remains on the run and in fact might be molesting kids right now. Watchtower has a long-standing and ridiculous policy of not reporting molesters to police, requiring two eye witnesses before an abused child is believed and insisting that untrained individuals do internal investigations. This keeps kids vulnerable and predators free.

Watchtower has attacked and ousted members of conscience who have spoken out on to protect kids. They have protected child molesters by maintaining a secret database of more that 25,000 molesters that they do not shared with law enforcement. Finally, when a few victims find the courage and strength to speak up, get help, warn others, and seek justice in court, church officials silence them with hurtful gag orders.

Why did they settle? Last fall, a California court ruling would have required Watchtower to open their pedophile database. To prevent this information from becoming public, church officials chose to settle these 16 cases. They do not want anyone to know how much damaging information the database contains.

This is an international problem that needs to be addressed by one of the wealthiest religious groups in the world. At silentlambs.org, we want victims to know that, now more than ever, they can speak out, get help, expose molesters and protect others. Now more than ever, the legal climate has changed and is changing, so they have a better chance to get justice in court and deter others from hiding sex crimes.

We are announcing a worldwide campaign to reach Jehovah’s Witness sex abuse victims. We are asking that this downloadable “Service Bulletin” be placed in every Kingdom Hall (JW CHURCH) around the world and delivered to any Jehovah’s Witness that you may come in contact with. By doing so you can help victims find healing and protect children.