Two pleasantly plump Jehovah’s Witness women have just departed, their undelivered invitation to the upcoming District Convention in hand. They were still huffing and puffing a bit from the exertion required to climb the driveway when they rang the bell. For a moment, I was tempted to pretend not to be home. Sigh. Nah. I instructed Ben to go play elsewhere in the house so that I could talk to them. Follow the Christ. Sigh. I let them go through…
Under founder Charles Taze Russell, “International Bible Students” were somewhat anti-organizational, centered on personal study of the Bible. Watchtower, Sept. 15, 1895, p. 216. Beware of ‘organization.’ It is wholly unnecessary. The Bible rules will be the only rules you will need. Do not seek to bind others’ consciences, and do not permit others to bind yours. Believe and obey so far as you can understand God’s Word today. A couple of years after Russell’s death, that view was already…
It’s such a familiar narrative now, and it’s almost comforting to me to see more and more people testifying to it – to know that what I observed and experienced is pretty much the same from congregation to congregation, and not just a matter of my own family or community in the Jehovah’s Witnesses: the fantasies of a paradise earth devoid of all but other Jehovah’s Witnesses, the fatalism toward the coming apocalypse and the lack of engagement in the…
This short article by Victoria Cater gives another common example of what the Watchtower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses) does to families. This is typical of the kinds of situations I remember and hear about from people who write to me for advice. The first claim – that her father was kicked out for not giving up weekends with his family in order to pioneer (go out door to door for a specified number of hours per month) – is unlikely. You…
There is something inherent in controlling authoritarian communities like the JWs that helps to produce – and serves in some ways to protect – sexual predators of all kinds and, for some reason, especially pedophiles. There was at least one such in my own congregation, who described me as a “perfect little doll” to my parents and who gave me the permanent creeps. He was in his seventies before any charges were made, but I knew deep in my heart…