Revision as of 04:49, 5 July 2009

Witnesses, Misplaced Pages and me

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XJW This user was a Jehovah's Witness

This user takes his username from a Little Richard song.

A Misplaced Pages editor recently referred to a comment of mine on the Jehovah’s Witnesses talk page — a slighting reference to their disapproval of Mother's Day celebrations as it happens — and said it allowed my motives to be questioned. Maybe you question my motives. So I’ll tell you what motivates me.

For many years I described myself as an active and committed Jehovah’s Witness. I calculate that I spent more than 2500 hours in the preaching and Bible study work, "studying" with members of the public and attempting to leave Watch Tower literature in the hands of others. I gave hundreds of Theocratic Ministry School talks and several public talks, "gave counsel" to Theocratic Ministry School students, led dozens of congregation Book Study groups, organized groups for "field service", made shepherding visits on congregation members, volunteered in many capacities at Witness conventions and assemblies and spent countless hours managing magazines, books and congregation funds to assist other members of the congregation and the Watch Tower organization. An obedient and, possibly, model publisher.

It didn't stay that way. Over the years I became increasingly disenchanted with the regimentation of Witnesses and the imposition of rules, the denial of personal choice in many areas, the senseless parroting of stock phrases and ideas and the smugness of Witnesses about their own religion and their arrogant, derisive dismissal of the lifestyles and life choices of non-Witnesses.

I became sickened by the mindless acceptance and sometimes ecstatic reception of empty and repetitive talks given at Witness conventions and assemblies.

My concern grew over the ceaseless demands by the Watch Tower organization to report "field service" and I felt betrayed when I came to realise that the number of hours' service one was expected to report was used by congregation elders as the ultimate measure of one’s spirituality.

I became dismayed to realise that for most Witnesses, their regular attendance at field service groups and congregation meetings was done mainly to satisfy the expectations of other Witnesses and to avoid accusations that one was "slacking off". Yet eventually that became my prime motive in attending meetings and pretending to "go witnessing" as well — to avoid the judgmental comments of other Witnesses.

I realised after some time that within their closed community — a claustrophobic, sycophantic, incestuous community they describe as a “spiritual paradise” — gossip and backbiting are the norm. One is always watched by other Witnesses, who are always waiting to judge, criticise and condemn the people they call their "brothers and sisters".

And so, after enduring much unhappiness, frustration and silent anger as a Jehovah’s Witness — for one cannot voice these criticisms, even to one’s closest friends, for fear they will report you to elders as an apostate and a murmurer — I chose to cease associating with the Witnesses. Those Witnesses I count as true, close friends were dismayed at my withdrawal, but because they have been well primed by Watch Tower publications and talks to be wary of anyone who strays from the norm, they also became immediately suspicious of my motives, even though I declined to give them any reason for my decision.

Even though I no longer think of myself as a Witness, my personal details, my track record as a publisher, remain on file with my old congregation, perhaps even at my country’s branch headquarters, possibly marked with the word "INACTIVE". So be it. I have no intention of resigning, or formally disassociating myself from the organization, because I know that this will automatically result in an announcement at my local congregation, with the result that all those Witnesses who know me will be required to shun me. Any who disobey this injunction are liable to be disfellowshipped themselves. What other organization punishes members in perpetuity just for departing?

But such is the power — an intrusive, insidious, malevolent power — of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.

But then there’s Misplaced Pages. After all those years of trudging streets, driving around neighbourhoods and climbing stairs clutching Watchtowers and Awakes, tracts and books seeking to spread "the truth", I now use the internet to do the same: share the truth.

There’s an important difference, of course: the "truth" I was handed and required to dutifully, zealously disseminate was an unquestioned patchwork of doctrines whose inconsistencies, follies and eccentricities were forgiven, brushed aside and ignored, and whose origins were of so little importance they were never examined. I was told it was the truth. I was told it was from God himself. So much of it I now realise was arrant nonsense.

By contrast, the truth about the Watch Tower organization I now share on Misplaced Pages is drawn from a wide variety of sources that is easily verified. Those books probe the origins of Watch Tower doctrines and put them up for scrutiny. They draw from its older, forgotten publications the attitudes and statements of the organization and its leaders that plainly show why the Watch Tower organization is the manipulative, controlling, tyrannical and unforgiving beast it is today. Through those books — and only those books — emerge the strange, breathtaking and sometimes shameful history the organization has whitewashed and distorted in its own publications.

Watch Tower publications frequently urge non-Witnesses to closely examine their religion. A 1981 book, The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, comments:

And yet for Witnesses interested in examining their own religion a different standard applies. Watch Tower publications and speakers warn that fully examining their own religion would open them to the risk of succumbing to the "poison" of apostasy. The best course, Witnesses are told, is to feed their minds on "what is true and righteous, and holding appreciatively and loyally to the channel from which we first learned Bible truth". That quote, from the May 1, 1984 Watchtower, tells Witnesses, effectively, to listen only to what the organization tells them. In Watch Tower World, loyalty to the organization comes before truth and conscience.

I'm no expert on mind control techniques, but it sounds like the Witnesses employ a whole system of them. Close off access to outside criticism. Quash curiosity. Punish internal criticism. Establish an emotional dependence. Expel, isolate and silence malcontents and dissidents. And badger members to relentlessly preach, preach, preach the message — a process that will force members to defend and explain the doctrines so often that any vague doubts will simply evaporate.

So that’s my attitude, and those are my motives. I love to read and I love to accumulate information and share it, particularly information to which the Watch Tower Society would prefer Witnesses not be exposed. Witnesses have their Watchtower libraries; they don’t have — and are encouraged to feel guilty and tainted if they delve into — the many valuable books that take a more distanced and balanced view of their religion.

But Misplaced Pages is worth nothing if the information it contains is distorted, untruthful and unreliable. I may be passionate about my beliefs, but I will always try to be fair and accurate. I can spot polemic as well as the next person and though it’s occasionally fun to read, it’s of no use on Misplaced Pages. Witnesses who also edit these articles might like to bear that in mind before they attack me and accuse me of bias.

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