Cautious as Serpents

It's difficult to be dispassionate, especially with respect to fighting against something that may have cause traumatic pain. In some way or another, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has left each of us with a scar and it tickles us intimately to see it falter. However slight their missteps may be from time to time, it raises a cheer among the discarded and downtrodden to see their humanity laid bare.

It is beyond contesting to say that it is a human organization. Whether or not it's God's spirit directed organization can neither be proved, nor disproved, and therein we invoke Ockham's Razor and discard it as a causative force. Also beyond contesting is that they have repeatedly made mistakes at the institutional level. Doctrines shift. Policies change. Embarrassments occur.

It's easy to kick a person or organization when it's down. These exposed flaws and their attendant restructuring often appear to be gaps in the armor which we are prone to attack. This is perhaps the worst possible tactic to employ. Chinese General Sun Tzu wrote in his military strategy, The Art of War, to "fight the enemy where they are not". This philosophy meant to attack in the place where the enemy dedicated the least attention.

Events like the Australian Royal Commission inquiry may seem like the right place to attack, particularly in light of Geoffery Jackson's controversial comments about presumptuousness. However, Witnesses around the world are already viewing the inquest as proof that they God's chosen people.

Why else might they be subject to persecution? Certainly not because they negligently allowed people who had admitted to abusing children to pose a continued risk to their brethren. The humiliation of the many seemed to have outweighed the rights of the few, and there really is no rational way to justify withholding such information from secular authorities. Rendering Caesar's things to Caesar would not have violated God's law in this matter.

Justified or not, Witness will have entrenched themselves in the dogmatic position that these accounts are lies and there's no reasoning sufficient to penetrate the armor of willful ignorance.

Another worthy consideration is that they are callused against a number of technically correct attacks. Conversion of faith is an art. Whether that's toward or away from religion, it seldom works to apply pressure directly to a facet that has received repeated exercise and toughening. Witnesses are quite used to impassioned rants from apostates. They are also very familiar with many of the topics and buzzwords that appear in anti-Witness activism. Cognitive dissonance, 587 B.C.E., UN NGO, ad infinitum, all bounce off those calloused minds because the phrasing is well practice and often repeated. They know what we'll say because it's been said before and it's easily identified as apostate in origin.


I, like many apostates, have a grudge. However, it is against the doctrine rather than the people who uphold it. They are following a faith, as much as I am following the faith of non-theism, and if they do so in good conscience, then I do not fault them.

Remember that most of us were brow-beaten into conformance with the faith. That inevitable chip that we carry on our shoulders might make it seem reasonable that brow-beating people out of the faith is an effective approach. Unfortunately, their indoctrination is reinforced at every meeting, their callouses thickened, and their armor layered. They have carefully prepared for a toe-to-toe battle.

Fight them where they are not.

My father was an elder and a very good teacher. The best way he found to reach people was to approach subject from a different direction and get them to reason on it themselves. When particularly difficult concepts would come up in the Kingdom Hall or Ministry, he'd avoid providing the answer before providing the reasoning. He understood that it was often counterproductive to start with a conclusion and massage facts to fit what was believed to be true (insert ironic comment here).

My most effective conversations with Witnesses have started from the perspective of ignorance. They are instructed to teach and so they do what they're trained to do when one seeks information. And this is where I have chosen to be cautious like the serpent. I invite them to enter my space willingly and expose themselves to the exchange of information. The longer they can feel as if the ideas exchanged are in the vein of corrective instruction, the more open to discussion they will remain.

Keep in mind that they already view apostates as 'mentally diseased', so they will do as so many other have done and begin with the end. They will expect a certain behavior and cherry pick until they see what they've been trained to interpret at apostasy. Those well practice phrases and facts that were mentioned before will be our biggest weakness because they've heard them all before. Every move we telegraph will be met with a skilled riposte.

Becoming experts in our own knowledge, however, makes us far more flexible. Growing in knowledge beyond reflexive repetition of known fact allows us to approach a conversation from almost any direction and that can be one of the best ways to disassemble rote learning.

It's not enough to know that 1914 C.E. is wrong. We have to know that C.T. Russel first published in 1894 that Armageddon would end in 1910. We also have to know that in 1911, he republished his previous work with new data that pointed to 1914 as the year Armageddon would end. We have to know that his prediction was based off of measurements of the Pyramids of Giza, not the return of Jews to Jerusalem. We have to know that he was absolute in his belief that he was right. We have to know that in the same book where he published those failed predictions, he also disclaimed to have been inspired by God. We have to know that this comes from the very hand of the first Bible Student, and we have to know where to find it.

Knowledge is a beautiful tool, but understanding provides the skill to use it wisely. When dealing with people who are still captive in the Organization, brute force is going to have little impact. They're prepared for bitterness and hatred. Perhaps reaching out with finesse, understanding, and compassion will reach more people. After all, were not out to break people down. Just the system that holds them down.