Branding Myself

I haven't really tried to hide from the fact that I'm an apostate. There's no sense in it at any rate. I am who I am, without apology, and those that have something to say about my views are as free to read my thoughts as anyone. They simply don't extend the effort.

When the convention program for 2016 was made public, there were several voices that decried the idea that inactive persons (faders) would be treated as disfellowshipped, with all the rights and privileges therewith. It raised a question in me, which was "and...?"

I waited dutifully for the punchline of that particular joke, but it never came. It's about as elementary-school-playground as you can get when it comes to a religion. They threatened to what... ignore me if I didn't talk to them? Pffftt!

We all know that there are three titles you can have as a former Witness; A) Inactive, B) Disfellowshipped, C) Disassociated. B and C may as well be the same thing as they are effectively no different. Heretofore, you could be an "A" without much repercussion. You were just encouraged to return as often as someone thought of you. Since the convention season came to a close, being an "A" is as bad as anything else.

In a way, they have decided to brand anyone who isn't active and productive in the fold. There is now a single status that a person can have among Jehovah's Witnesses that is not worth shunning, and I am not one of those.

That got me to thinking about what identity really is. If I say "identity", it immediately conjures the notion of who a person is, but that's not really correct. Identity is how other people know you, or who they think you are. Your drivers license, birth certificate, or security badge at work all tell other people who you are. How you know yourself, or what you know yourself to be is of little interest to the world. In similar fashion, the Society has decided on your identity, at least as much as it matters to them. You are either acceptable, or you are not.

But is that who you are?

Frankly, I don't have two shits to give for what the Society thinks I am. My identity will be whatever I cultivate and what I use to meet the world. I am the only person who gets to decide what labels I will wear. I decline to wear theirs. They have used hateful speech for generations to ostracize and obfuscate critical thinkers, dissenters, and self-assured people. Their first duty is to homogeny, and with that goal in mind, they crush any sense of autonomy or ability to trust their environment. As I have mentioned in previous posts, even the word "apostate" carries a different meaning for them than it does for the world at large. The are utterly dependent on their own language and etymology to define their reality, and with that, their ability to relate to the world around them is compromised. Every label they can bestow is only meaningful in their dialect. As such, those labels can carry no weight or recourse.

I call myself an apostate now, and I am proud of it. Not because I give the big middle finger to the Organization, but because I know what it actually means to be one. I have no real malice towards the Organization, and only pity for its members. What I do have is certain modicum of integrity. I did not change my faith for light or transient causes. There was no slight, or petty insult which led to my independence from the Truth. No. I underwent a revolution.

Everything I have endured, researched, and toiled over has been an upheaval to my very foundations. There is no part of me that wasn't rent in two by the process of discovery, or the truth it bore. As such, I declare that I am an apostate because I am first a survivor.

That's my brand.

The Stigma of a Rebel

When I was very young, the St. Ann, Missouri congregation was at its peak. We had about ninety publishers, with average attendance of about one hundred and twenty at any given meeting. Enthusiasm was high, fellowship was good, and there were a lot of young people to go around.

I remember some of the families from that golden age. There were big families and small. Single mothers brought their impressionable children who found kids their own age. Honestly, some of my clearest and fondest memories revolve around those people.

As a slightly older preteen, I recall some of those young people disappearing. For one reason or another, they simply went away. Among the parents of the congregation, there was often a little murmur about so-and-so's son or daughter. They fell in with 'bad association', manifest in one way or another. It became unfashionable to talk about them at all. They had rebelled against Jehovah and the Society.

For years, nothing was said about them. They faded from all memory, no pun intended. But sometimes you might find a face in a crowd that you only recognize after the moment has passed. Perhaps they don't see you either. And for the few times this has happened to me, I've been left wondering if the people they became were less than the people I knew.

I could at this moment give you a dozen names from my childhood, all of them people who were a bit older than me, who left the congregation. Since I've embraced my own apostasy, I have reconnected with a number of them and found that they are mostly happier now than they ever were. The implication that their rebellion had somehow left them broken and sad has been disproved time and again.

The irony is that to be taught that their rebellion had brought them pain required that their personal opinions not be taken into account. In fact, the only way to label them as rebels is to give them no opportunity to speak for themselves. As Witnesses, we were trained to know that divergent thoughts, regardless of cause or reasoning, left one dissatisfied. That just hasn't turned out to be true! Though you'd have to be willing to talk to a rebel to know that, and we were also trained not to associate with them.

Everything I ever knew about the rebel was anecdotal. There were at least two degrees of separation between what I was told they had done and what they had actually done; to which I apply the old bit of advice, "believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see."

I will admit that I took the bait. I was thoroughly convinced that those young people would damage my faith, and that it was better that they were gone. I would learn to repeat from the podium how bad associations spoiled useful habits. I fully adopted the stigma towards rebels as my own. Somehow, I even learned the piteous tone that accompanied inquiries into their welfare when talking to their parents. Everything about them was quietly lamented as a warning or a disingenuous sympathy.

Now I'm that rebel. I would like to think that I'm uninteresting enough that I don't come up in conversation. The fact that I haven't been actively disfellowshipped is probably proof enough. In any case, no one seems to be looking for me. No one seems to be prying into my affairs. These blogs are more than enough to establish my apostasy, though it is my hope to disassociate myself first.

I only know this about myself, I am not a bad person. I am kind and patient. I think critically about the world. I am courteous, generous, and polite. I am also happier. I was so afraid of being a rebel that I refused to pursue my happiness, rather enduring the pain of cognitive dissonance, social isolation, and emotional and spiritual abuse.

Knowing that, I had to reexamine what I thought I knew about the other rebels. Those 'bad examples' of Christian youth were probably fine examples of human beings. To my unexpected delight, they are. But that emphasizes a key discrepancy in the Society's knowledge base. The fundamental teaching about the people who leave the congregation is either flawed or intentionally false. I won't comment on the likelihood of either, but it does demand correction.

It all points back to the overreaching theme of being a Witness. What we knew was only what we were told. Those that held control over what we knew also controlled what we believed. So long as the only information that a person can obtain from Watchtower is a carefully crafted lie built on deliberate ignorance, then there's nothing to be gained from engaging them. In that respect, I no longer see the stigma of rebellion. The self awareness to take ownership of one's own knowledge (or lack thereof) isn't rebellion. It's maturity. It's wisdom. 

On the Topic of Loss

I've never spoken publicly on what I'm about to write. I've grown up to be a reasonably healthy adult, which is more than I can say for some. Not all have gone on to lead productive lives, or have healthy relationships with people who love them. We all have our journey, and this is one small part of mine...

When I was a preteen, I was abused by a family member. It was abrupt, violent, and painful. It was also not an isolated incident. To be perfectly forthright, I don't really remember too many details, except for the most pertinent. Even at that, the memories are clouded by the very deliberate efforts to bury the pain and embarrassment of it all. It was not until the perpetrator came to me to apologize that those memories became available to me. In my humble estimation, they were granted to me in the most spiteful way possible.

My attacker is also one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Rather than dig into the nauseatingly common references to the Australian Royal Commission, the Charity Commission, or any other references to Witness policies on pedophiles, I'd simply like to discuss the realities of my aftermath.

The most immediate and obvious effect was the loss of my innocence. Family was always a focus as I grew up. Our reunions were wonderful, joyous times. The were precious to me. Sadly, it was during one of these reunions that I was exposed to the brutal truth that even family could be willing to hurt me. That's a lesson that shouldn't even exist. It should be true that family can't or wont hurt you. It was unfortunate to learn that at such an age I could be so wrong.

I lost my faith in people as well. Someone who could be so loved, as he was by the rest of my family, was nothing more than a charlatan. Those who loved him were either complicit or ignorant. Either way, they were unworthy of trust. What I would find out later drove a spike of bitterness into an already aching wound.

But I moved on. I watched my associations at later reunions, gave up on activities I used to enjoy, and generally lost my taste for even being there. There were bright spots, of course; usually by way of my cousin Mandy. As an adult, I just gave up going altogether. It wasn't worth the spoiled weekend to stay as far away from him as I could. You never really stop looking over your shoulder after something like that.

As I aged, the memories became buried. I even stopped understanding why I didn't want to go. The aversion was palpable, but not quantifiable. The thought of even setting foot on those grounds was repulsive to me and I had long ceased understanding why. I had lost my family.

Time continued on and I had my own family. It was not all sunshine and roses, sadly, and we eventually separated. During that time, I spent a bit of time at the old family homestead with my daughter and parents. Quite unexpectedly, my attacker arrived for some unexplained reason. He talked with my parents for a while with their typical cordiality. Afterward, he caught up with me in the yard, away from curious ears.

It was almost as if a cloud followed him. Blurry at the edges, I couldn't quite grasp my unease. But I knew it was there nonetheless. It was then that he apologized to me. A very quick, disgusting, and painful highlight reel flashed before my eyes. I both understood my unease in an instant, and wanted to deny its foundation. But there it was. All out in the open after twenty years of silence. I had lost my comfort zone.

The explanation of why he was now apologizing was almost as distasteful as the act for which he apologized. He'd been found out due to another victim stepping forward. He had confessed his sin to the Elders and, as part of his penance, he was to seek forgiveness from his victim(s). I couldn't respond to that request at the time, but I was later encouraged to pray over the matter and seek Jehovah's direction. The matter would remain internal, as nearly all child abuse matters do with Witnesses.

What the elders did for him was to give him absolution. When they did that, they implied that all was right with Jehovah's organization. The scales of righteousness were in balance and there was no need to pursue the matter further. When they asked me to seek God's guidance in handling it as a Christian, they explicitly asked me to deal with it as a congregational matter. I had lost my hope and expectation of justice.

The world cares more about righting the wrongs of victims than the Society does. The elders, my attacker, and anyone else who had intimate knowledge of my ordeal, exhibited more concern for the soul of a predator than for those who should never have been prey. I received no counseling with an eye towards healing. I received no support. I received no backing to report it to secular authorities.

The aftermath was mine to bear. Alone. I had lost my God.

The bible is very clear about what happens to those who commit crimes of various types. With the exception of cities of refuge, people guilty of crimes, including rape, were to be punished. The law of God made sure that victims were vindicated. That is a practice that Watchtower has long since cast aside.

Now, I don't want to downplay the importance of redemption. I believe that it's important that all human error have an opportunity to be righted. The simple truth is that often redemption takes the form of settling one's debts. Absolution relieves the burden, but not the obligation. Absolution is what elders offer to pedophiles. In doing so, they leave the injured without succor.

 

With that, they have lost me.

But... Why?

An acquaintance recently had a discussion with me about her daughter coming out as gay. It seems to be rather commonplace these days. The whiplash effect of having homosexuality sanctioned by the Supreme Court of the US has left the conservatives of the nation with a stinging slap to the face. The inundation of sexual identity celebration is likely to die down somewhere in the next two to ten years.

As she related this story to me, it was clear that she was distressed by the news. She, herself, claimed to be very 'conservative' and was having a tough time dealing with it. I chose not to point out the fact that she is prone to heavy drinking, smoking, toking, and ill-advised sexual dalliances. So claiming to be conservative solely on the basis of a child's sexuality is really a disservice to conservatism.

I've sometimes spoken about my parents' flippant approach to Christianity. Some things were iron clad. Other things were not. There wasn't enough dedication, however, to even garner my respect. The conversation I had with the acquaintance reminded me why.

Most people in the world have no clue why they feel as they do on any given topic. Religion, politics, even the cars they drive, are all a conglomeration of opinions that have a source, but little to no cognitive reasoning behind them. As the outcasts of (a) religion, most of us are quite aware of why we don't want to be Jehovah's Witnesses any longer. But we were forced into this awareness by the nature of our departure.

Catholics, Baptists, Shinto, Muslim, Hindu, Zoarastrians... they all had the opportunity to walk away unscathed and unjustified. There were no committees to meet with. There were no publications geared toward their reindoctrination. There were no family members appearing on a convention part heroically, however woefully, claiming to put God above Family.

Anyone but a Jehovah's Witness could leave their faith with no more explanation that 'it didn't feel right.' To that end, the world at large has never been held to the lens of introspection. WHAT feels wrong? WHY don't I agree? Questions that no one has ever been demanded to ask of themselves.

The result of that is that it's nearly impossible to have an informed conversation with a person and hope for a reasoned response. You'll get passion. You'll get dedication. But you'll rarely get enlightenment.

This is the point where I admit that I am less my Father's son than I once thought myself to be. Dad, having been an elder, was know for being the one who listened. I don't believe he like the responsibility of shepherding the flock. I also don't believe he liked having to apply the letter of the law in committee when he clearly had empathy for the stricken, but more conservative elders were prepared to issue judgement.

Dad, for all his faults, did teach me to listen. When speaking to someone in need, I assume myself to start from a position of ignorance. I cannot help if I do not understand.

Elders, generally, begin with the premise of known quantity. There is a Watchtower policy that must be upheld. To that end, a person under suspicion must then be weighed and measured to see if they can be absolved. They are in fact guilty first, and it is incumbent upon the accused to save themselves. Kind of reminds me of the Gestapo, but with less torture.

There is an important truth that I learned many years ago. Having a destination in mind is a good start, but knowing where you're starting from is just as important to getting there. Shepherding and, in the case of my acquaintance, parenting is very much the same way. Providing direction to a child is only useful if you can understand where they are coming from. To do that, it's important to have the humility to cast off, or at least examine, preconceived notions.

Humanity is plagued with blind acceptance. Much of what we cling to is indoctrination of belief, tradition, or opinion held by those who raised us. Unfortunately, reflection with an eye towards critical examination of those things is often discouraged. Why doesn't my acquaintance want her daughter to be a lesbian? She doesn't know. She doesn't know because she doesn't ask. She doesn't ask because she was taught not to. She was taught not to because her parents were taught not to.

It is a persistent paradigm that serves only one purpose. To weed out undesirables. If you can blindly follow, welcome. If you cannot, then expect to be an outcast. Thus, the nature of religion, as an "agreed upon" form of worship, with attendant the rites and beliefs, is a form of society. As humans, we are prone to social congregation, which brings a number of benefits. As a result, it can be hard to let go of prejudices, even unfounded ones, because it can brand us as undesirable, even if we don't engage in the prohibited practice. Loss of society is too much for most, and forced loss of society is cripplingly traumatic, as any who have been disfellowshipped can attest.

I'm sure that when my dad sat in committee and listed to the confession of a sinner, he tried to place himself in their shoes. He empathized as best he could. However, he was still going to be there with the yardstick of the Watchtower to measure the repentance of an injured person.

I can't do it. I can't sit among the ashes with a person and tell them that what or who they are is wrong. That's not my place. I only know that because I wondered why I should think that it ever was.

On Having the Last Laugh

Paul and Wilma were a sweet old couple from our congregation. Paul was a stocky man, often mustachioed, dark hair, and had forearm tattoo from his days before being a Witness. His laugh was raspy, his humor frequent, and his handshakes sincere. Always at his side was Wilma, a dainty slip of a thing who was soft-spoken and demure. They were undoubtedly the cutest old folks you ever did see.

While I don't know for sure what their individual back stories were, they had children and grand-children and were married for at least five decades. This I know only because I was present at their Golden anniversary party. It was held in an upper room of the community center (where I would later have my wedding reception) and around fifty of the "friends" were present.

There was the predictable cake and punch, a few other snacks, and some entertainment. A group of older gentlemen formed an ensemble band of harmonica players known as The Moonlighters. Now I can't quite recall if it was Paul who was so fond of harmonicas or if it was Wilma, but they both seemed to be enthralled. When they played the polka mainstay Roll Out the Barrels, I leaned that this song actually had some lyrics, and Melvia (one of the friends) was singing her bitter old ass off.

Now, as I write this, I recall that Paul was the harmonica enthusiast. The front-man for the band (if he could be called that) asked if anyone played. It was mentioned that Paul did, and he was immediately invited to come play with them... in the basement of a local church.

A wave of sniggering rippled through the group and the Moonlighters were clearly not in on the joke. The front-man restated his invitation with sincerity, which was politely declined.

These are the inside jokes of a group with no humility.

The insinuation that any Witness would willingly enter a church of Christendom was so thoroughly understood as absurd that our group thought it funny. What I now understand is that we collectively condescended to associate with these men. We respected them only as far as their music was concerned. The rest of their intrinsic value was measured against the standard of their knowledge and service to Watchtower directives. That being a sum total of zero, we were confident in our superiority.

I'm ashamed to say now that I thought it was funny. It is exactly the kind of egotistic exclusivity that I abhorred growing up, and I'd learned to do it with such subtle alacrity that I could not be bother to wonder what four elderly musicians must have thought of us.

We were assholes. Every one of us. We were so enamored of ourselves that we would openly mock (however gently) four guys we were willing to pay for entertainment. Dance, monkey. Dance.

It has been eleven years, two months, and this morning since I last set foot in a Kingdom Hall, and I have learned volumes about humanity and the art of being human in that time. English minister Charles Spurgeon once said in a sermon that "... when you observe that a man seeks the affection of those who can do nothing for him, but for whom he must do everything, you know that he is not seeking himself, but that pure benevolence sways his heart".

I've know this statement more frequently to read "You can tell much of a person's character by how they threat those who can do nothing for them".

So what did we as a group offer up that day? Contempt? Derision? Pity? It was certainly not benevolence. When young men made fun of the Apostle Paul, he called down a curse upon them and they were mauled by a bear. What we did was no better than the simple slings and arrows of those boys. We chuckled in the name of Jehovah because we somehow thought we were better. Mistakenly so...

I'm firmly of the opinion that our value as humans can be quantified by the measures we take to upbuild our fellow persons. Whether it is for mutual gain or strictly for charitable betterment, what effort we exert for those around us is the only thing of any true worth. An inside joke does not serve that purpose.


Watchtower goes through great pains to teach its followers that they have some leg-up on the religious competition. Year after year, they promise that Jehovah's own will be granted everlasting life soon, so long as they remain separate from the world. That has been drilled down to every conceivable facet of daily life.

The organization thrives on isolation and indoctrination. They clap for a boy dying of a preventable medical condition and laud his martyrdom. They laugh at guys who practice the harmonica in the basement of a church because they are somehow ungodly and doomed to destruction for their satanic ways. Really? How much more comical or tragic can it be? Ending the life of a child because of a non-scriptural mandate is somehow more palatable than having the friendship of (ostensibly) more godly men in a church?

I've smiled knowingly at people who were supposedly spiritually misguided, laughed at them behind closed doors, and been taught that I was somehow exalted. But personal exaltation is the very antithesis of Christianity. It is so far from the love that Jesus taught us to have that I cannot even rightly say I was ever a Christian. I cannot believe that I was ever inured with the notion that a person's soul, salvation, or good conscience were ever worth anything less than respect.

In that regard, I have laughed my last.

Dear John...

Dear [insert name of active Witness],

First and foremost, I want you to know that I love you. In fact, if not for that love, I would not be bothering to write this letter to you today. You've been a constant and influential part of my life, and have helped to shape me into the loving, moral, and discerning person that I am today.

During the 2016 convention season, the issue of loyalty saturated the program. Literally every symposium and independent talk covered the subject in exhaustive detail. It is quite clear that the Governing Body feels that focused dedication is required in these Last Days. The demand for exclusive devotion is palpable.

I had to ask myself what that meant for me.

Perhaps you'll remember Song 14 from Sing to Jehovah, All Things Made New, based on Revelation 21:1-5. It was always one of my favorites. Sometimes I'd just listen to the congregation sing it... In the chorus, we are given the promises of the end of suffering and death, which are then punctuated by the line, "For God has said 'I'm making all things new'; These words faithful are, and true'".

Faithful... and true. Faithful... and true. I don't think it's necessary to parse this and define the words. We know what it is to be faithful. We know what truth is, or at least the definition of "truth". Knowing what the 'truth' is can be a much more difficult matter.

To be faithful to something simply means we do not turn aside from it, and if it is intrinsically truthful, how could that be a difficult thing to do? We even call Jehovah's Organization "The Truth". But truth of what...?

C.T. Russel gave the Bible Students the first concrete time frame for the end of days. 1914. It was the proof that Jehovah's paradise was soon at hand. But it was a date that was derived by using measurements of the Grand Galleries of the Pyramids of Egypt. Read that sentence again if you must, but Russel actually published this in books he expected the Bible Students to read and accept.

Is that truth though? Not according to our Christian faith. Pastor Russel and all of his successors, right down to the modern day Governing Body, have used extra-biblical publications as their primary teaching tool; publications which have often had no basis in biblical text. "You must not add to the word that I am commanding you, neither must you take away from it, so as to keep the commandments of Jehovah your God that I am commanding you" (Deut 4:2). What, then, is there that we must discern as Christians that we cannot learn directly from the Bible?

That Jerusalem fell in 607 BCE? That's not true. The Bible doesn't provide a date. It does, however, say that Nebuchadnezzar would be in the twentieth year of his rule when it happened, which corresponds to 587 BCE. There is almost a literal mountain of archaeological and astronomical evidence which supports this. God's balance of the heavens is so precise that we can discern the dates of astronomical phenomena recorded by Mesopotamians, and none of them support 607 BCE? Did the Devil deceive them as a society? Did the Father of the Lie alter the heavens themselves to lead C.T. Russel astray? Neither is logical, and yet 607 BCE is the lynch pin of the Society's entire argument for end times starting in 1914, which is so arduously defended that we are expected to ignore empirical evidence to the contrary. It is "faithful and true"?

The Governing Body will have you expelled from the congregation if you disagree with this doctrine, yet they remain "faithful and true" to false information. The January 8, 1947 edition of Awake even called the practice of shunning, expelling, or disfellowshipping "pagan". However, the Society changed that stance in 1952. Were they "faithful and true" to their doctrine?

In 1954, then Vice President of the Society, Hayden Covington, testified in court that even if a doctrine was later proved false (as the second coming of Christ in 1874 had been), that dissent among Jehovah's Witnesses was grounds to be disfellowshipped. Being "faithful and true" to the truth is of very little interest to the Governing Body. Being "faithful and true" to the Truth, however, is paramount.

Blood donation and transfusion policy has undergone major revision, and under stricter guidelines of the past, many brothers and sisters died for their faith. Governing Body member Tony Morris openly bragged at the 2016 convention about a young brother who lost his life for refusing blood. In 2000, however, the Governing Body declared that Witnesses should decide upon blood transfusions as a matter of prayerful personal choice. The Society explicitly told the European Commission on Human Rights that they would no longer investigate or disfellowship members for accepting blood transfusions (Decision on Admissibility of Application 28626/95, p.22, pp.6; Information note no. 148, B. II. (a)). In other words, there is no sanction that the Society can or will issue on the matter. If abstaining from blood were a strict biblical command, did they remain "faithful and true" to it? It was either wrong then, or it's wrong now. Who bears the blood guilt for those who died under the old incorrect and unbiblical policy? Who bears the blood guilt for those yet to be judged under the new (and possibly still) incorrect and unbiblical policy?

This very long preamble only has one purpose: To scratch the surface of a long history of abuses to faith, rational thought, and family unity perpetrated by the Society and it's Governing Body.

As I mentioned at the outset, I love you. My heart is open to you and always will be. I cannot, however, associate with a people who demand my unwavering loyalty to a Truth that has no integrity. Job was lauded in the Bible as a man who was so assured of God's requirements that he could not be made to waver. Can the same be said of Jehovah's Witnesses? Your faith is dictated by men. Men who have not maintained even a single unshakable doctrine in their entire history, save one, and that is in the merit of Jesus' sacrifice. If God's word is "faithful and true", shouldn't his servants be as well?

It breaks my heart to say this, but I must request that you be respectful of my decision to remove you from my life. I love truth and hope sincerely that you seek it out for yourself as I have. Perhaps one day we can sit as [insert relationship here] and laugh as we once did. For now, I must be loyal to my conscience, and if I stand before God in judgement, please know that it is clear.

If you decide to turn away from your destructive lifestyle, know that I, and a very large community of awakened people, will be here to help you transition and cope with the intense emotions of breaking free from your abusers.

Faithfully and truly yours,

[insert name or signature]

The Man in the Mirror

Getting ready for the Kingdom Hall was a pain in the ass. I hated it. I delayed it as long as possible. It eroded my soul just a little more every time I did it because I was in the process of putting on a costume for the role I was playing three times a week.

As I've written before, my family was not clean. In the physical sense, we were downright filthy. I'll spare the worst of the details, but I have a memory of a thoroughly decayed apple on my dresser. Yeah. Gross.

As a natural byproduct of that disarray, having clean clothes to wear to the Kingdom Hall was often a struggle. As predictable as it was, no great effort was ever made to preserve our Sunday-best (and Tuesday and Thursday), or spare it from the horrors of the cluttered floor. It is no lie that we once sat at the Hall on a Sunday trying to locate the wafting aroma of cat urine, eventually discovering that it came from my brother's neck tie. You can't make this stuff up, people.

I've already covered in some detail the efforts that we went through to convey a sense of piety and righteousness. We knew all the right words. No one could rightly challenge us on our vocabulary alone. But dressing the part was another matter entirely.

The clothes dryer became my best friend. Wrinkled suits and shirts could be tumbled for a few minutes on high heat with dryer sheet for a seemingly fresh-from-the-cleaners smell. The suit jacket covered a multitude of stains upon shirts that needed washing. Socks, so long as they were dark, didn't need to be matching colors.

I last attended a Special Assembly Day when I was twenty-three. That was also the last time I dressed up and played the part. I looked in the mirror that day and realized that I didn't know who looked back. I knew who he should be, but it was an identity that didn't belong. It was a mask. A disguise. Hiding in plain sight, I wanted most to be unnoticed. My heart wept because I knew that for the sake of inclusion, I needed to remain anonymous. It was a life of deception right down to my clothes.

I once had a friend explain identity crises by using the example of clothes. Imagine you woke up this morning and found a closet full of clothes that you recognize and that fit you, but which are not yours. Day after day, you put them on and go to a job that you know how to do, but belongs to the person who owns your clothes. Your coworkers call you by a name that matches your ID, but is the name of the person whose clothes you wear.

After a day, it may be amusing. After a month, it could be vexing. After years, your soul has been crushed and you don't know who you are anymore.

In the theme that has been my life, the costume was just enough. Not flashy enough to be obvious, not trashy enough to be conspicuous. When weighed against other facets of my Christianity and daily life (because they were separate), the concept of mediocrity is consistent and insignificant. Taken together, there is very little in my life to which I have aspired or excelled. When you become a Jack-of-all-trades yet master-of-none, it's hard to know who you are. Are you everything without being anything? Is there anything that people correlate to you as a unique feature. Are you even you? Or are you just a half-hearted reflection of what people think you should be?

I've begun to contemplate in the last few months just how much of my life is a facade. I'm so accustomed to being hidden that I don't really know how to be open. It has led to countless heartbreaks, stresses, depressions, and maybe even the death of my marriage.

It doesn't make me a bad person. Just an uncertain one. Though that doesn't mean I'm a good person either. I'm simply a person who is trying to recognize his reflection for who he is. I may not know me just yet, and perhaps I'll never know, but I can at least tell you what I am not.

I am not pretending anymore.

By This, All Will Know...

The tragedy of lost life cannot be overstated, particularly when it is cut short by the desperate and deliberate will of the departed. Suicide is a word that we are all familiar with, whether by association with one lost to it, or simply by our history as Witnesses. It is a poison that stains the souls of those who are left behind and mars the reputation of those who choose the path.

Among our apostate fold, mental health is a common complaint. We could debate the whither-tos and why-fors for ages to come, but it simply detracts from the importance and immediacy of those in need. We, the Lost Sheep, are followed by a dark cloud that swallow some whole, and only we can stand against it.

Most of those among us were baptized into Watchtower, often at a young age. The vast majority of us will have discussed questions out of the little green book which were meant to provide evidence of our understanding of God's requirements. We all answered a question regarding suicide, which was backed by Genesis 9:5.

Besides that, I will demand an accounting for your lifeblood. I will demand an accounting from every living creature; and from each man I will demand an accounting for the life of his brother.

While the scripture itself is not explicit about the issue of choosing to die, it heavily implies that our lives are not ours to end. It doesn't belong to us.

I call bullshit.

Our life is the one thing that is explicitly ours. It belongs to no one else. Be that as it may, we were somehow compelled to join a religion that would burden us with untold difficulties. We don't have the option of changing what happened to us, only to decide how we move forward.

In our past, we were marginalized, ignored, misled, and bullied. We preached and worshiped under a banner of love and acceptance, but practiced the exact opposite is every way that mattered. We were commanded to love each other, while having no devotion to its meaning. The very practice of calling oneself a Witness demanded exclusion, betrayal, and abandonment.

This is why it is so touching and remarkable that we, the Lost Sheep, so readily banded together yesterday when one of our own fell into the dark cloud. What cannot be described in words now is the ferocity of concert that occurred among the apostates to save one who was consumed by by their own desperation.

We, us, our international community of unfaithful cast a net out into the cloud to rescue a soul that was intent on giving up. We fished that person out of the blackness, and we crossed oceans to do it. Had we been Witnesses still, we'd have offered prayer, counsel, and finally reproof. We'd have condemned the injured for a malady they could not control, and we'd have called it 'loving'.

Jesus said that love was the mark of his disciples, but how can it be so if we do not exhaust every full measure at our disposal to rescue one who seeks misguided self-harm?

Many years ago, my older brother threatened suicide after a particularly bitter battle for custody of his children. I remember standing in line at a tailor's shop when I got a call from my mother. She tearfully asked if I'd heard from him, which I had not, so she explained what was going on. Of course he would not answer his own phone and I was nowhere close to the last place he was seen.

So I did what I could.

I placed no less than a dozen phone calls in a matter of minutes. I even dug up numbers of long lost acquaintances in the remote hopes that one of them might have heard from him. The most useful call went to his cell phone carrier. I reached a young man named Balthazar (yes, I remember his name) and stated that "this is the most important phone call" he was going to take that day.

While he was at first hesitant to provide information, and understandably so, I persisted and was able to have them located the cell tower my brother's phone was connected to. It narrowed our search down to a few square miles in which we could direct police to search, and we ourselves could look. Within that area, there was only one place that had any meaning to us as brothers.

A park. Mort Jacobs Park.

We played there endlessly as kids. Every person we grew up with knew it. Every Witness I knew also knew it. It was a place of so many happy memories. A perfect place to retreat in an hour of distress.

His girlfriend at the time was the one to go, and there she found him. Still safe. Still distraught.

You see, there's no measure that is too far or obstacle insurmountable when it comes to the safety of one we love. Prayer and counsel have their place, but they are not the real, tangible, measurable means by which we intervene for a person in need

You, the community of apostates, did everything in your power to catch one who fell. I am humbled and honored to be counted among you because you truly have love for each other. More so than we were ever taught to have otherwise. You are a body of people who rescued your own. You did it with love, determination, and sheer force of will. We were told that apostates are evil. What a lie that is.

These events of the last 24 hours prove that you are exceptional people. By this, all will know, because of the love you have for each other. 

Unanswered Questions

I've been primarily focused on logical arguments in these posts about Watchtower. Lets face it, there's a lot to pick apart when it comes to their reasoning. I could spend a lifetime parsing their incomprehensible reasoning, prophecies, and policies. A career though it could be, there are enough academic minds mulling over the conundrum of a corporate publishing company posing as a charity that my contributions will be barely missed.

There are times when it's simply a personal journey to point out the absurdity of Watchtower. As often, it's more about what one can't say about their milieu that what they can that exposes the deep scars they hide.

While I didn't realize it at the time, I was first faced with this inward examination when I was about ten-years-old. I had taken my first trip to Colorado with the family for an annual ski trip. Before then, I'd been too young to go. I was, for my lack of skiing experience, left to the devices of the Winter Park Ski School. By sheer luck, I was put into a class of nearly all Spanish speaking students who were on some kind of retreat.

The inherent isolation of being the only Witness in my school and part of a non-affectionate and dysfunctional family was horribly punctuated by my new isolation vis a vis my native tongue. Be that as it may, I was paired with a boy about my age, Emilio. Despite this language barrier, he and I looked after each other and got on quite well.

I progressed quickly in the ski school. By the third day of the trip, I found myself alone yet again as the Colombian Delegation had found other things to do. I received de facto private lessons on Wednesday of the week with a pretty cool instructor. His name I can't seem to remember.

By mid morning, I was having one of the best days of my young life. I was getting to ski with a cool older guy without the leering oversight of my parents. We hopped onto a lift and started our way back up the hill. In a conversational way, my instructor asked me who my favorite band was.

It was a question I couldn't answer...

Even at the age of ten, I had received so little exposure to popular music that I couldn't even identify what I liked, or who sang it. Most music of the era was simply of the Devil. What radio we did listen to was KMOX talk radio. It was the only thing ever on in the family vehicle, much to my eternal dismay.

But here I was. Suspended twenty feet above a snowy hill in Colorado with no way to answer such a simple question. I was hard pressed to even name a band that was relevant or current. Sensing my struggle, the instructor retained his cool and began naming off some of his favorites. I heard a name I recognized and jumped on it.

As I've grown older, I've realized that I there is far too much in life that I'm experiencing for the first time. The world has had a particular blandness that can only be appreciated after one has had a taste of its wondrous variety. Even now, fifteen years on since my exit from Watchtower, I'm still amazed by new things; things that were a very normal part of life for most as they came of age.

These days, the number of questions I can't answer has shrunk to a much smaller list. I will, however, admit that my twenties were bland by comparison to those of my generation. By my age, people generally have ridiculous stories of foolishness, risks taken, and youthful conquests. I have none of those.

"What's the craziest thing you've ever done," one may ask me? For that, I have no answer. Nothing in my life would seem all that crazy. At least it doesn't seem that way to me.

In my humble opinion, a life as a Witness could be likened to eating food only naturally. The steady diet of the mundane could make the smallest dash of salt shockingly offensive. Enough so that it could make one recoil in horror and discomfort. That really doesn't seem to be so far off from what Watchtower tells us from the platform. We've been warned about the corrupting influence of the world. Fleshly pleasures. Ungodly pursuits. Leaven that ferments the loaf.

The book of Genesis claims that the Devil seduced Eve by saying that she would become like God, knowing good and evil. This is often expressed as the first 'lie', when it was in fact just a clever turn of phrase. He never promised that Eve would have dominion over good and evil, the authority to declare which was which, and certainly never claimed she'd become a deity. He simply said she would know good and evil.

Even from a young age, I never regarded this as a lie. I always took it to mean that by eating of the forbidden fruit, she would become intimately familiar with sin. Thus she knew evil because she had experienced evil.

Similarly, I could not comment on anything I didn't know.

If I were to stand before God at judgement and he asked if I'd done my best, I would have to claim ignorance. How can I know my best if I do not also know my worst? This too is a question I cannot answer.

The unremarkable flavor of life I experienced as a Witness didn't particularly leave me longing for more. It was my 'normal'. There was no way to differentiate between what I did not know and what I wanted to know because, as Ockham's Razor dictates, that which we cannot perceive may not be considered an influence. As with Eve, it was impossible for her to perceive sin in any other way than to become familiar through commission. And with me, I could not long for that which I did not know existed.

It's my personal hope that I reach the end of my days, and if asked what I will miss most about my life, I can honestly say 'everything' instead of  'I don't know'. 

Confirmation: Bias

Somewhat by accident, I've unplugged myself from the world of proactive apostasy and former Jehovah's Witnesses. Facebook is a wonderful tool, but it sometimes presents dangers that outweigh the benefits by a healthy margin. While I admit to having my own concerns about Watchtower, it didn't truly take root until I discovered support groups established for those struggling with separating from the organization.

In that respect, it was extremely helpful. I admit that I didn't know how much I didn't know. As I've previously written, my exit from Watchtower was an unintentional fade born of general disinterest rather than any specific rift in philosophy. So the plethora of documented tom-foolery that Watchtower has been caught up in over the years was both shocking and glee inducing.

However, a theme started to develop.

There are certain examples of chicanery that were frequently repeated. While they may be the easiest examples to pick on because of just how far left of center they are, the arguments are about as flawed as they are frequently rehashed. Poster after poster all point and scream "a-HA!" as if some revelation has been had. Do these examples demand further scrutiny? Sure! Are the criticisms cited by the community logically sound? Hardly...

I pride myself on being open minded. I, above all else, seek truth. A fact is, or it isn't. There really isn't much in between. If that thing is to be called a fact, it has to be real, measurable, and verifiable. A lot of the arguments I allude to above contain none of those things. What they do contain is a lot of supposition to fill in the blanks where facts cannot be validated.

For example, Watchtower is known to have had Non-Government Organization association with the United Nations. That has been confirmed by both Watchtower and the UN. The standard argument of malfeasance centers on Watchtower's hasty withdrawal of its status following exposure in the UK media. While that is also true, apostates regularly claim that Watchtower was completely aware of a complicit support clause present in the NGO membership documents. This is based off of possible misinformation in a letter distributed by the UN regarding when that language appeared in the paperwork. I say 'possible' because I've been unable to independently confirm that the document in question contained the offensive language at the time the UN letter claims. There is simply no proof of it.

Even so, apostates readily claim that Watchtower was completely aware and only distanced themselves after being outed. Inductive reasoning like this is the enemy of truth. Likewise, apostates also claim that the reasons Watchtower claimed to have sought this status in the first place (to gain access to the UN Library) are invalid. They state over and over that such a card is not necessary and that Watchtower is lying about this. What cannot be disputed, since it appears in published UN policies, is that the library access is in fact restricted in such a way if one is attempting to visit the UN headquarters in New York. Is that not exactly where this access was being used?

Unfortunately, in many cases, the people who are disgruntled by Watchtower are looking for some validation of their concerns (and there are plenty of valid concerns). Inevitably, when they look for it, they will quickly and easily stumble across things like the above example. Though it is loaded with inaccuracies, this quasi-urban-legend provides confirmation bias.

The disaffected are hoping for proof that they are justified in their anger. Since this particular story is so often repeated in substantially the same form, it's convenient, if not lazy, to accept it as properly researched fact. It is anything but...

A minimum of effort will turn up all kinds of cracks in the argument. An argument that lacks originality and vetting. One just needs to put forth the effort, which just means that it's never going to get better. Among other things, I'm a realist.

But that brings me back around to my original purpose; pointing out the danger of confirmation bias. We've all come to some kind of conclusion about Watchtower. It's natural to cling to the information that proves out what we feel. Be that as it may, the constant barrage and reinforcement put in front of people simply looking for information bears a duty to accuracy. 

In my absence from social media and its regurgitation of only the juiciest gossip, I realized that my own hatred has died down. Don't mistake this for acceptance, or even tolerance, of Watchtower policy or practice. Quite the opposite. I've been able to take a dispassionate view and examine what really is true. The frenzied passions of the groups to which I belong(ed) often caught others in a tidal wave of ire.

The same can honestly be said of my days in Watchtower. The collective zeal of the congregation often kept me from having a dispassionate and balanced view of the world. I could not see things for what they were. I was only able to see them for the monstrous abominations that Witnesses believed all non-Witnesses to be. It wasn't until I unplugged myself from that incessant reinforcement that I was able to actually see the error in my judgement.

It's a mistake to arrive at judgement before all the facts can be known. Witnesses do it about the world. Ex-Witnesses do it with information that seems to be damaging to Watchtower. There is a persistent rush to judgement, or at least complicit ignorance of information that doesn't support group bias. If for no other reason than that, I'm glad I have stepped back from it.

It was hard for me to be in the congregation and accept confirmation bias an operating model. It's just as hard as an apostate. I'm only questing for truth. That deserves my full effort, I think.

There is no "Oww" in Holy

There is a ubiquitous expectation of religion. It is there to bring you comfort. Comfort that in your piety, you gain salvation. Comfort that your suffering is not without purpose. Comfort that your self-denial will reap rewards in due time. Comfort that the temporary nature of our existence will be supplanted with eternity given the proper behavior.

So, what to do if your religion doesn't supply that...

As one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I was never comforted. That's a big statement, and I accept that it's a little hard to believe. I am, however, confident that I speak it truthfully. In twenty years of conscious, active participation in the Watchtower Society's organization, I had an unquenchable ember of anxiety burning a hole through my soul. Sometimes it would burn with the fire of a thousand suns. Other times, it simply smouldered in the dark as an irritating reminder of my own insufficiency.

There were two absolutely reliable things that I would encounter at three weekly meetings. First, the platform would tell me that I didn't measure up to God's standards. There was always something more that needed doing. More study. More meditation. More ministry. More self-denial. Second, the vast majority of the congregation could have been breaking their necks looking down their noses at each other. Brotherly love? More like brotherly rivalry. As the old joke goes, you don't have to outrun the bear, just the hiking partner you're with. The same thing works for piety. You don't have to be holy, just holier than the next guy.

In those two respects, the religion failed to be what all religion is really supposed to be - a platform for a personal relationship with God(s). Watchtower, by accident or design, fosters a pecking order based on fear of eternal death. It's a rat-race to salvation. The only measure of success is really how high up the ladder you can climb.

When I realized this, I also became aware of how miserable I really was. It truly was the sense of obligation that kept me going to the meetings for so long. I genuinely hated every meeting I went to, every door I knocked on, every talk I gave. With that went the self-loathing of being a public face that carried out a lie for the benefit of people that I didn't respect, and didn't respect me.

The assured reward was always just beyond my grasp, as I imagine it was for most Witnesses. To ever be so certain as to confidently declare that you were sure of your spot in the Paradise was outright haughtiness, and therefore reason enough for you not to be worthy. In fact, the proper mindset to have, so far as the platform would have you know, was to feel as if you weren't doing enough and should therefore strive to do more. Yes, a sufficiently righteous person is convinced that they aren't righteous enough!

Now, if I have you scratching your heads at that, you're not alone. As I said earlier on, the Society wants more from you. Your time, money, dedication. But the only way they continue as an organization is if you feel like it's not enough. It's the only way you give more. It's the only way to feed the beast.

But what is the logical conclusion that is to be drawn from that? The faith provides no comfort, only motivation for greater effort. Of course, as a matter of operational certitude, you come into the group with a ledger that's already in the red. At the very least, you're operating on a heavily extended credit line, and if you ever decide that you don't want to keep paying on a debt that you didn't agree to, your account is closed and your reputation destroyed (see Disfellowshipping).

The model itself declares that discomfort is the only proof of success...

I'm going to dramatically rub the bridge of my nose for a moment...

This falls under the umbrella of asceticism. It is the constant-self-punishment-as-the-only-means-to-salvation version of Christianity that society generally looks upon as fucked up. Witnesses are pretty good at pretending to be happy, but then depression and anxiety wouldn't be so disproportionately common among them. There wouldn't be high instances of alcoholism, domestic abuse, and drug use. The faith does nothing to curb these actions that are common enough in the general population. It can be reasonably argued that it contributes to them.

So, having entered the circular reasoning of saved = suffering = pious, we have to accept that we cannot be one if we are not all three. So you see, I'm not lying when I say that it never brought me comfort.

There are three different Gods in the bible. The Hebrew God tried to baptize the entire world at once via global flood, and when that didn't cleanse the earth of sin He dropped flaming rocks on them. That God was sort of a dick. Jesus' God was all about the love. Be good to people; help them out; don't be judgy. Doesn't sound too hard. And then there's Paul's God. Love people, but hate everything they do, and teach them not to do the things you hate.

Protestant Christianity is a bigger fan of Paul's God than Jesus' God, which is odd in many ways. Paul was an exclusionist who was far better at telling you who wasn't deserving of grace than telling us how to help those who needed it most. As the Protestant Reformation was founded on the premise that Catholicism was too stingy with clerical power, I find this particularly ironic. Christ, whether divine or not, had a single interest; making sure that the whole of mankind was not tread upon. Treat them with tenderness, compassion, and community. Jesus commanded us to look after the infirm, sin prone, and suffering.

Paul, however, was a shape-up-and-fly-right kind of apostle. His advice often focused on making sure that free thought was weeded out of the congregation. He prattled on about how those who were guilty of long lists of sins were not worthy of God's love, and how it was only proper to remove sinners from our good company. He was quite the opposite of Jesus. Quite the opposite.

It is also noteworthy that this is the Paul that was previously known as Saul of Tarsus; not the one that was of the first twelve apostles. He was a notorious persecutor of early Christian disciples and no 1st-party acquaintance to Jesus. It can't even be established that he was known to any of the original twelve apostles. That's right! The man most credited as an author of the New Testament (14 of 27 books, the now scholarly-rejected Epistle to Hebrews included) never met the man whose message he perverted and then promulgated. 

For as much as Witnesses claim to be Christian, there is very little that can be said to be Christ-like about their activity. They minister, yes, but only with the focus of redirecting the ways of Paul's sinners. There is nothing done to actively bring them comfort; to show them love that has no conditions. They provide no safe harbor for the abused or battered. They provide no relief for those in dire need. They neither feed the poor, educate the ignorant, nor employ the downtrodden.

Their only form of comfort is a promise of a future without disease or want. It is a future that, as described above, is only attainable through suffering... now. Their succor is to make the misery of today seem like it is a blessing. Jesus at the very least fed the hungry, treated the ill, and shouldered the tears of the broken-hearted. He eased their suffering without ever exacting a price.

If a religion cannot do that first, what good is it? There are needs of today that are not out of the reach of any person or church to address. The true test of holiness is, must be, the capacity and willingness to provide comfort. If not for our bodies today, then for our souls in eternity. If it fails at both, it is no reflection of the divine.

"Love your neighbor as yourself," he said. Loving ourselves is the first of our duties. When we do that, we can love others. Loving ourselves is not a sin. In fact, it is the foundation of all good things that come from us. To wallow in discomfort, in the punishment of self, is not loving. It is not the model that Jesus gave us.

"Love your neighbor as yourself," he said.

He did not stutter.

The Shame of it all...

The epiphany of realizing that shame is an imagined obligation freed me from its crushing weight. 

But I want to back up a moment...

You heard it from a parent, grand parent, teacher, minister, or minister's wife. 'Shame on you!' Somebody, somewhere, told you that. If you were like me as a kid, you heard it a lot. It wouldn't be until much later that I would realize the full import of that phrase, or its complete impotence, but I knew when I heard it that I was supposed to feel bad. For the most part, I did.

The dictionary definition of shame is more or less a feeling of guilt or unease when you know you've done something wrong. When placed within the framework of a religion, the shame of sin is based on the investment you have towards the liturgy of your faith. I have to define it as such since, as I've mentioned in previous posts, religion is not just a matter of personal faith, but of social convention. In other words, religion is the commonly agreed upon exercise of a given faith, and therefore it is measured by the public practice of those rites and rituals.

To feel shame for sin, you must agree that the publicly held standard is correct, and that you didn't live up to it. The issue that causes me struggle is that shame over failing to meet the standards of one's religion is not necessarily an affront to God. Even within the Abrahamic religions of the world, there is sect after sect that all claim to be the 'true' religion, but which have no difference in the foundations of their faith over the next. With that in mind, I conclude that religious shame is really shame over having disappointed your fellow man rather than your Creator.

Why does that matter?

It depends on how you feel about the idea of External Control Psychology. The premise states that the 1st Party is subject to the expectations of behavior and/or thought of a 2nd Party. As children, we experience this as the parent/offspring relationship. Our parents have certain rules and standards that they expect us to observe. It is involuntary as they are our caretakers. They feed, house, and educate us. We are entirely dependent on that relationship and are shaped by it until we reach adulthood.

Dr. William Glasser, the developer of Choice Theory and its ties to External Control Psychology, holds that as adults we are no longer bound to this relationship, yet often fail to realize it. We have learned through our entire upbringing that we are expected to behave in a certain way. If we failed to do that, the person in authority could (and often did) react, rightfully, with anger, and punishment may be a result. Without the proper understanding of the hierarchy, this simply looks like it is acceptable to respond with anger when we don't get our way. That is predicated on the idea that we even have the right to expect behaviors of any kind other than voluntary from anyone outside of ourselves.

So what happens when we view that in the religious context? Seems pretty apparent to me. The moral authority has developed some kind of expectation of liturgical conduct, at the very least. More than likely, they also have expectations of private conduct and worship. There are two problems with that.

Firstly, they are self-appointed authorities. They have determined through their own inductive reasoning that they should have the only say to be had over what constitutes righteous conduct.

Secondly, they presume that by right of their religious appointment, anyone is bound to listen to them as an intermediary between the faithful and their God.

It is a very big leap to shrug off any agreement with this thinking. We've been indoctrinated in it since we first recognized positions of authority outside of ourselves. However, it is a mistake to think that anyone has either the right or ability to make us feel anything. We are not obligated to feel compassion, remorse, pride, guilt, or even shame. Emotions of pressed obligation, like shame, are simply self-punishment. To feel it, we must have accepted that someone has the power to dictate what we feel, and when we know that we have failed to appease that power, we hold ourselves accountable to it. No one can absolve us of that guilt until our consciences are clear. And if our conscience has always been clear, no one can cloud it without our permission.

The true shame of it is that social homogeny has duped so many people into thinking that someone else is responsible for their spiritual journey. I am answerable only to the Creator, first cause, or genesis of my existence. If there was purpose inherent in that event, it is my duty to find it and reconcile my fulfillment of that purpose.

The conscience is a remarkable thing. In the faith of my youth, it was explained that it could "accuse or excuse" my actions based on how I trained it. As we've established, most of our training has been to accept that someone else had already made the rules and we were obligated to them. With that understanding, my conscience accused me incessantly for two decades. I was a walking, talking failure of every variety you could name. My greatest shame came in the form of not feeling that my conscience should be accusing me for the things I thought. I regretted, lamented, and cursed my conscience for doing exactly what I had been told it should do.

The day that I accepted that feeling shame over standards defined by someone else was voluntary, and that I no longer volunteered, the burden was lifted. That burden was one that no words could ever describe. It permeated every facet of my life, every thought, every fiber of my being. I wasn't just crushed by it. I was saturated with it. Stained with it.

The epiphany itself was not enough to free my conscience entirely. It took time to accept that I could trust myself. My steps were in fact mine to direct. My thoughts were my own, and only mine. There was no direction that I couldn't move. I am me, and me is okay.

It's a shame it took so long to figure that out.

Morally Impaired

H.L. Mencken is credited with saying that "morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right." It may be a cynical view of religion, but it is a correct one. It's just rather unsympathetic in its delivery.

The basic tenet of any Abrahamic religion is that obedience is necessary for absolution and eternal reward. Muslims believe it. Jews believe it. Christians believe it. The holy books respective to each tell adherents what is expected of them, outlines the rewards for compliance, and details the consequences of non-compliance.

History is rife with what this era calls 'atrocities'. Genocide is just the most obvious among them, but there have been many versions of oppression and otherwise inhumane treatment of people who did not or could not live up to the scripture of choice. Death by torture was a very real possibility for anyone who loved their own gender, believed in a different God, taught or studied sciences, or impeded the Religious authority in any way. Barring that, one could find themselves at the business end of a mounted charge simply because a government waged war on them under the banner of religious fealty.

Short version? Holy violence was more likely to kill you than old age. But why is that?

Religion as a social convention relies heavily on unified observance to survive. It's the human equivalent of an ant colony. Everyone does their job and respects the will of the Superior Authority, and the colony thrives. Simple.

In Mencken's statement, the religious obedience clause is what probably feels most familiar to former Jehovah's Witnesses. We've all grown up or lived under the express understanding that if we didn't do exactly what we were told, it would result in our expulsion. That seems like a very straight forward and reasonable expectation within any religion. You have the same god(s), you believe the same things, and you accept the same behaviors.

It begs the question, however, is obedience right if the Superior Authority is wrong?

Many of you will be familiar with the Douglas Walsh trial held in Scotland in 1954. For those of you who are not, Walsh was a full-time pioneer for the movement who was suing for exemption from conscripted military service. The courts called upon several leaders of the Watchtower Society, notably Frederick Franz (future president of Watchtower) and Hayden Covington (legal counsel for Watchtower), to testify about the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses. Court transcripts are very telling.

Franz was questioned as to whether acceptance of doctrine was a matter of choice or obligatory if one was to remain a member of the Watchtower Society. He stated explicitly that it was "obligatory".

Covington's testimony was more damning since he was asked about the validity of the [by then] debunked 1874 end-times prophecy. It was established under oath that disagreement with a false prophecy, which would later be retracted, would still be grounds for expulsion on the sole basis that absolute unity was necessary. Being agreeable was more critical than being right.

This begets further questions.

The practice of expelling dissenters began shortly before the Walsh trial started. Up until 1952, Witnesses did not excommunicate members. They had in fact called it 'pagan' and 'unscriptural' as recently as 1947. However, since the adoption of the practice, it has been applied to everything from blatant sin to simple disagreement over doctrine. Notably, Frederick Franz's brother Raymond, also a member of the Governing Body, developed disagreements with the organization and effectively surrendered his membership. Sensing a potential disruption in their operations with the latter Franz's departure, he was retroactively excommunicated so that existing members would be held to the mandate of shunning expelled members.

Raymond explicitly failed to do as he was told. His actions were not particularly immoral by any other standard. He simply kept company with a man who had been his employer, but had disassociated himself from Watchtower. Leaving the ranks of a club, group, or organization by choice is in no way reprehensible. However, Watchtower views this as a sin worthy of death (another interesting claim made during Covington's testimony).

As Watchtower mounts an ever growing list of failed predictions, modified doctrine, and abusive policies, it's members have been conditioned to accept every change with a smile and graciously embrace the 'new light'. They have no difficult decisions to make as all of those decisions are made for them. Compliance is their only yardstick of morality. Is Watchtower's interpretation of morality upheld? Yes/No?

If Yes, please stand by and wait for modified instructions.

If No, proceed directly to elders, do not pass Go , do not collect $200.

In any other context, this sounds nothing less than absurd. Consider the same premise in the framework of Branch Davidians under David Koresh, or The People's Temple under Jim Jones, or Heaven's Gate under Marshall Applewhite.

It's difficult to consider suicide under the direction of a spiritual leader to be any kind of morality. However, from all the reports and data that have been amassed over the years, when cults follow their leader to their demise, there's been very little evidence of any organized resistance.

No, this is not meant to be a direct comparison of Jehovah's Witnesses to suicide cults. However, there is a striking correlation between the obedience required of the adherents and its relation to the promise of salvation.

Without exception, the only way for a follower of any of these groups to gain their ultimate reward is to follow every instruction without hesitation and without question.

There are quite literally hundreds of ways to be expelled from Jehovah's Witnesses. However, there is only one way to stop being one of Jehovah's Witnesses in good standing, and that is to die by any means other than suicide.

Does that alone make them immoral? No. That doesn't meet the burden of calling them immoral. It does, however, place one squarely in the crosshairs of damnation if they face a moral duty that conflicts with the Governing Body and their interpretation of Holy Scripture.

Simply put, any time a moral imperative must be sacrificed for the sake of obedience, we have failed the perfect duty of righteousness and the God that is claimed to own it.

If our God requires us to violate our conscience, it's time to find a new one.

Cleansing of My Soul

To my parents:

By now, it should be no surprise that I’ve been in therapy since the end of last year [2013]. There have been a great number of things for me to get off my chest. Some belong to the therapist. Some belong to others. For my future health and happiness, there are some burdens that I have to give back to the people who first gave them to me.

Please know that what follows is not a reflection on the love that I have for both of you. It is simply a perspective of the lessons that you taught me as I grew up. Some lessons you taught explicitly. Some you taught silently, through your example. I have learned that some of these lessons are not healthy for me. They cause me to struggle to achieve the life that I desire, and so I must free myself of the sense of duty to those lessons. I must either change what I want, how I act, or both.

Mom:

The most persistent lesson I learned from you was manipulation. As I grew up, I often felt oppressed. Not physically, but emotionally. You freely expressed how hurt you were any time I chose something that didn’t honor your wishes. Too often, I would relent and give you what you wanted. I observed you, on numerous occasions, getting into a battle of wills and stomping off to sulk in your room when you couldn’t get your way. You knew that your pouting was always more effective than your yelling, and you used it. 

What was so incredibly consistent about your manipulation was that you always made yourself into the victim. I would lay money that you would turn your own anger around to make us feel ashamed. Our decisions, and even the decisions of our siblings, were used to embarrass us rather than teach us. You kept us close by keeping us afraid, which is ironic, but I’ll get that later.

I’ll even give you a good example of that. [Redacted] made an unannounced trip to North Carolina. He was, mentally and legally, an adult. He was of age and of means to make the trip. I was maybe fourteen at the time. I of course knew you would be mad at him, but you had a long history with his comparative rebellion, so it really shouldn’t have been a surprise. I made the decision to stay out of it. Of course you did find out when he didn’t return home that night, and when you found out that I knew, you woefully, and tearfully, exclaimed that your “children were conspiring against you”. I foolishly allowed myself to feel guilt for actions that had nothing to do with me. Why should I have done that? He was on the road twenty minutes after he came home. And what, in all practicality, could have been done about it? Would you call the police to report a runaway adult son? Cell phones weren’t even available yet, so there was no way to reach him. So you did the only thing you had the capacity to do… lay the blame on your younger, minor children. 

When you found out that I was dating, you couldn’t be interested with whether she made me happy. You could only concern yourself with whether I was committing fornication. You even asked me if I was, and then threatened to drag me before the elders to discuss my relationship.

The night I announced that I intended to marry, I sat on the couch, wringing my hands with fear over what you would say, because I knew it wouldn’t be positive. And when I shared what should have been happy news, you told me how foolish I was. You fretted over how it would appear to the congregation if I were to marry someone so soon after her baptism. Your concern was always focused outside of the family. The next morning, you stood at my bedroom door for twenty minutes, telling me how hurt you were by my decision, struggling with how you should tell me. Would you talk to me? Would you write me a letter? Frankly, I needed your support. Not your self-victimization.

Ultimately, in that process, I learned that my individual growth was not a priority to you, so long as I did what you asked of me. Your priority was always to teach me what to think, not how to think. Any deviation from that plan was met with bitter ridicule, using both personal and religious attacks. In so many ways, you were an emotional bully.

Rather than belabor you with examples (and I have many), I will simply say that in your disagreements with us children, you always made sure that we knew that you were the victim. As a father, I now know that my daughter cannot victimize me, just as we could not victimize you. Every tantrum, crying fit, and pouting session was a device of your own conjuring. We didn’t have any control over you to create those kinds of reactions. I no longer accept the guilt, responsibility, or false loyalty that go with them.

Dad:

What do I say to you? You’ve never looked at yourself as a good father or teacher. You were an excellent teacher by example, even if it was not always the lesson you wanted me to learn. You are a better father than you give yourself credit for. Even if you rarely acted on it, I know you saw your children through the lens of what you wanted for them. You could see what we needed; what you would have wanted if you were in our shoes, but I believe you never felt comfortable with taking a stand for that. Your faith is important to you, which I understand. You’re also statistically smarter than 98% of the population. The difference between your level of intelligence and the normal person is the same difference between a normal person and one who is legally retarded. I believe that some doctrinal things don’t make sense to you, and as a matter of faith, you have to bury those questions. I can only imagine the conflict.

The only thing I wanted from you was for you to stand up for something. You were peaceful, passive, and reflective. Sometimes reflection requires action when reaching an inescapable conclusion. Mom has problems. You have to know that she was emotionally abusive because of things that she cannot or will not say. She needs help. I didn’t realize it until I started therapy, so I don’t expect that you necessarily made the connection either. The fact remains, if there was one failing that you had as a father, it was in not stepping between your kids and a woman that did not have the emotional stability to nurture them in a healthy way. My therapist would tell me that I’m angry with you for not protecting us. I am not. I’m only sad that you were as abused as we were.

I believe, honestly, that many of your emotional struggles are tied to the conflicts you feel. Choose to speak up. Choose to be heard. It does wonders.

Faith:

This could be a book of its own…

I will begin with a premise that is hurtful, but true. You will scoff at it and call me ‘apostate’, which is also true, but not for the reason you think. My premise is that everything related to the faith I was raised to have is a lie.

Now you will both recoil at that...

Let me first address the apostasy claim that will undoubtedly come from mom. An apostate, by the Society's definition, is a person who works against God’s organization. Not just a person who has lost or given up faith, but one who actively countermands the authority of His organization. However, an apostate is simply one who “renounces a religious or political belief or principle”. I am an apostate. I do not believe that your organization is His earthly representation. I have not been shown adequate evidence to disprove some very glaring and logically sound criticisms I have of the faith. I am an apostate in every sense of the word. I will share with others why I left and why I cannot go back. I want people to ask questions of their faith. It’s the only way it can be an honest reflection of one’s beliefs. If this thinking requires me to be disfellowshipped, so be it. What am I really losing? I don’t need or want the approval of the congregation. I didn’t ask for it, and it was only by constant reinforcement that I ever believed that I was supposed to need it. That has turned out to be false. I will invest nothing into any advice, reproof, or guidance I receive from anyone representing Witnesses.

That brings me to my second point about the faith being a lie. I’m not writing this to inform you that what you believe in is a lie.  What I do want to make clear, however, is that the faith we were raised to have was not in fact faith. The faith we were raised to have was one which appeared unshakable from the outside, but had no solid foundation of practice or maintenance to validate the image.

Emphasis was placed on keeping the appearance alive. It became the responsibility of the family to make sure that no one outside of our circle of five really knew what things were like in our house. My personal favorite was mom’s occasional claim that “Dad can’t be an elder because of his kids…”

The truth was that Dad shouldn’t have been an elder because nothing about our family reflected Christian values. In a very real sense, we were super-fine apostles that Paul struggled with. We gave the appearance of righteousness, but abandoned that as soon as the we got back in the van to go home from meetings three times a week.

Consider the following:

• We lived in actual squalor. Our home did not even have the appearance of Christian cleanliness.
  
• Our home was cleaned only when someone outside of our immediate family members were going to be in it. Your children, their spouses, and your grandkids didn’t even get a reprieve.
• This is also why [Redacted] never visited your home much.
• Our family van was no different. On numerous occasions, I had to go ‘clean’ the van for impromptu Sunday field service. That is an example of maintaining the ‘lie’. No one could know except us.
• Dad’s parents were coming over so all of the mess in public areas was shoved into [Redacted]'s room. Grandpa saw this and scolded [Redacted] for it. No one else stepped up to take responsibility for that, and she didn’t tell on the rest of the family. [Redacted] maintained the lie.
• We didn’t study, either personally or as a family, but we sure pretended to. We maintained the lie.
• We struggled to make comments at the meetings on material that we’d never read. We maintained the lie.
• We didn’t do much public preaching, and even occasionally filled out time cards with false representations of time spent witnessing. We maintained the lie.
• Mom had literal mountains of novels with very graphic sexual content in them. We didn’t confront her about it, nor did we permit visitors to see them laying about. We maintained the lie.
• Dad (and mom, by implicit consent) would rent movies with the most explicit content that could be found in a Blockbuster and would hide them. We all knew. Hell, we watched most of them. We maintained the lie.

Ultimately, the only standard that we held ourselves to in the family was whether or not our secrets, indiscretions, or outright breaking of the rules ever became public knowledge. This is where my intense hatred and bitterness for “The Truth” comes from. “The Truth” is predicated on “The Lie”. “The Lie” is that we had any deep commitment to, passing interest in, or even casual respect for “The Truth”.

The only thing that is true about the faith adopted by this family is that the image of piety was more important than the healthy growth, development, or self-image of anyone in the family. Everything that was enjoyable about being is this family was expendable for the sake of what “people would think”.

Here is what I think now: Your faith, my faith of birth, the God of my youth, is nothing more than a cult. There are considerable resources written by extremely educated people who have identified signs and behaviors of cults that are dangerous and/or exert undue influence. 

Consider the following:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability
1. Every echelon of the hierarchy has no ability to question the level above it; Sheep cannot challenge elders, elders cannot challenge branches, branches cannot challenge the Society
2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry
1. Anyone who questions teachings is called unfaithful, punished, and at worst expelled; See 9.e below
3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement
1. Watchtower is an entity with over a billion dollars in holdings (based off of estimated values of just the Brooklyn real estate), yet has never been publicly audited, nor released financial statements to congregations; You don’t know what happens to your money and they don’t tell you; For giggles, research the Henriette M. Riley Trust fbo Watch Tower Bible and prepared to be amazed
4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions
1. Not even going to bother with this; This has been the basis of every meeting I ever attended and a number of JW Broadcasts on jw.org
5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil
1. Disfellowshipping, pure and simple; One may disassociate themselves, but since Governing Body Member Raymond Franz disassociated himself (and was then retroactively disfellowshipped) in the early 80’s, communication with disassociated persons is as strictly forbidden as disfellowshipped persons; Clearly, there is no legitimate way in which a person can officially stop being a Witness and not be shunned; Since the 2016 convention season, even inactive persons are now shunned
6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances
1. You’d have to be willing to listen to apostates or unjustly disfellowshipped persons to know this; I will vouch for this phenomenon
7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader
1. Again, you’d have to be willing to view apostate material to know the exceptionally well documented abuses carried out by the Society, which they will never openly admit to you, the congregants
8. Followers feel they can never be "good enough"
1. The constant admonition to be better is as ubiquitous as song and prayer at a meeting
9. The group/leader is always right
1. Here is where things get really absurd; The Governing Body has modified doctrine incessantly since J.F. Rutherford assumed leadership in 1917; Anyone who disagrees is kicked out (see my comment about Raymond Franz), even if arguments are valid
2. The January 8, 1947 Awake magazine unequivocally calls excommunication (disfellowshipping) a pagan practice which is unbiblical, yet in 1952 the practice is ratified and in modern times is carried out approximately seventy-thousand times each year by Jehovah’s Witnesses
3. The 1914 doctrine has been modified several times
1. It originally started out as the “end” of the period of trouble, which was calculated to be 1874; proved false
1. Calculated by taking measurements of the Great Pyramid of Giza (not kidding)
2. Revised to 1914 in the 1910 edition of Thy Kingdom Come with corrected Pyramid measurements
3. Changed to the beginning of end times, Jesus’ return, when Rutherford published it in Golden Age 1930 p.503; Through 1929, it was held that Jesus returned in 1874
4. 1914 is still clung to, but now incorporates the ‘overlapping generations’ since God’s inspiration to the Anointed was apparently misinterpreted repeatedly
4. 607 BCE is historically inaccurate as the date of Jerusalem’s fall to Babylon; Archaeological records of secular and astronomical events discovered in Babylon easily identify the date of Jerusalem’s overthrow being in 587 BCE
1. Witnesses openly criticize the accuracy of historians Barosus and Ptolemy when they disagree with Witness chronology, but freely cite them when they support Witness chronology
2. Witnesses openly reject both archeological and scientific evidence that conflicts with 607 because it’s the only way to make 1914 work with the prophecy of Daniel, a conclusion that started life as the ravings of a numerologist / pyramidologist as described in 9.c.i.1,2 above
5. Watchtower Society Vice President Hayden Covington testified during the Douglas Walsh trial in Scotland (1954) that dissent was grounds for disfellowshipping, even if the doctrine was proved false; See below:
1. Q: [Court] It was promulgated as a matter which must [have been] believed by all members of Jehovah’s Witnesses that the Lord’s Second Coming took place in 1874…?
   A: [Covington] It was a false statement or an erroneous statement in fulfillment of a prophecy that was false or erroneous.
   Q: And that had to be believed by the whole of Jehovah’s Witnesses?
   A: Yes, because you must understand we must have unity …
   Q: Back to the point now. A false prophecy was promulgated?
   A: I agree to that.
   Q: It had to be accepted by Jehovah’s Witnesses?
   A: That is correct.
   Q: If a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses took the view himself that that prophecy was wrong and said so, he would be disfellowshipped?
   A: Yes … Our purpose is to have unity.
   Q: Unity at all costs?
   A: Unity at all costs…
   Q: A unity based upon an enforced acceptance of false prophecy?
   A: That is conceded to be true.
6. But good luck questioning any of that...
10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible
1. This is pretty simple; If it didn’t come from the governing body, you’re instructed to treat it as a lie
2. Even vetted and documented court cases are called lies

Having come full circle on this issue, place everything above in a cohesive context. There is but a single theme. Your are collectively devoted to an idea that you are not willing to question, but also not willing to respect. That singular paradigm is what you believe can make a person happy, and that is incorrect. 

Pontius Pilate washed his hands of Jesus' blood, as I also wash my hands of this. What you pursue for the rest of your days will be your account settle, and yours alone. I am no longer answerable to your assertions that you are Godly and I am not. You have a form of Godliness, but continually prove false to its power (2 Timothy 3:5).

While you will find yourselves at the doctrinal crossroads of shunning me and claiming it to be love, I will love you without the need to cut ties. In this letter, I have spoken unadulterated truth and my conscience is clear. I can only hope that yours is as well.

Sincerely,